The 100 Mile Challenge
Encyclopedia
The 100 Mile Challenge is a Canadian
reality television
series produced by Paperny Films
and aired on Food Network Canada. The series follows the lives and eating habits of six families living in Mission
, British Columbia
who, for a period of 100 days, agreed to only consume food and drink that has been grown, raised and produced within a 100-mile (160 kilometer) radius from Mission. The series is based on the concept of local food
consumption as described in the book The 100-Mile Diet authored by J.B. MacKinnon
and Alisa Smith where the two authors describe their experience of eating locally for one full year. To coincide with the premiere of the series, FoodTV.ca launched a companion website that Canwest described as "the largest, most innovative and interactive companion website to a series to date".
After the series' initial run was concluded, it was announced that the global distribution rights to both the format and the program were acquired by the British
company Passion Distribution after which Discovery Communications
' Planet Green acquired the rights to broadcast the series in the United States
.
The success of the series has also inspired other communities in Canada to organize similar challenges.
(James) and Alisa Smith hold an information and recruitment session at a community hall in Mission
, British Columbia
. Their goal is to educate people on the distance that their food travels from the point of origin to their table as well as to find volunteers willing to take on a challenge where they will only consume food and drink that's been grown and produced within a 100-mile (160 kilometer) radius of their homes. Many people sign up and James and Alisa focus on six families whose progress the series will follow: Clark-Vernon, Hawes
, McIntosh, Peters, St. Cyr and Weremchuk-Williams.
All of the families are allowed to have one final meal of their favorite foods regardless of that food's origin. The next day, James and Alisa remove from each family's home all food, drinks, spices and condiments that are non-local — meaning anything grown or produced outside of the prescribed 100-mile radius. The six families, who were previously unaware that the vast majority of the food in their home was grown and produced well over 100 miles away, are now left with mostly empty cupboards and pantries. Items removed from homes included such staples as bread, milk, eggs, potatoes, rice, pasta, oil, coffee, sugar and salt. The families are left facing their first challenge when trying to prepare breakfast the next morning.
One of the participants in the challenge is Steve Peters who owns a local grocery store. Steve dedicates a section of his store to food that strictly conforms to the guidelines of the challenge in order to help out the other families.
.
The rest of the families are taught how to live without the things to which they are most accustomed and how to implement substitutes for those staples of their diet. The Clark-Vernon family visits a local honey
farm to see how honey's produced and to obtain honey as a substitute for sugar. The Hawes family visits a local organic wine maker
where they work in the vineyard
in exchange for some wine
. The St. Cyr family goes to a local beach where they boil sea water in order to produce some sea salt
. Alex Weremchuck learns to use chicory
as a coffee substitute
. James and Alisa help the families locate some flour
so that the families can learn to make their own bread even though there is no local yeast
available to be used as a leavening agent
.
Families continue to visit local food producing facilities to familiarize themselves with the origins of their foods. Mike St. Cyr visits a local farmer who produces free-range eggs and, in addition to learning about the process, helps deliver the eggs to a grocery store by bicycle. One family is taught about foraging
and they set out to find food grown in the wild around their home. The St. Cyr family hold a birthday for their daughter and the Peters family celebrate their wedding anniversary; both families create a feast for their friends and relatives using only local ingredients.
even though the men are the cooks in the family. Mike St. Cyr cooks a dinner for his wife Angela's birthday. Steve Peters and James challenge each other to a pizza cook-off. The Weremchuck-Williams family visits local restaurant for some cooking tips as well as going fishing at a local fish farm
for the first time in their lives. The Clark-Vernon family, who actually live on a farm, slaughter and make sausage from a sheep which they raised and named "Duncan".
restaurant to learn some new skills and techniques from its executive chef. The Peters family gets outside tips on how to cook without a recipe. Cassie Clark-Vernon, an Aboriginal Canadian
, is introduced to traditional First Nations
cooking techniques at an aboriginal celebration. Randy Hawes hosts a barbecue for all of the families where all of the food is local and the event itself benefits a local charity.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series produced by Paperny Films
Paperny Films
Paperny Entertainment is a Vancouver-based, Academy Award nominated producer of television programming and films, ranging from character-driven documentaries to provocative comedy to quirky reality shows...
and aired on Food Network Canada. The series follows the lives and eating habits of six families living in Mission
Mission, British Columbia
Mission, the core of which was formerly known as Mission City, is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Fraser River overlooking the City of Abbotsford and with that city is part of the Central Fraser Valley. Mission is the...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
who, for a period of 100 days, agreed to only consume food and drink that has been grown, raised and produced within a 100-mile (160 kilometer) radius from Mission. The series is based on the concept of local food
Local food
Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...
consumption as described in the book The 100-Mile Diet authored by J.B. MacKinnon
J.B. MacKinnon
James Bernard MacKinnon, commonly cited as J.B. MacKinnon, is a Canadian independent journalist, contributing editor and book author. Mackinnon is best known for co-authoring with Alisa Smith the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, encouraging readers to focus on local...
and Alisa Smith where the two authors describe their experience of eating locally for one full year. To coincide with the premiere of the series, FoodTV.ca launched a companion website that Canwest described as "the largest, most innovative and interactive companion website to a series to date".
After the series' initial run was concluded, it was announced that the global distribution rights to both the format and the program were acquired by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
company Passion Distribution after which Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications, Inc. is an American global media and entertainment company. The company started as a single channel in 1985, The Discovery Channel. Today, DCI has global operations offering 28 network entertainment brands on more than 100 channels in more than 180 countries in 39...
' Planet Green acquired the rights to broadcast the series in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The success of the series has also inspired other communities in Canada to organize similar challenges.
Episode 1 — Day 1: The Purge
J.B. MacKinnonJ.B. MacKinnon
James Bernard MacKinnon, commonly cited as J.B. MacKinnon, is a Canadian independent journalist, contributing editor and book author. Mackinnon is best known for co-authoring with Alisa Smith the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, encouraging readers to focus on local...
(James) and Alisa Smith hold an information and recruitment session at a community hall in Mission
Mission, British Columbia
Mission, the core of which was formerly known as Mission City, is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Fraser River overlooking the City of Abbotsford and with that city is part of the Central Fraser Valley. Mission is the...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. Their goal is to educate people on the distance that their food travels from the point of origin to their table as well as to find volunteers willing to take on a challenge where they will only consume food and drink that's been grown and produced within a 100-mile (160 kilometer) radius of their homes. Many people sign up and James and Alisa focus on six families whose progress the series will follow: Clark-Vernon, Hawes
Randy Hawes
Randy Hawes is a Canadian politician from British Columbia. Hawes is currently serving as a Member of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia representing the provincial riding of Abbotsford-Mission. On March 14, 2011 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Natural Resource perations Review...
, McIntosh, Peters, St. Cyr and Weremchuk-Williams.
All of the families are allowed to have one final meal of their favorite foods regardless of that food's origin. The next day, James and Alisa remove from each family's home all food, drinks, spices and condiments that are non-local — meaning anything grown or produced outside of the prescribed 100-mile radius. The six families, who were previously unaware that the vast majority of the food in their home was grown and produced well over 100 miles away, are now left with mostly empty cupboards and pantries. Items removed from homes included such staples as bread, milk, eggs, potatoes, rice, pasta, oil, coffee, sugar and salt. The families are left facing their first challenge when trying to prepare breakfast the next morning.
One of the participants in the challenge is Steve Peters who owns a local grocery store. Steve dedicates a section of his store to food that strictly conforms to the guidelines of the challenge in order to help out the other families.
Episode 2 — Days 4 to 22: Back to Basics
On the very first day of the diet, the McIntosh family drops out of the challenge. Kyle McIntosh, husband and father, works long hours to support his family and is unable to stay away from fast foodFast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
.
The rest of the families are taught how to live without the things to which they are most accustomed and how to implement substitutes for those staples of their diet. The Clark-Vernon family visits a local honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
farm to see how honey's produced and to obtain honey as a substitute for sugar. The Hawes family visits a local organic wine maker
Winery
A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, bottling lines, laboratories, and large expanses of...
where they work in the vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...
in exchange for some wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
. The St. Cyr family goes to a local beach where they boil sea water in order to produce some sea salt
Sea salt
Sea salt, salt obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics. It is historically called bay salt or solar salt...
. Alex Weremchuck learns to use chicory
Chicory
Common chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons , or for roots , which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It is also...
as a coffee substitute
Coffee substitute
Coffee substitutes are non-coffee products, usually without caffeine, that are used to imitate coffee. Coffee substitutes can be used for medical, economic and religious reasons, or simply because coffee is not readily available. Roasted grain beverages are common substitutes for coffee.In World...
. James and Alisa help the families locate some flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...
so that the families can learn to make their own bread even though there is no local yeast
Baker's yeast
Baker's yeast is the common name for the strains of yeast commonly used as a leavening agent in baking bread and bakery products, where it converts the fermentable sugars present in the dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol...
available to be used as a leavening agent
Leavening agent
A leavening agent is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action which lightens and softens the finished product...
.
Episode 3 — Days 25 to 40: New Rules
The 100-Mile Diet book contained an explanation of what James and Alisa termed "social life clause". During their one entire year of eating locally, the two allowed themselves to eat non-local food when they would find themselves on a business trip, at a friend's house or in a restaurant for a business lunch or dinner. Some of the families have allowed themselves the same exemption so James and Alisa hold a meeting to clarify that the "social life clause" is not applicable to any of the families during the 100-day challenge.Families continue to visit local food producing facilities to familiarize themselves with the origins of their foods. Mike St. Cyr visits a local farmer who produces free-range eggs and, in addition to learning about the process, helps deliver the eggs to a grocery store by bicycle. One family is taught about foraging
Foraging
- Definitions and significance of foraging behavior :Foraging is the act of searching for and exploiting food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce...
and they set out to find food grown in the wild around their home. The St. Cyr family hold a birthday for their daughter and the Peters family celebrate their wedding anniversary; both families create a feast for their friends and relatives using only local ingredients.
Episode 4 — Days 50 to 69: Half Way There
With some newly gained experience in cooking locally, some of the families decide to showcase what they have learned, especially the family members who don't usually do the cooking. Alma Hawes and Alisa decide to cook a meal for James and RandyRandy Hawes
Randy Hawes is a Canadian politician from British Columbia. Hawes is currently serving as a Member of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia representing the provincial riding of Abbotsford-Mission. On March 14, 2011 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Natural Resource perations Review...
even though the men are the cooks in the family. Mike St. Cyr cooks a dinner for his wife Angela's birthday. Steve Peters and James challenge each other to a pizza cook-off. The Weremchuck-Williams family visits local restaurant for some cooking tips as well as going fishing at a local fish farm
Fish farming
Fish farming is the principal form of aquaculture, while other methods may fall under mariculture. Fish farming involves raising fish commercially in tanks or enclosures, usually for food. A facility that releases young fish into the wild for recreational fishing or to supplement a species'...
for the first time in their lives. The Clark-Vernon family, who actually live on a farm, slaughter and make sausage from a sheep which they raised and named "Duncan".
Episode 5 — Days 75 to 95: Pushing Limits
Families are taught to expand their cooking horizons by being forced out of their comfort zone. Angela St. Cyr is invited as guest to a celebrated VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
restaurant to learn some new skills and techniques from its executive chef. The Peters family gets outside tips on how to cook without a recipe. Cassie Clark-Vernon, an Aboriginal Canadian
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....
, is introduced to traditional First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
cooking techniques at an aboriginal celebration. Randy Hawes hosts a barbecue for all of the families where all of the food is local and the event itself benefits a local charity.