The concept of the Hundred Mile Diet is to eat locally—to be a locavore. Wikipedia describes ‘locavore’ as a word first introduced on the occasion of World Environment Day 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100 mile radius. The word was created by a group of people from the San Francisco area who also took it as their group's namesake.

The MacKays are following in the footsteps of two early pioneers of this concept—Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon from Vancouver, British Columbia. They documented their 100-Mile Diet journey in 2005 in a book entitled The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (Toronto: Random House Canada, April 2007).

The MacKays hope to show that a 100-Mile Diet is possible in a more northern climate, and that one can live quite well on the bounty close to home. The MacKays live in a four bedroom house just south of the University of Alberta not too far from the center of Edmonton. Ivor works in IT and Lona works for the provincial government. The family is in flux as their three children are at various stages of leaving home, finishing school and going into senior high.

Find out more on the Hundred Mile Diet.