Planet Green’s 100 Mile Challenge is a great second act  in the local food journey of Alisa Smith and James Mackinnon, authors of Plenty and the 100 Mile Diet. Using what they’ve learned from their 2005 commitment to eat food grown or produced within 100 miles of their home, Alisa and James eagerly pass their knowledge on to a group of families in Mission, British Columbia who have also agreed to eat local for 100 days. The results are engaging, entertaining, and surprisingly dramatic – laughter, tears, success and good eating. It’s surprising how suspenseful foraging can be when people are hungry. If you love food – and who doesn’t – you’ll enjoy watching this challenge, and you’ll wonder about eating local in your own town.

I’d read Plenty and got to know Alisa and James in their early days of the 100 Mile Diet. That first dinner in the woods, the decision to eat local for a year, the challenges to eat a varied diet. They were novices and not afraid to admit their failures and frustrations – normal people, not experts. A great read, and a good backstory to the current show.

On the 100 Mile Challenge, we see a different Alisa and James. Confident, positive, ready to help – they’ve climbed the mountain and are ready to extend a hand up and over the top. They are perfect teachers – guiding rather than preaching, encouraging people to try, letting them find their way. Alisa and James are writers, not actors, and their ‘waiting in the wings’ approach on the show might stem from their natural reticence but works very well. The best is when they volunteer to help prepare and serve meals, working and eating in the kitchen and commenting behind the scenes.   They listen, obey, help when needed and beam proudly as food is served and enjoyed.

The families who take on the 100 Mile Challenge are a diverse group. Each adds their own special flavor to the episodes. There are purveyors, families, couples, a 100 Mile Diet star in the making, and a bad boy. It’s great to watch Steve Peters include more and more local foods in his market, the Clark Vernons forage for salad in their backyard, and the Weremchuk Williams’ watching intently as the family’s pickiest eater tries something new. Angela St. Cyr is a standout and rises to the Challenge over and over – a day spent at a local restaurant learning recipes and then displaying her progress with a fabulous dinner for the entire group; baking a 100 Mile Birthday Cake for her 4-year-old daughter. Randy Hawes – the bad boy – is priceless as he makes jam to repair friendships after breaking the rules of the Challenge but can’t resist devilishly adding hot peppers to give the jam a ‘Randy’s Revenge’ kick.

I’ve enjoyed watching this first season of the 100 Mile Challenge, and hope there are more in the making.  Will Alisa and James venture outside of British Columbia? Knowing the bounty of British Columbia it would be great to see the challenge in a less bountiful region or in a large city – Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. The possibilities are endless, and Alisa and James are welcome in my town and my kitchen any day.