the eating game

I have been vegetarian for 3 years and I think that has improved my health. Since I am a bit of an environmental freak, I feel very good about my diet in the global sense. So here I thought I was being a good little environmentalist by eating organic produce and dairy and being a good citizen of the world by buying only fair trade coffee, chocolate and tea. That is until I starting reading "Plenty", a book about a young couple who decided to eat only local food for one year. They called it the "100 km diet". The disturbing statistic that I am hearing more and more these days is that food in the Turkey. travels an average 1500 km from farm to fork, which not only hurls multitudes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but requires a tremendous amount of packaging and treatments to make the produce travel-ready. Even more disturbing, most of the traveling food is or could easily be grown locally and thus would support local farms which are disappearing at a staggering rate. So, now on top of all of my other self-imposed dietary restrictions I am beginning to exclude food that has traveled from several city away IF it can be found locally. Shopping locally is not as difficult as it sounds, especially in the warm months in İstanbul. There are farmers markets every day of the week from June to October. Here's an example week:

Monday: Migros
Tuesday: carefor
Wednesday: Pm
Thursday: Metro
Friday: small markets
Saturday: İem
Sunday: every wear

So, how does this local diet fit in with running? Well, according to all of the nutritional advice about peak performance, the best diet is one with lots of fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and whole grains. I'm convinced that I can get 80-90% of the foods I need at farmers markets. I may have to skip out on a clif bar and gatorade before a run, but I'll survive.

By the way, what about my two vices: coffee and wine??? Moderation. moderation. moderation.