We can't stop shopping but we must stop shopping - the consumer dilemma that defines our lives and our future. What would happen if we did? We are using up the planet at almost double the rate it can regenerate. To support our economies, we're told we must shop now like we've never shopped before, yet the scale of our consumption remains the biggest factor in the ruination of the world. But what would life look like if we stopped? Visiting places where economies have experienced temporary shut-downs, artisan producers, zero-consumption societies and bringing together a host of expert views, this is both a history of our relationship with consumption and a story about the future. 'Lays out a wealth of knowledge and wisdom' Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress

The remarkable, amusing and inspiring adventures of a Canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1,500 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 met the revolutionary farmers and modern-day hunter-gatherers who are changing the way we think about food. They got personal with issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity. They called on the wisdom of grandmothers, and immersed themselves in the seasons. They discovered a host of new flavours, from gooseberry wine to sunchokes to turnip sandwiches, foods that they never would have guessed were on their doorstep. The 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted, attracting media and grassroots interest that spanned the globe. The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating tells the full story, from the insights to the kitchen disasters, as the authors transform from megamart shoppers to self-sufficient urban pioneers. The 100-Mile Diet is a pathway home for anybody, anywhere. Call me naive, but I never knew that flour would bestruck from our 100-Mile Diet. Wheat products are just so ubiquitous, the staff of life, that I had hazily imagined the stuff must be grown everywhere. But of course: I had never seen a field of wheat anywhere close to Vancouver, and my mental images of late-afternoon light falling on golden fields of grain were all from my childhood on the Canadian prairies. What I was able to find was Anita's Organic Grain & Flour Mill, about 60 miles up the Fraser River valley. I called, and learned that Anita's nearest grain suppliers were at least 800 miles away by road. She sounded sorry for me. Would it be a year until I tasted a pie? --From The 100-Mile Diet From the Hardcover edition.