Part I The “Locavore” Diet A    People are beginning to real…

Pаrt I The "Lоcаvоre" Diet A    Peоple аre beginning to realize that their everyday habits can have a huge effect on the environment. As a result, many are trying to decrease their ecological footprint by changing their habits. This might include things like doing more recycling or riding a bicycle instead of driving. However, many such changes that people make are also related to food. For example, many people are eating less meat or becoming vegetarian or vegan, where they don’t consume any products related to animals. Another trend that has become popular in recent years is something known as the "locavore diet." B    The locavore diet, sometimes called the "100-mile diet," involves locavores trying to eat food that is grown within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of where they live. According to locavores, eating local food is not only healthier, but helps protect the environment because it reduces the number of "food miles" that our food travels to get to our tables. In the United States, for instance, produce may travel 3,000 kilometers before ending up on supermarket shelves. In contrast, locally grown food travels only short distances. In addition to the environmental benefits of a 100-mile diet, locavores believe that their way of eating is good because it supports local farmers. C    On the other hand, people who take up the 100-mile diet soon discover that it is not as easy as it sounds. One obvious problem is that some products are simply not available locally, such as bananas, which simply cannot be grown in many districts. Further, there are some other problems that locavores face. Some of these are minor inconveniences, but others can hurt the environment, which is the inverse of what locavores want to achieve. D    One such issue is that in many areas, fresh fruit and vegetables are not available on a year-round basis. In response, many of those trying to eat locally have taught themselves the traditional arts of canning and preserving. This involves preparing the fruits or vegetables so that they can be sealed in jars or cans. In this way, the produce can be preserved and eaten through the cold seasons when fresh local options are not available. However, preserving requires a great deal of labor if you want to prepare a large amount of food, and it can be quite expensive. Buying pickles or canned fruits or vegetables at the supermarket is often much cheaper than making one’s own. E     To reduce the high cost of eating locally, many locavores have taken up foraging, which is collecting plants that grow in the wild. At first, this seems like a good idea in that such plants will be fresher and more nutritious. Better still, they will have cost nothing and will not have come from the kind of large farm whose agricultural methods can damage the environment. Yet even though the intentions of locavores who forage might be good, their deeds can sometimes have an unexpected negative impact. F     Wild leeks illustrate this point well. In the spring, these delicious green plants sprout in the forests of eastern North America. When this happens, thousands of people (not all of them locavores, of course) go out to pick them. However, wild leeks take five to seven years to reproduce. As a result, it is usually recommended that only five percent of wild leeks be harvested every year. Unfortunately, hungry foragers often collect all the wild leeks they can find. As a result, wild leeks are now protected in many parts of Canada and the United States. This is just one example, but it illustrates two problems with trying to eat local food. First, that goal is not as simple as it sounds; and second, it may harm the environment in unexpected ways. Question: What can be inferred about foraging from the text?