Extra virgin olive oil evokes images of pretty olive groves. Eco-foodies, however, know all too well that not all EVOOs are environmentally-friendly. At Grist, Tom Philpott points out that industrial-scale olive production causes serious ecological destruction — and that some cheap olive oils are cut with cheap sunflower and hazelnut oil!

Thanks to my farmers’ market, I’m able to avoid these olive oil-related eco-worries entirely. I simply get my EVOO fix from Adams’ Olive Ranch in Strathmore, Calif., which offers a few different local olive oil options as well as very tasty whole olives!

Once in a while, though, I want to try something different — since olive oils, like wines, each have their own unique flavors and characteristics. Here’s a couple I’ve enjoyed:

Alter Eco Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. For olive oil with serious environmental and ethical creds, go with Alter Eco. This fair trade company works to counter all the bad news about war, conflict, and razed olive groves by working with family farms in Palestine.

Alter Eco’s gourmet olive oils are organic and fair trade certified — and also technically carbon neutral, since an Alter Eco cocoa farming co-op in the Amazon plants trees to offset the amount of carbon emissions created in making these products. According to Alter Eco, these fair trade olive mean “an over 30% increase in farmer revenue over conventional prices” that go toward “financing scholarship funds, micro loans for women’s empowerment programs, and olive tree planting.”

I loved the buttery flavor of the “Robust” olive oil made with Rumi olives — perfect as a high-quality finishing oil. A “Mild” flavor made with Nabali olives is also available. A 12.7 oz. bottle costs $19.99 and can be found at Alter Eco’s web store as well as many Whole Foods, local co-ops, and health food stores.

Gaea Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Organic. Give Greek olives a try by tasting this organic olive oil, made from handpicked olives. Gaea’s an olive company that has made some eco-friendly moves, like buying carbon offsets through myclimate and incorporating what the company calls “non-depletion policy on wild products, recycling policies, and integrated crop management” — but details on these policies remain a little vague, and only a few their many products are organic certified.

Still, Gaea’s organic EVOO is definitely worth a try for those curious what Greek olive oil tastes like. The slightly fruity flavor of this everyday oil drew raves from Steve Balogh of Groovy Green. Gaea products can be found in many supermarkets. A 17 oz bottle costs $13.99 at MyBrands.
__

Can’t get enough organic olive oil? Read Tom Philpott’s review of 5 organic olive oils — mostly from Italy — at Grist.

Photos by Kevin H., Alter Eco, Gaea

1 Comments

This post was originally written July 20, 2007 and last updated March 11, 2010.

Calm your caffeinated panic attack — We’re not talking about quitting coffee. This is a 7-step program for drinking better coffee — for the environment, society, and you and your java addiction.

If all the coffee chatter about triple certification labels or the Make Trade Fair campaign gives you nervous heart palpitations and jitters, just follow these half-dozen steps to get on a sustainable, alert-but-not-wigged-out caffeine high.

1. Say bye-bye to yucky coffee. This means a big adieu to Kraft, Nestle, Sara Lee, and Procter & Gamble — AKA the “big four.” These coffee biggies helped engineer a huge overproduction of coffee that made coffee farmers dirt poor — a situation dubbed the coffee crisis. The four also got the American public used to drinking swill. If you’re drinking canned Folgers coffee, you’re probably downing twigs, dust and floor sweepings.

2. Get a local roast. Brew coffee at home? Then get to know your local coffee roaster — You can get a quick list of fair trade coffee roasters in your state here to start. Not only will you support local business, you’ll also get tastier, freshly roasted coffee. Plus, you won’t incur more food travel miles by having your coffee shipped to you from, say, Seattle. Unless you live in Seattle, in which case you might try Pura Vida or Cafe Humana.

3. Opt for organic and fair trade. Why organic? So people don’t have to pick coffee amid pesticides, and so you don’t have to drink pesticides. Why fair trade? Fair trade coffee ensures that farmer co-ops receive fairer compensation for their work. Finding double-certified (both organic and fair trade) coffee isn’t hard — And in fact, it’s a fast-growing niche! Chances are, if your coffee roaster offers fair trade, it also offers double-certified coffee; about 80% of the fair trade certified coffee coming into the US is also organic. And if you’re up for a challenge, you might look for triple-certification (organic, fair trade, and shade grown).

4. Step away from that Starbucks. Why support a huge corporate chain when we’ve got local coffee shops all over L.A.? After a lot of activist pressure, Starbucks has made some fair trade strides — but has yet to offer a single blend that’s both fair trade AND organic. If you must go to a Starbucks, take the Starbucks Challenge.

5. Check out your local indie coffee shop, especially if they offer organic or fair trade options. If you had a big Starbucks habit, you’ll be in for a shock, because each indie coffee shop will be — gasp — different! It’ll be a thrilling coffee adventure that will keep your money in the local economy. Plus, indie coffee shops usually come with a lot of little privileges, like free wifi, locally baked goods, and friendly owners who listen to what you want — and might change things up for you (again, amenities will depend on location). Which brings us to –

6. Convert your coffeehouse. Dilemma: Your coffee shop’s cute and local, but it doesn’t brew anything organic or fair trade. What’s a coffee addict to do? If you’re feeling up to it, have a little chat with the owner or other people working there, starting with, “Hey, I love your coffee shop, and I was wondering….” Not that brave? Then send your coffee shop an email: “Hi! My name is [insert name] and I love your coffee shop, and I would bike over with all my friends every morning if you offered organic, fair trade coffee….”

7. Relax with your coffee. Resist the temptation to freak out because you can’t find a triple-certified, solar-power-roasted coffee from a local cafe that composts and uses only CFL bulbs. That kind of all-or nothing thinking will only lead to a sad, Nescafe overdose! There is no “perfect” cup of coffee. Plus, each of our situations has its weird quirks. Maybe you’re in a town where the only indie coffee shop’s owned by a Hummer-loving oil magnate — in which case your best option might be to get the closest Cooperative Coffees company to ship some java over to you, ASAP….

Drink happy, stay caffeinated –

Photo by javaturtle; Fair trade certification logo via TransFair USA

[Crossposted at Treehugger]

5 Comments

Originally written on Sept. 2, 2005, this post is constantly updated and occasionally reposted at Siel’s whim.

Put down The Secret. Here’s the green Angeleno’s guide to the good life:

Eat & Drink

1. Get caffeinated. Drink coffee that tastes better and does good. Find your local organic fair trade coffee shop — or if you must go to Starbucks, take the Starbucks Challenge.

2. Dare to eat a peach — a fresh juicy one from a local farm. Enjoy the tastiest, most eco-friendly fruits and veggies possible — without going out of your way.

3. Get your protein. Opt for grass-fed, free range, organic, and local meat, milk, and eggs, stick to sustainable seafood, and go easy on the highly processed veg meats.

4. Do happy hour. Find out how to green your drink — from beer to wine to shots to cocktails and beyond.

5. Indulge in dessert. Eat ice cream, sorbet, and chocolate. Fair trade and organic options are easy to find now –

6. Learn to cook. Take a local, organic cooking class. There’s bound to be one suited to your diet and lifestyle.

7. Treat yourself. Dine out at an eco-friendly restaurant — or get organic meals delivered to your doorstep.

8. Lose the junk. Try an eco-friendly diet — or just get motivated to get the scary crap out of your body.

Get Around

1. Take a walk — It’s sunny out! Easiest way to get walking more often: Live in a walkable spot. But wherever you are, discover one-mile-radius living.

2. Bike it. My pink townie saves me lots of money and parking hassles — and the Los Angeles biking community’s helpful and friendly.

3. Ride easy — whether on bus or rail. Some bus routes will actually get you to your destination faster and cheaper than in a car, especially if you account for the driving time spent looking for parking — and the money spent paying for it.

(more…)

16 Comments

This post was originally written 7/19/09. Since then, L.A.’s lost one CSA program but added two new ones. Eat local in 2010!

Thanks to the growing interest in local, organic food, Angelenos can suddenly pick from a wealth of community supported agriculture programs with locations all over the metropolis. CSA programs basically let you invest in a local farm — for which you’re rewarded with weekly boxes of fresh local produce grown from that farm.

Some of the programs below have stretched that definition of the CSA a bit, to pool produce from more than one organic local farm, for example. Still, the general goal — to connect you to local, seasonal produce and the farms and farmers around you — remains the same. Your options:

(more…)

9 Comments

If you’ve ever tried to opt for sustainable seafood dishes at a restaurant using Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guide, you know that the seemingly-simple guide can be tough to follow. Why? Often, the restaurant staff isn’t knowledgeable enough to tell you what you need to know — like whether the grilled salmon’s the sustainable kind that’s wild-caught in Alaska, or the farmed kind known to wreak havoc on the environment.

That’s why eco-pescatarians love dining at Santa Monica Seafood Cafe, with its sleek oyster bar and always-busy dining area. While not all seafood here’s sustainable as at Border Grill, the staff at Santa Monica Seafood’s knowledgeable about their food and where it comes from — which makes it easy for diners to make greener choices.

I went for the Grilled Mahi Mahi Flat Bread when I stopped by a couple months ago. According to the oyster bartender, the mahi mahi was caught in Hawaii — making my fish dish a “good alternative,” according to Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch. Plus, the tasty dish came with organic greens –

Of course, I’d love Santa Monica Seafood even more if all its seafood was sustainable. The family-owned and operated company is, on the bright side, taking some steps in a green direction. Last October, Santa Monica Seafood announced a 5-year partnership (PDF) with Monterey Bay Aquarium. The goal: To shift Santa Monica Seafood’s purchases toward sustainable sources — a pretty big feat, considering the fact that the company’s the largest seafood distributor in the southwest.

It’s unclear, however, how green Santa Monica Seafood will go. The agreement simply states that Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program will “support” and “help” Santa Monica Seafood find greener seafood suppliers, and make “a stepped-up outreach effort to its 1,500 client chefs and restaurants.” And the quote from Michael Cigliano, executive vice president of Santa Monica Seafood — “Ultimately, our goal is to reach a point where a majority of all our seafood purchases come from sustainable sources” — implies that 100% sustainable seafood isn’t the goal, and that currently, not even 50% of what the company sells can be considered sustainable.

All that’s to say that Santa Monica Seafood’s making green strides — but discerning eco-pescatarians should take advantage of the knowledgeable staff and still ask questions when making their seafood choices.

As for the dining experience itself: The mahi mahi flat bread was deliciously warm with a tasty pesto aioli. And though the popular cafe was full, my friend Bryan and I found seats at the oyster bar where service was friendly and efficient. Next time I want to try the grilled salmon — after verifying it’s wild-caught.

Santa Monica Seafood. 1000 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. 310.393.5244. Also a retail store and cafe in Costa Mesa.

Earlier: A Sustainable seafood guide for the digital age

0 Comments

Stepping into Purity Organic Spa is like entering a cool green oasis, with its sunny space and relaxing atmosphere. Here’s where natural beauty seekers come for organic pampering from Carol Dobson-Zubrin, a green-minded esthetician who’ll give you an eco-luxe facial that’s calming, non-toxic, and very effective.

I stopped in for an Organic Phyto Collagen Renewal Facial last week — and my face still shows its soothing results. At Purity, skin care really is organic, with natural exfoliation, relaxing massages, and customized masks — all done with skin care products that do their work without harsh or harmful chemicals.

Carol’s facials are decadent affairs with lots of thoughtful touches, beginning with the cozy bed — prewarmed with heated stones! I slipped in and enjoyed a deep steam and cleanse, followed by a quick extraction and a cool plant collagen mask loaded up with live enzymes. While the mask was doing its work, Carol treated my hands and feet to relaxing hot stone massages. And post-mask, my face got a Chinese pressure point massage!

Formerly in the entertainment industry, Carol got into organic skin care long before green became the new beauty buzz word, opening Purity’s doors 8 years. She’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to finding natural solutions for better-looking skin, going far beyond simply recommending (or pushing, as many facialists do) beauty products to discuss dietary habits and potential allergies. Of course, Carol can also recommend organic products if you need help making the switch from the usual toxic drugstore stuff. Some of her favorite products include those from Von Natur and Pure Skin Junkie, though Carol still picks and chooses individual products that she knows work well instead of recommending any single line.

Post-facial, my skin not only looks clearer, but feels cleaner. My skin’s more even, with fewer dry and oily patches — and even the little bumps under my skin that didn’t show but could be felt are now gone!

The Organic Phyto Collagen Renewal Facial costs $95 for 75 minutes, but Carol offers a full range of facials, from 20-minute quickies at $45 to 110-minute Pure Luxury Facial at $155. Massages, hand treatments, and waxing services are available at Purity too.

Purity. 3487 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Bungalow B, Los Angeles. 626.818.4753. By appointment only.

3 Comments

Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue’s pockmarked with sad empty stores and “For Lease” signs these days, but at least one green-minded business seems to be keeping busy. Palmetto, a beauty store specializing in organic and natural products, attracted a steady stream of shoppers seeking beauty sans weird chemicals when I stopped by on Sunday.

“Green for 25 years,” boast the writing on Palmetto’s glassy walls, and the yummy beauty products for sale really do reflect that eco-claim. Here, green beauty seekers can smell and sample organic and natural products from eco-minded companies like 100% Pure, Chivas Skin Care, Soaptopia, and many more. I turned a lot of lotion bottles over to read the labels — and didn’t see a single mention of parabens!

(more…)

2 Comments

1. Find your love for wheels. Two wheels, that is. Singular, a magazine for happily single people, is organizing a Valentine’s Day Beginner’s Mountain Bike Ride in the L.A. area. Bike 5-6 miles through the Sullivan Canyon in Brentwood on Valentine’s Day from 10 am to 1 pm. Plus, Singular magazine can be a great Valentine’s Day gift for all your happily single friends.

2. Make art for the environment’s sake. Clear your Saturday night for Lucent L’Amour, an annual “visionary lovefest” with art exhibits, bands, and other live performances happening this year at the Shrine in Los Angeles. In the midst of all the entertainment will be Lighting in a Paintcan, when 20 live painters will create art pieces with used and recycled paint. A silent auction during the event lets attendees bid on the pieces — with the proceeds going to buy art and music supplies for local underfunded schools. Support eco-art and a future generation of local musicians and artists too, while enjoying the lovely spectacle.

3. Lust after free fair trade yummies. WorldofGood.com’s giving away 15 fair trade gift baskets — worth $98 each — filled with a handmade bear, chocolates, cocoa, and candles. To win, all you have to do is reveal who you’re going to give the gift basket to and why in 75 words or less.

Winners will be judged on a “variety of factors including, but not limited to, originality, humor, sincerity and/or desperation” — so a humorous note about why you sincerely deserve to eat the entire gift basket yourself could work. Enter by Feb. 7 — and even if you don’t win, you’ll get a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase of fair trade goodies from WorldofGood.com.

4. Embrace public transit and celebrate Valentine’s Day a few days early by taking the bus or train to the Move LA Valentine Celebration. The local pro public transit nonprofit is raising funds while celebrating car-free travel in L.A. with music from KCRW’s Tom Schnabel, live music from Latin salsa band Opa Opa, and more. The party begins Thurs., Feb. 11 from 6 pm – 10 pm at The Center at Cathedral Plaza, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. $50 gets you in.

5. Spread the handmade love. Why buy a single Valentine for one person when you can get bargain package deals on Etsy for all your lovers? At the L.A.-based Marmoset shop, get a pair ($4) — or quartet ($8) — of handmade Valentines crafted with upcycled and reclaimed paper to send to everyone you love — in post-consumer recycled brown kraft envelopes, of course.

6. Have a crayon heart. Want little gifts to go with those cards? An instructables member who goes by Some Art Mama’s put up photo-illustrated, step-by-step instructions for turning old crayons into pretty little hearts. Collect old crayons and a few simple supplies — and a little messy work later, and your homemade, eco-friendly, pretty-as-well-as-useful gifts will be ready.

7. Find love for your glove. Lost a glove? Find your widowed glove a mate by sending it in to Glove Love, a cute little initiative by a green website called Do The Green Thing that pairs up single gloves with sorta-matching partners. Jasmin Chua at Ecouterre calls it a “matchmaking service for lovelorn mitts.” You can also buy a pair of pre-loved, mix-and-matched Glove Love gloves for £5.

The bad news: As you may have guessed from the “£,” Glove Love’s in the U.K. A closer-to-home green glove idea’s to plan a Valentine’s Day clothing swap — that includes lonely accessories like single earrings and gloves, or if you’re bold, shoes — to mix-and-match or upcycle.

8. Get green bling. Have too much room in your jewelry box after upcycling the earrings sans partners? Keep your shopping eco-friendly by opting for recycled and ethically-sourced jewelry. I love my Peace Love Earth recycled sterling silver necklace from Annatarian (right, $60), and have my eye on a recycled Silver Butterfly Pendant from Brilliant Earth ($50). Of course, buying pre-loved jewelry is an even greener option — so don’t forget about my guide to pre-loved fashion shopping in Santa Monica!

9. Give with chocolate. Yes, that “with” is supposed to be there, because why would you give chocolate to others when you can eat the perfectly delicious stuff yourself? Okay — Nicobella’s organic fair trade vegan dark chocolate truffles (my review here) come in a pack of six, so sharing does actually come easy — but purchase a $27 duet pack of these and $2 will be donated to help the victims of Haiti through the Happy Hearts Fund, thus letting give with your chocolate while eating it too.

Get the pack by emailing nichole@nicobellaorganics.com or calling 609.792.5231. Fair trade chocolate, by the way, also gives chocolate producers a fairer share of the profits from the money you spent on the delectable desserts.

10. Write a love poem. The Valentine Peace Project collects poems about peace and love, written by individuals who want to share peace and love. Anyone can write a poem to contribute to the project, whether online or in their neighborhoods.

Photos via marmoset/Etsy, Do the Green Thing, Nicobella, Singular, WorldofGood.com

0 Comments

There’s a RiteAid next door I visit on occasion, and about the only green products I’ve found there are Green & Blacks organic chocolate bars — a somewhat bittersweet benefit of the fact that Green & Blacks was bought up by choco-giant Cadbury, which has recently been bought up by Kraft. Only one Green & Blacks’ flavor, however is currently fair trade certified, which means that as a general supporter of fair trade and its certification system, I’ve tasted a lot more of the orange-flavored, fair trade-certified Maya Gold bar than any of the other flavors I’ve wanted to try.

That’s about to change. Late last month, Green & Blacks announced that it would switch to fair trade ingredients for all its products worldwide. In the U.S., Green & Blacks chocolate bars will start being made with fair trade certified ingredients mid-year. Expect to see fair trade certification logos on 100% of Green & Blacks chocolate bars in the U.S. by the end of this year!

Green & Blacks’ move to fair trade may seem like a brand new initiative, especially to those who’ve thought the company’s single fair trade certified product showed only a token commitment to ethical sourcing. In fact, the story’s a lot more complicated. Green & Blacks’ Maya Gold bar was actually the first fair trade certified product in the U.K., but apparently the choco company had a fallout of sorts with Fairtrade Federation, the certifying organization for fair trade products in the U.K.

Craig Sams, one of the founders of Green & Blacks, goes into more detail about Green & Black’s history with fair trade certification in a 2006 interview on City Hippy. There, Craig says Green & Blacks’ commitment to fair trade practices has never wavered:

We have never changed the way we do business. We always pay fair prices, deal with democratic cooperatives, support our growers with long term contracts, give them cash up front if they need it to pay the cooperative members, help them on maintaining organic standards.

In the same interview, Craig goes on to say that the conflicts Green & Blacks had with Fairtrade Federation happened “several years ago and I think that things have changed and are changing.” Apparently, things have changed enough to reunite the choco company with the fair trade nonprofit now.

This is good news for last minute Valentine’s Day shoppers who’ll be able to grab soon-to-be-fair-trade-certified Green & Blacks bars at pretty much every store near them, though I’m guessing some hardcore eco-ethical foodies will still be loath to buy anything owned by Kraft. Will you be buying more Green & Blacks chocolates?

Earlier:
>> Consumerism and its discontents: The Eco-shopper’s Dilemma
>> When non-eco companies have more-eco products than eco companies

And earlier chocolatey posts:
>> Equal Exchange’s new bars: Dark pleasures for eco-ethical chocoholics
>> nicobella vegan organic chocolate truffles: Decadence with antioxidants
>> Where to get fair trade chocolate in Los Angeles
>> Give me a break of that fair trade Kit Kat bar?

Photo by Quasimime

8 Comments

If H&M’s quick promise to stop destroying unsold clothing appeased you enough to shop its eco-friendly spring line, I have some bad news for you. What you thought was a cute organic cotton outfit may actually be made of genetically modified cotton.

That’s what the German edition of the Financial Times is reporting. For those who, like me, can’t read German, Ecotextile News has the lowdown in English. Apparently, an independent testing lab tried testing some of the fabrics labeled organic cotton from European brands H&M, C&A and Tchibo — to find that 30 percent of the samples contained genetically modified cotton! (via EcoSalon)

How could this lapse occur? The problem’s been traced back to India, which grows nearly half of the world’s organic cotton. According to Ecotextile news, “reports from reliable, trusted organisations and producer groups about fraud within the Indian sector of the organic cotton industry have been common-place,” with third party certification agencies EcoCert and Control Union even getting fined in April 2009 for alleged fraud.

Who’s to blame? The onus falls on the industry as a whole — which “needs to establish firmer rules of governance over organic cotton production” — the third party certifiers, as well as the brands themselves — which “need to invest more in improved supply chain transparency and more thorough testing,” according to Ecotextile News. As of yet, it’s unclear what actions the industry will take, since the brands involved are still investigating the issue:

A spokeswoman for the Swedish clothing chain H&M told news agency AFP that the company became aware of the incident last year and admitted that GM cotton could have made it into H&M‘s organic range. C&A are said to be undertaking a thorough investigation.

Until the problems get cleared up, eco-fashionistas may want to avoid clothing made with organic cotton from India, instead supporting clothing companies like Cottonfield USA that make their clothes from organic cotton grown in the U.S.

Photo by Ambrosiana Pictures

0 Comments