Jimmy Jeong

Picky Eater | Ivor MacKay on his Saturday morning shopping trip at the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market.

On a sunny Saturday morning in January, Ivor MacKay makes his way through the crowds at the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market with the ease and confidence of a longtime customer. The smell of fresh bread, grilling sausage, and an undercurrent of spice fill the air as shoppers mingle and MacKay zigzags around the various stands, pointing out his favourite merchants. He greets the vendors by name as he and his wife Lona go over their weekly food shopping.

MacKay knows his way around because he spent a year on a strict local diet, eating only food that was produced within 100 miles (160 kilometres) of his home in Allendale. As a former chef, the 36-year-old IT professional was intrigued by the challenge of the diet, and tried it for a year while blogging about his experiences. He’ll also share his story and expertise at the upcoming Food: Today, Tomorrow, Together conference.

The quality of the food was the first thing MacKay noticed: local fruits and vegetables had the same zing he remembered from his childhood in Nova Scotia, where his family had a large garden. The food was also healthier, he says, and his wife ended up losing 20 pounds over the course of the year.

He has environmental and social concerns about the North American food system, but ultimately it was the relationships he built with the people that grow his food that was the big payoff for the increased work and dollars required for the diet.

“The relationship with people is totally different,” he says. “That’s why we continued buying locally.... You see, it’s important to [the grower’s] livelihood, and you know that they are giving you good food.” 

MacKay now buys 70 to 80 per cent of his food locally, even though he has completed the year-long diet he originally planned.

He cites problems with the large-scale food production system as part of the reason he continues to eat locally. The recent listeria outbreak is one example of those problems, he says. With industrial-scale food producers, he feels like a number. If he gets sick, the company may lose some business, but generally they will be able to continue selling their product. That’s not the case when you meet face to face with the people who produce your food every weekend. 

“When you build a relationship,” he says, “you start to trust the food because you know how it’s being produced. They also know you and don’t want to make you sick.”

Those are exactly the kind of connections that need to be made in order to improve Alberta’s food system, says Susan Roberts, a nutritionist and the project co-ordinator for the Growing Food Security Alberta network, who helped organize the conference.

Although there is not currently enough capacity around Edmonton for the entire city to start eating only local food, she thinks simply connecting eaters with growers could help address the insecurity built into Edmonton’s food system, which depends on imports.

By contacting farmers directly for food, city folk can help convince farmers that there is a local market for their wares, which could in turn lead to an increased food capacity close to the city.

“We are trying to connect people from across the urban-rural divide,” she says. “Edmonton really is a driver.”