Dare I say this has been my favorite Organic September challenge so far? In the name of research, this week I have been replacing any treats I would usually have eaten or drank (and some I probably wouldn’t have otherwise) with organic alternatives.
Wine
Grapes are one of the so-called “dirty dozen” crops with the highest levels of pesticides found in the finished product. Grapes grown for wine can be heavily exposed to pesticides and, particularly since ‘anti-rot’ fungicides are often applied later in the growing season, traces can remain in the finished product. Switching to organic wine is therefore a great choice for your health – providing you’re drinking it in moderation, that is – as well as for the environment.
For the challenge I picked up three bottles from WaitroseCellar, Waitrose’s dedicated wine site. I loved how easy it was not only to filter by ‘organic’ on the website, but also by ‘vegetarian,’ making life so much easier. They have a great selection of organic white, red and rose wines that are both organic and vegetarian-friendly. For the record, despite all temptation, I didn’t drink all three bottles in one week – they’ve been seeing me through my whole Organic September!
On the subject of vegetarian-friendly alcohol, if you’re not already familiar with it, Barnivore is a huge help to determine which alcoholic drinks are and aren’t vegetarian or vegan when they’re not labelled either way.
Chocolate
Cocoa is another crop that’s often heavily doused in fertilisers and pesticides, so fortunately there are some great brands out there producing amazing organic chocolate. One of my favourites, who I’ve talked about before, is Seed and Bean chocolate who have an incredible twelve different flavours of vegan dark chocolate available and plenty more organic milk and white chocolate varieties.
Another organic chocolate brand, whose chocolate I picked up for this week’s Organic September challenge, is Green and Black’s who also create some delicious flavours such as the Maya gold with orange and spices. All of their chocolate is vegetarian-friendly too and many of their dark chocolate varieties do not contain milk – however, they are not certified vegan since they are produced on the same line as their milk-containing products. If you’re vegan, how do you feel about that? Would you still eat chocolate that contained no added animal products but was produced in this way?
Homemade Treats
Finally, I decided to explore how easy it would be to whip up some homemade treats using organic ingredients. It turned out to be very easy indeed and with organic oats, organic dates and organic cashew butter readily available, it was a great excuse to make up an all-organic batch of these raw Caramel Oat Bites!
Have you treated yourself at all this week?
This post is in collaboration with Waitrose who kindly provided the organic treats but all thoughts are my own!