One Week, One Farm: What Eating Only Local Taught Me

I've written about food for six years and never actually done the 100-mile diet. Last July, for seven days, I tried.

Day One: The Inventory Problem

Salt. Coffee. Olive oil. Black pepper. These are the four things that immediately reveal the limits of local eating. I made a decision to allow four exceptions. Everything else had to have a provenance within 50 miles.

What I Found

More than I expected. A farm 23 miles away grows twelve varieties of heirloom tomatoes. A mill 31 miles away produces whole-wheat flour from heritage grain. A dairy 18 miles away makes a raw-milk hard cheese aged 12 months that knocked me sideways with its complexity.

What Was Impossible

Pasta. Rice. Citrus. Chocolate. Bananas. The absence of acid was the most challenging constraint — food without any acidity flattens and blurs.

What Changed

I thought about where food comes from differently after that week. Not with guilt — that's not useful. But with a kind of curiosity about the supply chains that make a $1.50 lemon in January possible.