Canadian Studies Day, March 6, 2008

James MacKinnon Challenges TRU to The 100-Mile Diet
“Eating locally isn’t just a fad like the various diets advertised on late-night TV—it may be one of the most important ways we save ourselves and the planet” (David Suzuki).

Thompson Rivers University’s Centre for the Study of Canada invites the public to join the celebration of Canadian Studies Day from 12:30-2:30 on Thursday, March 6, 2008 in room 2621 of the Old Main building; public reception to follow. The featured guest speaker James (J.B.) MacKinnon, co-author of The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, will raise our awareness of “food miles” and challenge the way we think about food.

When James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1500 miles from farm to plate, they decided to launch a simple experiment to reconnect with the people and places that produced what they ate. For one year, they would only consume food that came from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. The 100-Mile Diet was born.

The couple’s discoveries sometimes shook their resolve. It would be a year without sugar, Cheerios, olive oil, rice, Pizza Pops, beer, and much, much more. Yet local eating has turned out to be a life lesson in pleasures that are always close at hand. They discovered a host of new flavours from gooseberry wine to sunchokes to purslane, foods that they never would have guessed were on their doorstep.

They also got personal with issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity. David Suzuki notes the environmental significance of their work. “We take for granted that the world’s food is available to us year-round. And it’s killing us. Food transportation generates air pollution and greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Imported food also increases our exposure to chemical pesticides.”

The TRU Canadian Studies program and co-sponsors, the TRU Human Rights Committee, the Department of Philosophy, History and Politics, and the Council of Canadians, invite members of the campus and general public to this lecture and dialogue about food security and environmental sustainability.

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J.B. MacKinnon, winner of three National Magazine Awards and the 2006 Charles Taylor Prize for his book Dead Man in Paradise and Alisa Smith, a freelance writer published in Outside, Explore, Canadian Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Utne, among other periodicals, and have since become “celebrities of the blogosphere” while Maclean’s magazine named them to its 2006 Honour Roll and they were also named to the Outside 100.

For further information, please contact TRU Canadian Studies coordinator and director of the Centre for the Study of Canada, Anne Gagnon at 828-5057 or agagnon@tru.ca