Tackling the 100 Mile Challenge

Based on the best-selling book (and blog) by James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, the Food Network's new series, The 100 Mile Challenge, will test the lifestyle habits of six BC families.

"The production of food has gone crazy in our world," noted Smith in the series opener that aired Sunday.  The "100 Mile" concept involves only consuming food that was grown, harvested, or produced within 100 miles of your home. This cuts back on environmental impacts from things like packaging and shipping, while also helps you explore local business. They call it the "100 Mile Diet" although it's more like a movement.

For the documentary-style TV show, MacKinnon and Smith head to Mission, BC (just under an hour away from Vancouver) to enlist community members in the challenge. Six families are then followed over the next 100 days.

There were many concerns about the participants and Smith noted that many of the families don't cook meals at home or their idea of doing so was "dumping stuff out of a pot into a box." A big part of the movement is not only finding the ingredients, but also preparing them. "My bet is a lot of people go a lot of days without ever eating any food that was grown right in the place that they live which just happens to the surrounded by farms,” said MacKinnon.

Things like coffee, beer, olive oil, rice, exotic fruits, salt, sugar, and many basics including black pepper are banned but the experts make sure to offer a lot of guidance to the families. "Farmers markets are at the heart of eating locally," noted MacKinnon in first episode. "They're not only a gathering place for food, they're a gathering place for people to talk about food and talk about the way they're eating."

Aside from markets, Smith says that gardening is an important part of eating locally, “even if it's just a balcony garden.”

With Earth Day weeks away and being eco-friendly is top of mind, including celebrities, peek through E!'s photo gallery of Hollywood going green!