Green Options

We cranked up the woodstove for the first time this season last night at Inn Serendipity. The cool, fall nighttime breezes have arrived here in Wisconsin, and that means just one thing: time for hot cocoa. But not just any hot cocoa. When my husband, John Ivanko, and I moved from Chicago apartments to our Wisconsin farm, we traded convenience for countryside. No more quick runs to the mini mart store at the end of the urban block for a missing ingredient. . With civilization now a fifteen-minute drive away, I’ve learned the art of self-sufficiency by creatively making store bought mixes with pantry ingredients.

Hot cocoa serves up a good example of how making your own mixes from pantry staples deliver benefits on multiple fronts:

My favorite vegan, GMO free margarine is Earth Balance.  It works well with the many allergies and celiac in our family.  Because soy is among the eight most common allergens, Earth Balance now has a soy free spread and to get the word out we get to give some free coupons away.

Earth Balance Soy Free Spread is vegan, all natural, free of gluten, lactose and soy, has zero grams of transfat and is a great source of omega 3’s.

Here’s our favorite recipe for a gluten free, dairy free, vegan treat which everyone loves. We always bake with Earth Balance.  The best part is no one knows these goodies are healthy (sweet, yes… but also chock full of good stuff) unless you tell them!

What do you get when you mix the red of Valentine’s Day with some green? Not green as in heaps of cash. Think green as in feel-good, save the planet – with a dash of that other green message the M&M market lustfully embraced this V-Day. Ahem.

Red and green blended make brown – think brown as in rich, sweet chocolate. And in the spirit of the love season, think chocolate served as body paint, Valentine’s Day art supplies for grown-ups served naked with a warm smile. Yummy.

Perhaps you’re searching fro a new way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Instead of an expensive dinner out or a bouquet of imported flowers from thousands of miles away, try chocolate. Au naturale.

Love and sustainability mix well, especially when you cook up the (vegan!) recipe for I Love You Freely and Fairly Eco Chocolate Body Paint below. What makes this recipe different than the commercial body paint stuff you see floating around this time of year? True love, baby, true love. Love for the planet, your pocketbook and, as an extra bonus, the long-term health of your sweetie:

Like to shop Fair Trade? Like to shop handmade? Consider combining the two this holiday season by finding and supporting a local craft fair that supports Fair Trade and Equal Exchange practices.

A Fair Trade craft fair will likely include the following components:

1. craft makers and handmade artisans who utilize eco-conscious materials [...]

As I continue to write and think about the issue
of Fair Trade, it becomes more and more apparent to me that our economic system is a root cause for a wide array of our world’s woes. Instances of poverty, disease, wars (and the dehumanization that accompanies all three), and our quickly degrading environment occuring all over the world (but especially in the poorer Southern hemisphere) can all be traced back to an economic

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As any movement for change develops and grows, it will face challenges to its original intentions. When a movement grows to the point that it begins to move from the fringes into the mainstream, as the Fair Trade movement has, it will face a host of difficult challenges. Most dramatically, the Fair Trade movement faces a trial of integrity as some of the largest corporations in the world are trying to

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