The Zero-Mile Diet – From Garden to Table
Celebrated organic gardener, writer and food activist Carolyn Herriot is making a return visit this month to the Sooke Garden Club. For more than 25 years, Carolyn has been growing her own food, educating communities and individuals about the need for greater food self-sufficiency, and saving/producing seeds – all in the interest of building communities that are healthier and more sustainable.
Over the past decade or so, eating local foods has become much more ‘the thing to do.’ The reasons are varied: to take a load off the environment by reducing transportation costs and the use of fossil fuels; to support local farmers and the local economy; to have more say/control over food safety and production; to ensure crop diversity; to enjoy fresher and tastier fruits and vegetables every day. The Vancouver-based 100-mile diet experiment did a lot to popularize the benefits of eating locally, but Carolyn brings everything into perspective much closer to home. And she does this in her own inimitable style – with down-to-earth practical information, genuine enthusiasm, and humour.
In her presentation ‘The Zero-Mile Diet – From Garden to Table,’ Carolyn will take the audience into her food garden and into her kitchen as she shares a nutritious, seasonally appropriate way of eating. A zero-mile diet, she contends, will nourish the body and feed the community. Eating homegrown food also keeps people connected to a natural way of living.
All forms of gardening – whether backyard, lasagna style, keyhole style or container-based – are healthy, easy, sustainable, responsible and fun. And the results are both delicious and nutritious! This presentation is about REAL food and how eating it changes one’s life for the better.
Carolyn Herriot is a passionate organic gardener, photographer, lecturer, and a cook who loves to eat. She is also the author of the bestselling A Year on the Garden Path: A 52-Week Organic Gardening Guide. After 20 years of operating a nursery, Carolyn continues to grow ‘Seeds of Victoria’ at The Garden Path Centre in Victoria. Her second book, The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food, hit the B.C. bestseller list in two weeks and has been followed by a companion book called The Zero-Mile Cookbook.
Please join us Wednesday, October 23, 7:30 p.m., at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Townsend Road. Also on the agenda: the Club’s Fall Plant Sale and member judging of entries in the Photo Contest. New members are always welcome. For more information, email: sookegardenclub@yahoo.ca or phone Rose at 250-642-5509.