Stumptown Coffee

A guest post from me pops:

"I don't know if you want to pay $12 per pound of coffee, but I recommend that you review Stumptown's great coffee. I have read in several places over the last few years that Stumptown - in Portland - makes the best coffee of all the "gourmet blenders". They are not big like Starbucks, and only have a few stores in that area, but they are consistently rated the best. I also found them rated tops in Consumer Reports, as I recall. I read somewhere that Portland folks will line up at length each morning just to drink Stumptown's coffee. I think they are a green company, also, and that much of their beans are free trade. If you visit their site www.stumptowncoffee.com you can read all about them. You can find their organic blends at between $12 and $13 per pound, which is high but may be worth the cost, at least for a treat." --Pappa Java

I checked out the site and found this bit: "Believing in the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable business leads us to not only support coffee farms that are committed to the well being of their workers, land and water, it compels us to be a sustainable business in our own community. Providing health insurance for our employees and donating freshly roasted coffee to the Oregon Food Bank are some of the ways that we act on our belief in sustainability."

That's a lot of money for coffee, and most of us will need it shipped, but I'd gladly support these guys because of what they do.

Arm & Hammer

I just read this on top of the baking soda box:

"Our Environmental Commitment. For over a century Arm & Hammer has helped the environment. Since 1888 we've encouraged protection of wildlife with our bird cards. Our boxes have used recycled paper for more than 80 years. Recently we've developed technology to purify drinking water and reduce smokestack pollution. Environmentally sensible products are part of our heritage. Century old Arm & Hammer Baking Soda and ... Super Washing Soda are environmentally acceptable alternatives to other household products. A&H Laundry Detergent pioneered the 1970 introduction of phosphate-free detergents. We remain committed to providing products that help you and our environment."

I can't find anything more than a general sustainability statement on the parent company's (Church & Dwight Co) or the Arm & Hammer site that expounds on that box-top statement, but now I'll have to do a little research to get the details.

Organic Birthday

I wrote about my wife's 30% organic shopping trip to Meijer, and yesterday was the day we celebrated by birthday and got to eat all those goodies. The breakfast was smoothies with organic yogurt, bananas, blueberries, and orange juice; and organic eggs and turkey sausage. The highlight was the organic ice cream cake (no cake mix). The crust was a layer of crushed organic chocolate cookies held together with organic unsalted butter. Then two layers of Meijer Organics ice cream of different flavors, and topped with melted organic fair trade chocolate chips. It is excellent!

Meijer has come out with their own brand of organics called Meijer Organics. All the containers have this wording: "All Meijer Organics products are made with: No artificial ingredients; minimal processing; no pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormones; dedication to renewable farming practices." The orange juice carton I read that off of does have a USDA Organic cert stamp.

Mission Accomplished

I covered Mission Organic 2010 here, and described the mission to purchase 10% organic products by 2010. Well, my wife whipped that goal yesterday: of the 82 items purchased on her weekly Meijer grocery trip, 25 were organic for an astounding 30%!

Two of those items were organic cotton clothes, which grabbed her attention with the large "organic" sign above them, and they were on sale. It's a brand called I.W.I., which I can't for the life of me find any reference to online. The label says cut and sewn in Taiwan, and finished in China.

If she had gone to "Fresh Market" or "Whole Foods" or "Trader Joe's", you might not even be able to get under 50% organic, but we're talking Meijer in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The bill? A lot! There's no doubt we paid more for many of the organic items vs. their normal competitors. And I can't say that we'll get 30% every time from now on, as this trip was in preparation for my bday, when I will be treated to all-organic breakfast and dinner - including ice cream pie!

Local Agriculture

I've been talking about organic groceries, and also about buying local. Local Harvest is a great resource for finding local organic produce from small farms near you. There are literally thousands of sources listed. We found a farmers market just about 2 miles from our house on this site, and also discovered Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). If you haven't heard of a CSA, they are membership programs in which you buy "shares" (a full or a half, usually). Each week you stop by the market and pick up a box of whatever is in season.

So, check out your farmers' market or jump right into a local CSA.

Mission Organic

A non-profit group called The Organic Center has launched a campaign to try to get Americans to get to 10% organic consumption by 2010. Right now, America is at about 2%, which is higher than I expected. They're calling the campaign Mission Organic 2010. Whether you pledge to or not, check out their site. It has a lot of very good information and links about organic food, including recent science on human and environmental health related to the fertilizers and pesticides used in "non-organic" food production.

I believe that knowledge is the only way to get many more people to change behaviors (buying organic as one), and The Organic Center seems to offer quite a bit. And I did check to see that it was non-profit before suggesting it.

As I mentioned before, organic products are more readily available every day. Via TreeHugger.

Organic Everywhere

Whether you're just curious about "Organic" products or you buy nothing but, you can't deny the explosion of the availability of organic products in the last few months. Remember, I'm talking Fort Wayne, Indiana here. If this were San Fran or New York, well ... you know.

Probably 6 months ago Wal-Mart announced the organic children's clothing line called George (not all George products are organic though). Now I'm learning that one can find more and more organic products every day at Meijer. That includes ice cream and even frozen fruit - perfect for my smoothie fix.

You have probably noticed that many grocery stores now have a small organic food section too.

No matter how organic you are or want to be, it's getting easy for even the most midwestern of us!