If you start your day with organic, fair trade coffee, like to cook with organic olive oil, and treat yourself to gourmet fair trade organic chocolate on occasion — then you’re a lot like me. And you might want to sign up for one of these environmentally and socially conscious eco-educational vacations coming up to get a closer look at the coffee, chocolate, and olive oil you love:

Sip fair trade coffee in Chiapas, Mexico: February 22 – March 1, 2009

Higher Grounds Trading Company, a socially-conscious fair trade company in Michigan, wants to take you on a Harvest Tour. The trip promises an “adventure through the Mayan Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico,” visiting “organic farmers, women’s fair trade artisan cooperatives, Fair Trade coffee co-ops, traditional healers, biodiversity and economic rights activists, and autonomous indigenous communities and leaders.”

The $750 price tag includes double occupancy lodging, all in-country transportation, and 2 meals a day — in additions to guides, translations, and donations to each organization and community visited. Email Higher Grounds or call 231.922.9009 for more information and to sign up.

Taste fair trade chocolate in Belize: September 4 - 12, 2009

Sustainable Harvest International, a nonprofit that works to empower farming families in Central America, invites you on a Smaller World Sustainable Chocolate Tour — described as “an unforgettable journey into the ecology, history and culture of chocolate.” Get ready to get your hands dirty on this trip, because you’ll be planting trees and building wood-conserving stoves! You’ll also visit family farms, local Mayan ruin sites, and jungle water falls.

The $2,500 price tag includes double occupancy accomodations, all in-country travel, meals — as well as tours, translation, staff support, and a $500 donation to the local program. Call Sustainable Harvest International at 207.669.8254 to reserve a spot. Can’t take the trip in September? More choco tours are planned for January 3 - 10 and March 6-13 in 2010.

Enjoy olive oil in Palestine / Israel: October 30 - November 09, 2009

Global Exchange wants to take you on its first Fair Olive Harvest Reality Tour. You’ll get to travel with Kirsten Moller, Global Exchange’s executive director and co-founder, to learn “about the connections between peace, economic and environmental justice in Palestine and Israel.” You’ll also harvest olives with fair trade farmers, celebrate the harvest festival, and even enjoy a harvest meal in the olive orchard.

The trip costs $1,800, which includes double-occupancy accommodations, all in-country transportation, and 2 meals a day — plus guides, translation, staff support, and honoraria to the speakers, organizations, and communities that participate in the tour. In addition, all tour participants will get a 1-year membership to Global Exchange. Reserve your spot online or call 800.497.1994×251.

Want to take a fair trade tour without leaving the U.S.? Here’s how:

>> In Grist, Sarah van Schagen writes about one of the daily tours she took at Theo Chocolate, an organic, fair trade chocolate company in Seattle.

>> Stephanie at Metropolitan Mama big ups Camano Island Coffee Roasters, which sells organic, fair trade coffee — and offers tours at its headquarters in Camano Island, Washington.

>> Marisa Avelar wrote a guest post on Design*Sponge about Savannah, Georgia — with details on where to find a good cup of fair trade coffee in that town.

Photo by javaturtle, mattwitmer, jurvetson

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Now that Earth Day’s over, fair trade activists want you thinking about World Fair Trade Day on May 9 — and are even giving away freebies to get you to plan ahead.

Why? Fair trade activists in the U.S. are trying to set a record for the World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break — a title currently held by Finland, which got just over 50,000 participants to participate. Of course, such a huge event takes a lot of planning — which is why the Fair Trade Resource Network and its partners are offering lots of goodies to get you started NOW.

In fact, if you register a World Fair Trade Day event on FTRN’s website by April 30, you’ll get free fair trade shwag: a soccer ball, music bells, enough coffee to brew 70 cups, and other great stuff! The first 500 early birds will even get a free fair trade Kenyan Dancing Girl pin from Gifts With Humanity.

Don’t have the time to plan an event yourself but still want to participate? Find a coffee break near you on FTRN’s calendar, and enjoy a cuppa with fellow social justice activists and coffee lovers.

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Had I but world enough, and time, I’d have checked out Bottomfeeder and Bottlemania, both of which I saw proudly displayed in the New Books section of the LEED-certified Santa Monica Main Library yesterday. But being a time-pressed girl who perhaps already reads too many books about the dire environmental consequences of [insert any consumer product or habit] than is good for her mental well-being, I left the tomes — 336 and 256 pages long, respectively — on the shelves.

The good news: Now, anyone who’s curious or interested in these enviro woes and what can be done about them can get a 30-minute primer without picking up a book. Eco Trip: The Real Cost of Living, a new Sundance channel show, has the host David de Rothschild tracking a different consumer product in each episode — a journey that inevitably reveals devastating socio-environmental impacts of seemingly innocuous things in our daily lives, but also the more eco-friendly choices consumers can make instead.

The series will kick off sweetly tomorrow, April 21, at 9 pm with an episode dedicated to Chocolate — a rather sanguine episode considering the fact that cocoa and sugar’s often produced via child labor and other serious human rights abuses — not to mention the rBGH and factory farming concerns that come with milk. Luckily, David’s following eco-conscious gourmet chocolatier Vosges‘ goodies, which means he’s visiting organic chocolate farms and well-treated cows. I’m guessing the producers wanted to focus on solutions, a.k.a. not let the series get too depressing to watch.

Those who, like me, have felt they should pick up Bottlemania and Bottomfeeder but haven’t, you’ll be glad to know that episodes on Salmon and Bottled Water are just weeks away. Of course, after you’ve whet your appetite with the half-hour show, you may want to find out more — by picking up a 300+ page book at your nearest library –

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>> Roger Ebert’s “How I believe in God”: “I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist–which I am. If I don’t believe God exists, that doesn’t mean I believe God doesn’t exist. Nor does it mean I don’t know, which implies that I could know…. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how? I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer.”

>> The 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time. The list includes Katherine Hepburn, Mark Zuckerberg, Bruce Lee, and many others. (via Mickipedia)

Earlier: Atheists have a heaven too and The anti anti-religion movement

>> Caffeinated eco-shrooms. ZERI Foundation’s coffee-pulp-to-mushrooms project uses a waste product — coffee pulp that’s a pollutant at worst and low-quality fertilizer at best — to grow mushrooms, giving coffee growers protein-rich food, an additional source of income, and livestock feed. The project won Specialty Coffee Association of the Americas’ 2009 Sustainability Award.

>> Wonder waterwall. Eager to capture free rainwater to water gardens with, Susan Carpenter bought Waterwall, “an easy-on-the-eyes product that does exactly what its name implies. It’s a wall that catches and stores water — beautifully.” Unfortunately, these walls are really, really expensive; rain barrels catch less water — but are certainly a lot more affordable in this economy.

Image via venganza.org

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>> Grist calls out a New York Times op-ed that claims free range pork is deadly. The op-ed writer, as you may’ve guessed, cited a study funded by the National Pork Producers Council to “prove” his point.

>> Coffee Lowers Risk of Death - I found that link via Kim at (Anti)Social Development, whose comment made me laugh: “Here is an interesting article with a really illogical headline. I’m pretty sure the risk of death is always 100%.”

>> A new Gallup poll finds fewer Americans identify themselves as Christians, more as “none.” (via Fimoculous)

>> Lindsay at LAist says many Angelenos are opting to staycation this summer — but others are embracing the fuck it phenomenon and taking pricey vacations: “Yes, the recession brought increased anxiety as well. But for many, that fear became a catalyst. It’s enabled them to strive for something more meaningful in their lives, even if that means a temporary break from common sense.”

Photo by pubwvj

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>> The good news: At least in the U.K., more ethically-produced fair trade chocolate’ll be a lot easier to find, since Cadbury’s announced it’ll make Cadbury Dairy Milk bars with fair trade chocolate. (via Change)

>> The bad news: Most chocolate still isn’t fair trade and may be produced via child trafficking and abusive labor. Earlier: Change your choco habit, change the world (a little)

>> The hopeful news: Divine Chocolate, a fair trade choco company co-owned by cocoa farmers, wants you to Egg a Politician. Aim your egg at one of the five leaders — Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Manmohan Singh or Wen Jiabao — attending the G20 summit, then send an email to the politicians asking them to keep fair trade on the G20 agenda.

>> The educational news. Michael Niemann, who’s writing a book about global cocoa and the chocolate commodity chain, provides updated choco trade news, info, and analysis at his blog, Bitter Chocolate.

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If you like to make your fair trade coffee Irish, I’m guessing you’ll like your beer made fair trade too! Peak Organic Brewing in Portland, Maine, has made the first fair trade certified beer: Peak Organic Brewing Company’s Espresso Amber Ale.

No, the beer itself wasn’t made in a far-off country. The fair trade ingredient in the beer’s the espresso, a dark Sumatran coffee blend roasted locally by a Maine company called Coffee by Design. That local roast was then combined with local beer to create the Espresso Amber Ale.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to taste this beer because it’s only available in stores in the Northeast. I guess they’re keeping it local! Next time I’m in Maine — which would be the first time I’m in Maine — I look forward to trying this local, organic, and fair trade brew — and enjoying its caffeinated buzz.

Earlier: Fermenting Revolution

Image via Peak Organic

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Yes, fair trade, organic chocolates can be had on the cheap. You can get single heart-shaped chocolates for a mere 22 cents right now at Co-opportunity in Santa Monica!

The chocos are made by Sjaak’s — and cost 65 cents on Sjaak’s website — but I guess the Co-op bought them in bulk and is passing on the price savings!

I bought a couple for myself on a whim a couple days ago. One was solid milk chocolate, and the other had a cherry-flavored filling. I wanna say they were about 1″x1″ — but the dimensions aren’t on Sjaak’s website and the chocos have been eaten, with great pleasure –

Co-opportunity also has bigger Sjaaks heart chocolates for $11.99 right now, in time for Valentine’s Day. Sjaak’s already sold out — So the Co-op’s your last chance!

Earlier: Where to get fair trade chocolate in Los Angeles

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I semi-tried to cut back on coffee last month by drinking more tea. And while the de-coffe-ing didn’t stick, the tea habit did — thanks to Traditional Medicinals.

Despite the fact that the boring and unsexy company name evokes images of tea-drinking grandmas, Traditional Medicinals makes some tasty organic and fair trade teas. I discovered the company at Go Green Expo, where I got samples of EveryDay Detox and Organic Roasted Dandelion Root teas. Then I put off writing this post until now, when I can no longer remember anything about the taste of these except that I liked them so much I wrote down a note telling myself to write about them.

To jog my memory, I picked up a box of Traditional Medicinals’ Organic Echinacea Plus tea on sale at Co-opportunity, which kept me warm and toasty over the rainy weekend but wasn’t as yummy as I remembered the other teas to be. This tea smells and tastes like, um, hippie herb meds (not that there’s anything wrong with those).

Of course, taste isn’t the only reason people select a particular tea. Traditional Medicinals teas promise a myriad of health benefits. The Detox and Dandelion teas, for example, both promise to promote healthy liver function, while the Echinacea tea’s supposed to support the Immune System.

However, because every health claim’s followed by a footnote that states “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration” — the same sort of disclaimer that follows questionable diet pills — I’m not so certain I can trust the claims. Which is to say the main reason I drink tea’s to get warm, calm and cozy while sipping something yummy — not to cure ailments. That said, I also haven’t had a cold or liver failure since I started drinking the teas :P

In any case, Traditional Medicinals teas are nothing like silly diet pills with weird ingredients. Many of Traditional Medicinals’ teas are organic, and six flavors are fair trade — with more in the process of getting fair trade certified. Plus, the teas come in boxes made with at least 55% post-consumer recycled paper packaging. And as a company, Traditional Medicinals has installed a huge solar power system that provides 75% of the company’s energy needs; the last 25% is offset with wind energy green tags.

You can find Traditional Medicinals teas at many grocery and health food stores, or online at Traditional Medicinals. Amazon sells 6-box packs at a discount.

Don’t have money for tea? Win some by enlisting the help of a creative kid to enter Traditional Medicinals’ Kids Care for the Earth drawing contest. Kids can draw and send in a picture of their favorite “character, herb, or way to take care of the earth.” Every entry “wins” — and Traditional Medicinals will send back some stickers and a free box of organic Just for Kids tea.

Related links:
>> The Hungry Mouse names Traditional Medicinals’ Organic Ginger Aid Tea as one of her 3 favorite ginger treats — then shares a recipe for ginger-tinis.

>> Passionate Homemaking recommends Tra­di­tional Med­i­c­i­nals Organic Nighty Night Tea as a natural insomnia helper.

>> Aaron at 1GreenProduct claims Traditional Medicinals Echinacea Throat Coat took care of a stubborn sore throat.

Image via Traditional Medicinals

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Here’s another way you can get free fair trade chocolate this Valentine’s Day — This time just for lending $20 — which you’ll get back WITH INTEREST!

MicroPlace, a Kiva-like business that lets you to make microloans to the working poor AND get a one to three percent return on your investment, is offering a sweet deal called Invest With Your Heart - A Different Way to Show Love.” All you have to do is invest $20 or more at microplace.com/gift — and do it in honor of a loved one. The money you invest will stay your own loan, but the honoree will get a box of fair trade chocolate hearts from Divine Chocolate plus a gift card about microfinance.

Find out more about MicroPlace in “Small Change Changes the World,” an article I wrote for Whole Life Times last December. And don’t forget about the two other ways you can score free fair trade chocolate this month!

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