Sustainable Ballard’s 100 Mile Diet

Well, after returning from my vacation, I got a cold and haven’t left the house much, so I am headed up to Phinney Market this afternoon, because I’m getting bored with what I can grow myself and have eaten most of what is ready in the garden right now anyway.
Here is what I’ve been eating for the past 4 days:
From the garden: green beans, green onions, kale, figs, blueberries
From the house: chicken (it says local organic on the package, but I don’t know if it’s 100 mile), crackers (made from bluebird’s hard white bread flour, so a little outside the 100 mile range), carrots, potatoes that we harvested last month.
I also have about fifty 15 mile black peppercorns that a friend grew for me in her greenhouse, but I haven’t used them yet, and I’m pretty sure greenhouse production kind of defeats the purpose anyway.

I am so grateful for the garden now as a primary source of food for me, but I’m looking forward to adding some seafood and dairy to the mix.

I’m also looking forward to the next wave of production from my garden. I can see alot of produce is nearly ready: cabbage, lettuces, chard, plums, apples, kiwi, tomatoes! It’s hard to wait.

Unfortunately, the CSA we joined last year decided to retire and I haven’t signed up for a new one. This seems like the easiest way to do this diet because that would have been food with no investigation required, you could just eat it. Can you imagine if everything that it is possible to grow in this region were also as easy to find as going to the grocery store? I can. But making that happen will take collective action. Enough people asking farmers for items like wheat and dry beans grown locally and enough people asking local groceries for items to have labeling showing their origin could make a big difference.

Posted on August 10th, 2007 by jenny
Filed under: Uncategorized