10 Miles, 10 Days of Local Eating in Richmond
OCTOBER 13, 2007-To promote local eating, 12 brave souls in Richmond, BC, have taken on a 10-day, 10-mile challenge in the lead up to World Food Day on October 16.
“There was a little fear when we started,” says participant Mary Galetas, who is also a founder of the Richmond Fruit Tree Project, which collects unused backyard fruits and distributes them in the community. “We wondered if we were doing it too late in the year.”
However, Mary kept a food diary on her fridge, and says she ate 42 different varieties of vegetables. While not surprisingly they could not find wheat in their tiny radius, they did find oats–and incredible support from the local paper, the Richmond Review, which ran at least three articles a week on the topic. The editor participated in the challenge as well. “I was at the airport [in Richmond] recently, and when I checked in they said, Hey, aren’t you the local food lady?”
Other things got more personal than she imagined as well. “We managed to find beef. We were told we were eating Earl,” she says.
While they allowed themselves five “wildcards” (most people selected coffee and salt), she said that it wasn’t hard to do without some things for only 10 days. “It was way more fun than I thought it would be. It’s all about the hunt for the different foods.” She says they got a lot of appreciation from local farmers for the extra business. “A lot of people want to eat locally, they just don’t know where to get stuff. We tried to spread that information around.”
She says they plan to do the challenge next year, with more people and a little earlier in the season. “And my sister in Sooke [BC] is doing a challenge next week, a 50-mile one,” she says. “It’s contagious!” -ADS
