how to really eat local (or, the anti-SUV diet)

One of the most earth-friendly things we can do is to buy local foods, yet we're supermarket shoppers, pushing around endangered sea bass flown in from Chile next to bananas shipped in from India, so most of us don't really know how. And until recently, no one seemed to care.

The surprising popularity of Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon's book, The 100 Mile Diet has turned eating local into a movement. Their inspiration? "When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles - call it 'the SUV diet.'"

So, for one year, they bought or gathered their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, getting up-close-and-personal with issues ranging from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic pears shipped across the globe.

So what's a supermarket shopper to do? Start with these sites:

CBC's Marketplace did a show on food ingredients...and where they really come from. For example, if it claims to be ice cream but doesn't contain any cream, it's probably not from around here. Read their tips here.

NOW Toronto's cover story on local eating. 'Your Local Farmers Market' in Vancouver has some fresh tips here. For Ontarions, a great list of home delivery and natural food buying clubs.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, buy Adria Vasil's ecoholic! Lots of ideas here for you to chew on.