Minimize your carbon footprint with these “Green Gift Options”.

100-Mile Gift Basket

In 2005, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon began a one-year experiment in local eating. By only eating locally produced foods within a 100-mile radius of where they lived, their experiment struck a chord with many and brought a whole new meaning to the idea of eating locally.

Eating locally helps to minimize your carbon footprint and is thus less harmful to the environment. For example, the average piece of food on the typical North American kitchen table has travelled two and a half thousands kilometers, from farm to processor to packager to store to consumer. By supporting local farmers and food producers, eating locally also helps to create local jobs and optimizes local resources.

Additionally, eating locally encourages eating foods in season and makes us more aware of the natural world and its rhythms.

With those concepts in mind, we have created a range of 100-mile gift baskets and hampers that include Gourmet Foods and delectables from within a 100-mile radius of Vancouver. Some of these yummy treats are:

1)Gone Crackers – a unique and savory compliment to wine and are ideal on their own.

2)Tasty shortbread biscuits with a blend of fruits and edible flowers.

3)Demerara butter crunch

4)Smoked salmon

5)Vegetable antipasto

6)Gourmet chocolate

7)Sweet orsavory chips

8)Local teas and much more delicious products that are all made locally.

These tasty treats can be packaged in your choice of locally made wooden crates, produced from pine beetle wood and made by women on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This is a creative way to utilize the pine beetle wood and provides support to women through Tradeworks, a social enterprise program. Program participants are recovering from substance abuse and other personal trauma, have little or no work experience, live in poverty, and lack the skills and confidence to become employed. The long-term goal of the program is to help participants transition from the woodworking shop to gainful employment. Each and every box purchased impacts their lives in a positive way.

Green Zebra Booklet

Another “Green Gift Option” is Green Zebra, a booklet containing local savings for sustainable living.

Packed with more than 250 exclusive offers totaling thousands of dollars in savings, Green Zebraencourages you to explore eco-friendly businesses in the Vancouver area. The booklet contains savings for retailers, restaurants, markets, green home services, wellness resources, bookstores and more. The best part is that the Green Zebra booklet is valid through to December 2009. This green gift provides a whole year of discovering green shops and services, strengthening your community, and most importantly preserving your planet!