Last year, the concept of choosing foods that are grown and produced locally became hugely popular, thanks in part to the success of books such as The 100-Mile Diet. This year, eating local has gone a step further. The "zero-mile diet" – i.e., growing your own food – is now touted as the ultimate in eco-friendly eating. (Check out this zero-mile diet seed kit from Salt Spring Seeds, unfortunately sold out for this year.) I've been going through a Michael Pollan obsession (more about that later), and one of the things that appealed to me in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma was farmer Joel Salatin's success with keeping healthy, happy chickens that make a major contribution to the ecological sustainability of his farm. Around the same time, I heard of a Canadian writer who was embarking on keeping chickens in the city for the fresh eggs, so I asked her to write about her experiences in keeping chickens in her backyard. The story was just posted on the site, and I hope you'll all find it interesting. In the meantime, what do you think about keeping chickens in the city, and of the concept of the zero-mile diet? Is it a bourgeois fantasy akin to gentleman farming, or a necessary step toward living an ecologically sustainable life?