Maple Ridge–Mission B.C. Liberal MLA Randy Hawes is preparing to put himself and his family through the 100 Mile Diet.

Hawes made the announcement in the legislature on April 15.

“Ever since James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith spent a year eating only local foods and published their book The 100-Mile Diet, the whole concept has taken off,” Hawes said, in comments recorded in Hansard. “The notion of eating only locally produced, fresh foods and calculating food miles has captured [the imagination of] families throughout North America.”

Hawes noted that the diet has come to Mission, and his family will be one of the dozen Mission families committing to 100 days on the 100-mile diet. Paperny Films of Vancouver will be filming the action. Also in the legislature, Hawes said he was already contemplating the challenges posed by “100 days with no coffee, no tea, no caffeine products, no sugar, no beer or distilled products, no soda pop, no chocolate, no fruits (unless grown within 100 miles), no prepared foods with additives manufactured outside of the hundred-mile limit and no McDonald’s, Burger King or A&W.”

In January 2008, the Straight reported that B.C. is currently in net food decline. The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands’ 2007 B.C.’s Food Self-Reliance report claims that farmers in 2025 will need 281,000 hectares of irrigated food-producing land to ensure British Columbians have access to healthy diets. The report adds that the amount of land must increase by 92,000 hectares over 2005 levels.

The report notes that 215,000 hectares of irrigated land would have been needed in B.C. to ensure healthy diets in 2005, whereas in fact there were only approximately 189,000 hectares of farmland with access to irrigation that year.