Until recently, fair trade wines were pretty tough to find. Now, these socio-economically conscious wines have even made their way into mainstream stores like Target and Sam’s Club. Plus, you no longer have to pick between enviro and social justice concerns! If you like their morning coffee double-certified organic AND fair trade, you can pick up a bottle of organic, fair trade wine at Whole Foods.

Pick from a number of different South African wines by Stellar Organics — all fair trade and organic certified (no sulfites added). I got a Cabernet Sauvignon at the Santa Monica Whole Foods for $10.99 — which I thought was a pretty tasty bargain.

Curious about what makes these wines fair trade? Basically, Stellar Organics’ workers receive competitive wages, have part ownership of the company (at least 25%, according to TransFair USA, which provides fair trade certification for products in the U.S.) — with a say in making larger community decisions. You can read more about Stellar Organics’ the fair trade policies on the company’s own website.

Also available at Whole Foods are Fairhills wines, fair trade certified wines from South Africa, Argentina, and Chile. According to Whole Foods’ Whole Story blog, the South African wines — that would be the chardonnay and the merlot — are working to go all organic in the next 2-3 years!

I didn’t know about this when I went shopping, though, and as luck would have it, went for the malbec and cabernet sauvignon — both from Argentina. These wines, at $13.99 a bottle, were just okay. I found the malbec too jammy for my taste — and both wines just had too much going on, IMHO. That said, people who like really big bold wines — Yellow Tail reds come to mind — will likely find these yummier. One reader of Bottoms Up really seems to like the malbec, though her description’s even more laconic than mine….

Whole Story has more notes on the Fairhills wines — as well as the fair trade details: “The Fairhills project is committee-driven, with 80% of the team farm workers, 10% importers and the remaining 10% winery owners. Together, they decide their fate in the wine business and, more importantly, the needs of their communities.”

As often comes up whenever I write about wine: Drinking organic Californian wine’s great too! Local is not diametrically opposed to fair trade — especially if you buy fair trade wine at a local wine store. But if you’ve got the hankering for a malbec, or are curious about what South African wine tastes like, fair trade wines can be a nice treat. Anyone else tasted these wines a try?

Earlier: Sunday solutions: Fair trade wine

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Bananas as we know them are in peril because they lack genetic diversity, but every time I stop at the banana section at Co-opportunity, I get a sweet surprise. Check out these ginormous organic bananas I got today. The bigger ones are 10 inches long, minus the stem!

Though they look freakishly large, I believe the ones I got are still Cavendish bananas — genetic duplicates of all other Cavendish bananas — pretty much the only type of banana sold in most U.S. supermarkets. The perfect sameness of all these bananas, however, could prove disastrous. Writes Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World, in a Popular Science article (via @healthebay):

After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.

We already know what that disease is going to be. “Panama disease Race 4 has wiped out plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan, and it is now spreading through much of Southeast Asia,” Dan writes. “It has yet to hit Africa or Latin America, but most experts agree that it is coming.”

Banana disease could mean “massive destabilization,” especially in East Africa where people rely on bananas for nutrition and on banana plants to serve as cover crops for other plants. Of course, even banana farming as it is now is riddled with problems, from pesticide pollution to unfair labor practices….

To address that pending disaster, farmers and scientists are raising experimental breeds — and experimenting with genetic modification. Dan warns in a New York Times op-ed, however, that we may just have to change the way we think of and consume bananas.

“The Cavendish is the fruit equivalent of a fast-food hamburger: efficient to produce, uniform in quality and universally affordable,” Dan writes. But just as fast food’s getting a bad rap for its fatty, unhealthy content, bananas’ reputation’s changing. In a 2006 Q&A in Grist, one reader asked Jonathan Rosenthal, former top banana at fair trade fruit company Oke Banana: “Don’t you think it is strange that people will cheer your environmental efforts when you transport fruit a thousand miles?” Jonathan’s answer: “Yes I do” — followed up with elaborations, of course. Dan’s thoughts on the issue are somewhat similar:

In recent years, American consumers have begun seeing the benefits — to health, to the economy and to the environment — of buying foods that are grown close to our homes…. But bananas have always been an emblem of a long-distance food chain. Perhaps it’s time we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach.

Will bananas may soon become luxury items — more like gourmet chocolate than a big mac? Probably. In the meantime, I guess I’m still getting a bargain at 99 cents per pound of organic bananas. The best banana bargain’s at Trader Joe’s, according to Dan’s banana blog. Subscribe to his blog for continued fascinating banana tidbits –

Earlier:
>> Bananas: No longer one of the best fruits to buy conventionally
>> Going bananas! Chiquita supplies guns to save environment?
>> Oke USA plans to bring more fair trade bananas to SoCal — This never actually seems to have happened, however.

Update, 4/4/09: Book review: Banana — The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

Update, 4/26/09: The Banana interview: Dan Koeppel reveals the best banana spots in L.A.

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Sure, organic vegan food can be pretty tasty — but what if you take sugar, soy, and gluten out of the equation too? That sounds like a bland recipe for disaster — especially for an ice cream — but Luna & Larry’s Coconut Bliss is actually all creamy deliciousness.

Of course, you do have to like coconut, like I do. Somehow, Coconut Bliss has combined coconut milk — imported directly from an organic grower in Thailand — with organic agave nectar to create this yummy cold concoction. Plus, the vanilla, cocoa, dark chocolate, and coffee in the ice creams are all fair trade!

The ingredients — all clearly listed on Coconut Bliss website — are strikingly simple organic items you recognize. The only Coconut Bliss flavor that contains any sugar’s Mint, which has a little sugar in the chocolate flakes. Compare that to Dreyer’s Rocky Road ice cream ingredients, which include lots and lots of sugar, plus partially hydrogenated soybean oil and corn syrup!

I discovered Coconut Bliss at Co-opportunity and I’m now hooked. You can get a pint of your own at Whole Foods, many other health food and small grocers, or online.

Organic creamy goodness doesn’t come cheap though. Retail price at Whole Foods is $6.69 a pint, though Co-opportunity usually has it for less. If you’re not ready to plunk down the money, taste free samples at the next Green Business Networking event, happening Tues., March 10 from 6 pm - 9 pm at Ambrose Hotel, 1255 20th St., Santa Monica.

Image via coconutbliss.com

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When it comes to energy bars, I think less is more, in my opinion. Eat a regular Power Bar, for example, and you’ll be ingesting evaporated cane juice syrup, corn syrup, maltitol syrup, and lots of other sugary syrupy stuff along with a bunch more ingredients you won’t recognize or be able to pronounce.

That’s why I tend to go for the bars with just a handful of organic ingredients. With these, I know the exact healthy ingredients that are going into my body. And IMHO, these simple bars just taste better too. They’re not so candy bar sweet, and they don’t have that weird synthetic taste. Here are my three favorite food bars:

Raw Revolution. Green with Music included one of these bars in its shwag bags — and I loved mine. These organic live food bars come in 8 flavors that are sweetened with agave nectar, not sugar, making them tasty without being too sweet.

Though I’m not a big fan of spirulina, I loved the Spirulina & Cashew bar, which is made with just 6 ingredients: cashew, dates, agave nectar, almonds, spirulina, and sprouted flax.

Lara Bar. These raw, unprocesed bars are probably my favorite brand of bars — some of which are organic. Each bar — ranging in flavors from Key Lime Pie to Cocoa Mole — contains a serving of fruit. In fact, the fruit ingredients pretty much provide all the natural sweetness for these yummy bars.

Lara Bar also uses fair trade cocoa for its chocolate-flavored bars — including its line of all-organic Jocalat bars, which have the same healthy goodness of Lara bars, but with more fair trade chocolatey emphasis.

Clif Nectar bars. I don’t like all Clif bars since they seem to pack more soy protein than I can handle — though Clif bars, in general, seem to be a good substitute for the less eco Power Bars. But I do love the newish Clif Nectar bars.

All 4 flavors of this Nectar line are made with 5 or fewer ingredients, and each bar contains 2 servings of fruit! Pick from Cherry Pomegranate, Dark Chocolate Walnut, Cranberry Apricot Almond, and Lemon Vanilla Cashew.

Have another tasty simple bar to recommend? Share your favorites in the comments.

Images via rawrev.com, larabar.com, clifbar.com

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Yes, $82’s an odd number — but if you thought you can’t get a pair of good organic men’s jeans for under $100, think again. Thanks to the recession, you can put entire organic outfits together now for well under $100. Here are a couple eco-fashionable outfits for men — all of which have been tried and tested — and highly recommended — by eco-conscious men. Read on to find the eco-nomical outfit you can wear to the next Green Drinks:

Outfit 1: Sub Urban Riot + Reef = $81.41

Two eco-entrepreneurs helped put this eco outfit together. Tomas Carrillo, author of The Closet Entrepreneur, recommends the Solar Panel t-shirt by Sub Urban Riot. “They’re a bit on the expensive side,” Tomas says, “but I really love sub_urban riot’s designs and their stand on the environment — 100% organic cotton and 1% for the planet.” Each shirt usually costs $39 at Sub Urban Riot, but you can get one for $29.25! Just use the promo code “10925″ (without the quotes) to get 25% off.

Ecopreneur Shea Gunther, who blogs at MNN.com, is a fan of Reef Heritage Organic Denim, regular fit jeans with a classic five pocket design. These are available at Dogfunk.com for just $52.16 a pair, in either black or three-year fade.

Outfit 2: Green Label + Loomstate = $75.99

Tomas says he likes The Green Label Organic “Bio Diesel” t-shirt because “it’s a cool play on the traditional “car guy” tee.” These shirts are made in the U.S. out of organic cotton, and are available for $29 at Green Label Organics.

And Low Impact Living’s Jason Pelletier calls Loomstate jeans his favorites. This well-recognized organic clothing company’s clothes can be found at upscale retailers like Barney’s and Nordstrom — usually with big price tags. Luckily for frugal eco-men, Loomstate indigo rigid wash ‘Genus’ tapered jeans are on sale at Bluefly for a mere $46.99 — 70% off the original $156 sticker price.

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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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Just a few years ago, fair trade chocolate was pretty hard to come by, except ordered in bulk online. Now, every roundup of yummiest chocolates seems to feature at least a couple organic and fair trade chocolates!

So with Valentine’s Day creeping up on us, I thought I’d share my top 3 favorite hot and spicy fair trade chocolate products. Read, eat, and enjoy –

Equal Exchange’s Spicy Hot Cocoa. We’ve got a heat wave in California, but I hear it’s still winter in most other states. This fair trade and organic hot cocoa’s got a kick of chili and cinnamon to keep you warm and toasty. I like to mix it in with my organic soy milk. Get it at Equal Exchange for $7.75 a 12-oz can.

Theo Chocolate’s Coconut Curry Milk Chocolate bar. Who knew chocolate tasted even better with a kick of curry? I discovered these spicy bars at the Eco Gift Festival in Santa Monica a year ago, and have been addicted since. Each gourmet bar costs $3.25; you can get them online at Theo or Amazon — or at Whole Foods and specialty shops.

Larabar Cocoa Môlé. Great thing about Larabars: You always know exactly what you’re getting. In the Cocoa Môlé bar’s case, that’s just six simple, healthy ingredients: fair trade cocoa powder, dates, walnuts, chili, and cinnamon — all organic! The spicy-sweet combo boasts 5 grams of fiber and counts as a serving of fruit to boot — so you don’t have to feel guilty about your chocoholic habits. Find them at Whole Foods, REI, and other stores near you for about $1.75 each, or but a pack of 16 for $19.08 at Amazon.

Know of spicy fair trade chocolate products I’ve missed? Share in the comments –

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Love chocolate syrup on your organic ice cream sundae — but don’t want the mercury and high fructose corn syrup in Hershey’s stuff? Thanks to the burgeoning fair trade and organic market, you actually have a few different options for organic, fair trade chocolate syrup!

Dagoba Organic Chocolate Syrup. Purists will complain that Dagoba got bought up by Hershey’s, whose mercury-laced chocolate syrup inspired this post in the first place. Still, as an individual product, this syrup’s organic, fair trade, and corn-syrup free.

Dagoba’s chocolate syrup’s a bit of a commitment — because you can only get it in huge 64 oz. plastic containers. Obviously, the product’s made more for cafes than individuals — though committed chocoholics could surely make their way through the big bottle. The syrup’s out of stock on Dagoba’s website, but Cafe Campesino’s selling it for $19.95.

CÈ Organic Chocolate Syrup. If you want chocolate syrup for your mocha, CÈ Organic Chocolate Syrup sounds like the most eco choice of the bunch. Both the sugar and the chocolate in this syrup’s organic and fair trade certified. Plus, anti-plastic environmentalists will be happy to know that the syrup comes in glass bottles.

Garden Gourmet Foods kettle cooks this syrup in small batches. Get one 12.7 oz bottle for $8.50 at The Meadow, or a 3-pack at Amazon for $16.91.

You can also make your own fair trade, organic chocolate syrup by following the Homemade Chocolate Syrup Recipe from Beth of Fake Plastic Fish. If you really wanna get super green about it, here’s where you can get fair trade and organic cocoa and vanilla. Fair trade organic sugar should be fairly easy to find at your local supermarket, thanks to Wholesome Sweeteners.

Photos via The Meadow, Dagoba, and Fake Plastic Fish

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Need a good, functional everyday eco-friendly bra to go with your organic cotton T-shirt? I recommend the Unwired Back Closure Bra.

Made by Intimate health by Christina, this Unwired bra’s made of 90% Swiss organic cotton and 10% spandex. As you may have guessed, this bra has no metal underwire. Instead, it has a more flexible underwire-esque support that’s sturdy but won’t dig into you.

The cups are lightly padded and smooth, which makes the bra perfect to wear with T-shirts. I’ve had mine for about a year — I got it after writing my roundup on green bras — and so far, it’s held up well.

The one downside: Unwired bras are made in China — which seems to be true for all functional everyday eco-friendly bras I’ve looked into. (There’s some eco-lingerie that’s made in the U.S. or in Europe, but those are more for special occasions.)

Choose from black or natural. The Unwired Back Closure Bra’s on sale right now at Gaiam for $21.99. A front-closure version’s available too for the same price.

Earlier: Organic cotton bra at Whole Foods

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So you’d like local, organic produce bought at the farmers’ market to be diced, sliced, and prepped from scratch to create gourmet healthy dishes — but don’t have the time, energy, or cooking skills to make that happen. Lucky for you, a whole bunch of sustainable meal delivery services have popped up to meet your dining needs.

Here they are, listed from most to least diet-specific (juice fast deliveries would’ve topped the list, but I didn’t include them because juice doesn’t qualify as a meal in my book). The dollar amount in bold is the cost of 10 meals — or 5 lunches and 5 dinners for your work week — so you’d have some basis for price comparison.

Rawvolution’s The Box: Raw vegan

Going raw and vegan in 2009? The people behind Euphoria Loves Rawvolution, a raw food restaurant in Santa Monica, can make it easier for you via The Box. Each box includes 4 entrées, 4 side dishes, 2 soups, and 2 desserts — which Rawevolution says is enough for 2 meals for 4-5 days. I remain slightly dubious about this — mainly because after I eat a raw meal, I get hungry like 10 minutes later and need more food…. This may explain why so many serious raw foodies are frightfully thin, however.

Menu items include dishes like Greek Pizza, Spinach & Cheese Quiche, and Homemade Apple Crumble — but having dined at Rawvolution, I can guarantee you that none of those will actually taste like their conventional counterparts, because they’ll be, you know, raw.

Delivery: Once a week to the greater LA area. FedEx delivery available throughout the U.S.

Cost: Each box costs $120, which Rawvolution says should feed you 2 meals for 4-5 days. There’s a $10 delivery fee in L.A., though you can either pickup the box yourself for free or get it FedExed for a lot more money.

Order: Buy online.

Seedling Organic Catering: Vegan

Chef Kristina Brindley makes vegan dishes using organic, local ingredients — including produce from Tierra Miguel, a local community supported agriculture farm. Vegan doesn’t mean boring; Seedling delivers everything from empanadas to Japanese macrobiotic entrees to citrus vanilla layer cake.

Each week’s menu includes 5 entrees, 2 soups, and 2 desserts — so if you want both lunch and dinner, you’ll need to make a double order. Kristina says she’s currently reworking the menu a little to try to make larger sizes of less variety and hopefully lower the price a little, so check back in February if the prices are too high for you right now.

Delivery: Once a week to the greater Los Angeles area.

Cost: A week’s order costs $120, but if you want 10 meals, you’ll need to get the double order, priced at $200.

Order: Call 310.309.7152 or email kristina@seedlingcatering.com

Vegin’ Out: Vegan

I’ve tried this vegan delivery service — and liked it, for the most part. Vegin’ Out gets much of its produce from the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market; about 75% of the ingredients in Vegin’ Out’s trans fat-free meals are certified organic.

Each delivery includes multiple servings of 3 different entrees, 4 side dishes, 1 soup, and 5 cookies — enough for 9-10 meals. The one downside to this is that if you don’t like one of the dishes, you’re stuck with a bunch more of it. On the upside, Vegin’ Out’s super cheap.

Delivery: Once a week to the greater Los Angeles area.

Cost: At $110 for 9-10 meals, this service is a real bargain. DHL shipping in Socal outside the L.A. area costs $15.

Order: Buy online.

Clean Plate Meals: No dairy / eggs

If you shun dairy and eggs — but dig sustainable seafood and free-range, hormone-free meat, Clean Plate’s for you. Is there a name for a pro fish and meat but anti eggs and dairy diet?

In any case — Clean Plate Meals’ meals sound more gourmet and upscale — with dishes like stuffed sole with sweet pea puree and topped with a fresh herb gremolata, over jasmin rice — and uses at least 90% farm-fresh organic, local, seasonal ingredients. All food’s also wheat and gluten-free and can be veganized upon request.

Delivery: Once a week to West L.A. and surrounding areas.

Cost: A 5-day week of lunches and dinners (10 meals) costs $285 a week ($410 with snacks). Half-week and kid packages are also available.

Order: The web order form doesn’t seem to be working, so call 310.908.4753.

* From here on, the meal delivery services get very meat heavy — the carbon footprint of which has got to be quite considerable, even if everything’s organic, grass fed, and free range.

Club Gourmet: Zone diet

This company’s basically a Zone meal delivery service — with an organic and local bent. (via YDT) Would-be thinner environmentalists can sign up to get 1200-1400 calorie meals (1800 to 2000 for men) delivered to their doorstep every morning.

Dieting doesn’t come cheap though, since the meals at Club Gourmet really do appear to be very gourmet. Menu items include fennel-crusted duck breast, orange-scented natural veal osso bucco and other meaty stuff, so vegetarians should steer clear.

Delivery: Daily to the greater Los Angeles area

Price: 5 lunches and dinners will cost you $50 a day or $250 a week; the “optimum health menu” which also includes breakfast and 2 snacks will set you back $80 a day. Longer package deals are available. The bare minimum you can order is $50 a day, at least 3 times a week.

Order: Call 310.598.6640.

Paleta

This personal chef meal delivery service can get you 3 meals plus 2 snacks for all 7 days of the week — delivered six days a week (Sat. and Sun. deliveries arrive together). Paleta boasts about its LEED-certified commercial kitchen featuring local, seasonal, and organic ingredients.

Most meals (including breakfasts!) are meat-centric — Mustard Tarragon Glazed Pork Tenderloin, Mediterranean Turkey Meat Loaf, and the like.

Delivery: 6 days a week to the greater Los Angeles area

Cost: Each lunch or dinner costs $18, so 10 meals would cost $180 — except there’s a $39 daily minimum. Snacks cost $6 a pop, so if you added one of those on you’d get 10 meals and 5 snacks for $210.

Order: Sign up online, call 301.396.7820 or email info@paleta.com.

JAM.

Like Paleta, most of JAM’s main dishes are based around meat. JAM uses local and organic ingredients to make dishes like chicken pot pie and braised short ribs.

JAM boasts a 7-day menu, but only one meal’s created per day. So if you were hoping to get both lunch and dinner delivered, you’ll need to order 2-people’s worth of every dish — and eat the same meal twice each day.

Delivery: Twice a week to the Greater Los Angeles area.

Cost: 10 meals (2-person portions of 5 different meals) costs $208 — plus a $10 delivery charge. If you just want to try out the service, you can order as little as 2 meals for $50. Want all 3 meals plus 2 snacks? That’ll cost $59 a day, or $413 a week.

Order: Call 310.403.5638 or email jen@jamgourmet.com

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