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You know already that the Mediterranean Diet is tops -- it's shown to be the healthiest way to not only lose weight but maintain your health for life. However, if you believe in the founding principal of The 100-Mile Diet -- that it's best for both you and the world around us if you try to eat food that's produced locally, or at least somewhat nearby -- it makes eating Mediterranean pretty hard, especially for folks like me. I'm from Canada, and while we do grow a lot of great things there, olives are definitely not one of them.

Fear not, says a group of foodies from my home country -- eating stuff that's grown in our cold climate is just as good for us as sourcing out food from over the Atlantic, and it leaves a smaller ecological footprint to boot.

My friends in the southern states are already picking strawberries, and I'm jealous. But in a few more weeks, we northerners will have our own share of spring's sweetest crop.

Strawberries are luscious and juicy enough to be dessert, but unlike shortcake, they love you back. They're rich in vitamin C, manganese and folate, and they pack a powerful punch of antioxidants too. Low in calories but naturally sweet, they're an obvious choice for curbing that sugar craving.

Strawberries are highly perishable, so for best quality, search for them locally. Hit your neighborhood farmer's market or tap your inner-farmer and visit a pick-your-own farm. Because strawberries are on the "dirty dozen" list of most pesticide contaminated produce, it's also smart to choose organic when possible.

Once you've gotten your strawberries home, enjoy them right away, because they go bad quickly:

• Chop fruit (including strawberries) on Sunday night, and enjoy a fruit salad all week long.
• Toss them with lettuce for a sweet salad.
• Add them to smoothies and shakes.
• Throw a handful on your cereal or mix them into your yogurt.

At just 36 calories in 10 strawberries, finding new ways to enjoy spring's sweetest fruit is both fun and healthy!

I've complained about school lunches here before, so I'm pleased to report that while visiting my daughter's school recently, I learned that things are improving. In addition to the spaghetti that was being served, kids could pile on a side salad with extra veggies, in addition to the fruit that was also served. And at the silverware table were large bowls of raw carrots and sliced apples for anyone who wanted them. Baby steps are still steps in the right direction, I think.

Still, my dream is that every school child could eat like the kids do at the Kansas School Academy, which participates in Bistro Kids Farm 2 School program. Students at the school eat whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, and dairy, all of it organic, hormone and antibiotic-free.

Though I think organic lunches are a noble goal, I'd be happy if kids just had access to healthier food every day. Sadly, until there's an overhaul of the entire system, that doesn't seem likely. Kiersten Furquain, operator of Bistro Kids, won't even work with public schools due to the massive amount of red tape.

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One of my favorite things about visiting the farmers' market is seeing the changes in the products they offer as the growing season progresses. Where I live, local peaches are starting to show up. I'm so glad, because in addition to enjoying plenty of fresh peaches, I'm going to slice and freeze quite a few. They're just delicious when they're still partially frozen. I also love grilling peaches and then sprinkling them with some cinnamon and serving with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. (I know, I know... the ice cream is bad. But it's oh so good!)

Self Magazine posted some new healthy recipes for products you might find in the farmers' market now. Their recipe for roasted plums and greek yogurt sounds delicious. Perhaps it will be a healthier substitution for my grilled peaches and ice cream.

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You've undoubtedly heard plenty about the benefits of eating locally. It's good for the environment, you support your local community, the food is fresher, and you have more say in how your food is grown because you can talk to the people who grew it.

Fitness Magazine's Eat Green, Be Healthy section offered three ways to buy locally and eat fresh:

• Take advantage of farmers' markets. If you're not sure whether there's a farmers' market near you, check your local paper, or head over to this website where you can find out which fruits and veggies are in season near you and find a farmers' market in your area.
  
• Become a member of a Co-op. You might have to put in a large sum to begin with, but your resources will be pooled with other co-op members and you'll get farm fresh produce at a reduced rate. Find one near you by selecting "Grocery/Co-op" and filling in your zip here.
  
• Connect directly with local farmers. This website allows you to see listings of farmers' markets, u-pick farms, and roadside produce stands by state.

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As a mom, I work pretty hard (like all of you) to make sure that my kids not only eat a healthy diet, but that they learn how to make good choices about what they put in their mouth. Though my three-year-old still needs a little convincing, my five-year-old is really starting to get the picture. She tries new foods at meal times, knows the difference between "sometimes" foods and "all the time" foods, and looks forward to "treats" like fresh cucumbers from the garden or green peppers dipped in hummus.

After a busy day running errands last week, however, she really showed me that all the focus on nutrition was paying off. It was a grueling day of doctor appointments and car repair, and it was long past when they should have had an afternoon snack. I resorted to the bad behavior of bribing to get my cranky kids through, promising a trip to the ice cream store on the way home.

After our last errand, we passed the farmer's market and decided to stop. We picked up fresh, local cherries, raspberries, and melon to chop up into a fruit salad for dinner. After we all got loaded in the car, my daughter told me, "Mom, you don't need to get us ice cream now. We just want to eat those raspberries. Is that ok?"

Is that ok? I assured her that, yes, that was a great idea. We drove home, ate all of the raspberries before they could be put into the salad, and marveled at how, sometimes, our kids have so much to teach us.

Living healthy isn't just for us humans, it's good for the planet too! Reap the benefits of a healthier you and a happier Earth by supporting a local farm.

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Even if I wanted to buy 100% organic, I wouldn't be able to...at least not from my local grocery store. Though they have an increasing variety of offerings, it's a toss-up every week what will be available. So, I try to buy organic when I can and try to scrub really hard when I can't. And I wait patiently for our CSA to start up in June.

Reducing exposure to pesticides is a concern people often have. If you're like me -- part of a family living on a budget -- then it can be tricky trying to figure out what to splurge on. Canadian Living has a few suggestions to help you manage your food dollar while reducing your risk at the same time. For instance, you can:

• Buy the fruits and vegetables you eat most often from the organic section.
• Eat a variety of produce.
• Grow your own or join a CSA.
• Peel before you eat -- though you'll lose a lot of nutrition that way and it isn't always effective.

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The gym I workout at is small and locally-run. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, aside from a few drawbacks--crappy magazine selection, 70s-style purple and orange carpet, to name a few--and while the equipment isn't exactly state of the art, I'm happier with it than I was with the large brand-name gym I used to go to.

Why? Well, it's cheaper, it's more convenient, there's always parking and no one bugs me about signing up for personal training or other add-on services.

A recent-ish study from Consumer Reports found that I'm not alone--generally, people tend to favour local gyms instead of national chain ones. What do you think?



(via Crabby McSlacker)

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Have you been making an effort to eat locally? Why? There are lots of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is the thought that the shorter the distance food travels to get to you the smaller the carbon footprint it leaves in the way of consuming fossil fuels. But measuring the environmental impact by "food miles" alone can be surprisingly misleading. Once other factors like production, water use, and harvesting techniques are put in the equation suddenly local isn't always better.

Case in point: lamb raised in the lush fields of New Zealand and shipped across the ocean by boat to England use four times less energy and environmental resources than lamb raised in British pastures, because there the fields are exhausted and the farmers use feed. And meat isn't the only product where it may be more energy-efficient to buy it from across the globe than from across town, similar situations were found for dairy and fruit.

Wow, what a mess. How are we supposed to know?

Via Slashfood

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If you can't grow your own food, you can be sure that someone near you is. When you sit down to dinner tonight, take a minute to consider how far your food traveled to get to your plate. Is your steak from Australia? Are your carrots from California? Experts say eating locally might make us healthier and safer... and it would be better for the environment, too. So support your local farmers by eating what's in season now.

Here's how:

• Subscribe to a CSA (for Community Supported Agriculture), and a local farm will prepare a box of fresh fruits and vegetables for you. Just swing by a pick-up location after work, or arrange for direct home delivery. See localharvest.org for a CSA near you. Also, be sure to check out their national list of restaurants, stores, and farmers markets carrying locally grown food.
  
• Take a sneak-peek at what it's like eating locally by visiting 100milediet.org.
• Get Inspired with tips, facts, and recipes for more than 100 varieties of fruits, veggies, herbs, and nuts in The Produce Bible (Stewart, Tabori & Chang: $29.95). It's the most comprehensive guide around.
  

When you buy locally, you also give those with local open space-farms and pastures-an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped, and open space can benefit us all.

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[In our regular feature, Home Cooking, That's Fit blogger Larissa Brown encourages us to explore with her the challenge of eating and cooking with local foods. No matter where you live or what local products are available to you, we all can benefit from the creative and healthful mindfulness of choosing to take advantage of our local resources.]

Goodbye shopping cart, hello adorable collapsible canvas basket.

As part of an "eat local" movement that is beginning to sweep the United States and the blogosphere, I'm going to focus on getting my groceries and meals as much as possible from sources within a 100-mile radius of my home. In the past year, hundreds if not thousands of bloggers have challenged themselves to do something similar.

Some eschew all corporate groceries -- a wild dare if you ask me. Just think about trying to find locally grown coffee, local baby formula, or local soft dark licorice! Others commit to preparing one entirely local meal per week for the course of the summer, which in my neck of the woods -- where there are more than a dozen farmers' markets and one operates through December -- seems too easy.

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