Holiday Gift Guide: For the Foodie
Photo via Seed Savers Exchange
Open-Pollinated Seeds
Any green home cook needs at least a few herbs growing on the window sill—if not a thriving plot out back or at their community garden. Open-pollinated seed varieties ensure that the seeds will be the gift that keeps on giving year after year since, unlike hybrid varieties, they retain their parent characteristics and can be saved for future plantings. Members of the Seed Savers Exchange stock and share these rare heirloom seeds; currently, they offer more than 24,000 different types of flowers, fruit, vegetables, and herbs. Gift your favorite green-thumbed family member with a festively-packaged starter collection (the popular Heritage Farm Favorites includes cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, carrots, beans, and lettuce) or a more focused set, like the potato sampler. (Seed Savers Exchange, from $13.50)And if the foodie on your list lives in Canada, try a membership with the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada. With a $20 membership, the member gets 5 varieties to plant in their garden, and when they report back the results they get five more at no extra cost. (Seed and Plant Sanctuary, $20)
Photo via Glee Gum
Glee Gum Make-Your-Own Kits
These kits from Glee Gum make great stocking stuffers for kids. Choose one of three: The chocolate kit includes organic cocoa butter from Costa Rica; the gummy kit contains carrageenan made from seaweed from the Philippines; and the chewing gum kit includes chicle from the rain forests of Central America. They come with full instructions plus a lesson on where the ingredients come from and are a great way to connect kids to the global food system—while pre-empting future candy bar-related checkout line breakdowns. (Glee Gum, $13)
Photo via Sun BD Corporation
Eartheasy Solar Oven
The sun is great for lots of things, including cooking dinner. Not yet mainstream, solar cookers have come a long way from the DIY variety that look like a minor league satellite dish. Two models available in the U.S. from Eartheasy, the Global Sun Oven and the Tulsi Hybrid Solar Oven, which has an electric back-up in case the clouds roll in before cooking is complete, will save money and emissions from cooking fuel while cooking anything you would put in your regular oven. (Eartheasy, $225-$245)
Next: personalized olive oil, farm-fresh produce, and backyard chickens
