Coffee and Chocolate: Choose Organic, Fair Trade, Shade

Coffee and chocolate are two dependable daily pleasures that often go together. And recent research shows that chocolate may help reduce high blood pressure. Although one fifth of all coffee and a similar amount of chocolate are consumed in the U.S., they are mainly grown in Africa, Latin America and Asia, often in conditions harmful to workers, wildlife and the environment.

Until the 1970s, both coffee and cacao, the chocolate seed, were grown under the protective shade of the rain-forest canopy. Today, almost half of all coffee and an increasing share of cacao from Latin America are "full-sun" grown by clearing rain forests and using large doses of chemicals and fertilizers to force higher yields. But full-sun coffee plantations have 94 to 97 percent fewer bird species than shade plantations, and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) has found as much insect diversity in shaded cacao plantations as in lowland rain forest.

A 2000 survey by the Guatemalan Commission for the Verification of Codes of Conduct estimated that nearly half of workers on Guatemalan coffee plantations, 8.6 percent of whom are 18 years old or younger, were paid less than that country's minimum wage. Many live in unsanitary conditions without access to health care. And, according to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, nearly 300,000 children endure dangerous working conditions on West African cacao farms.

Coffee and Chocolate Labels to Look For

* "Certified Organic"

* "Fair Trade Certified" ensures that companies pay farmers fair prices. More than 100 U.S. coffee companies have licensing agreements with TransFair, including Starbucks, Peet's and Green Mountain. Yet fair trade coffee still represents less than one percent of Starbucks' total coffee sales. The largest chocolate manufacturers, including Mars and Nestle, have yet to go fair trade.

* Certified "Shade Grown" includes SMBC's "Bird Friendly," Audubon and Rainforest Alliance's shade-grown labels.

* Triple certified—"Organic," "Shade Grown" and "Fair Trade"—products are the ideal but currently hard to find.

Here are a few:

COFFEE

Equal Exchange's Organic Breakfast Blend ($8/12 oz.; www.equalexchange.com; 781-830-0303)

Caffe Ibis's Organic Espresso Roast Blend ($9.49/12 oz.; www.caffeibis.com; 888-740-4777)

Grounds for Change Sumatra Roast ($8.95/12 oz.; www.groundsforchange.com; 800-796-6820)

Millstone Coffee ($7.99/10-12 oz.; www.millstone.com)

Cafe Canopy's triple certified French Roast ($10.50/12 oz.; www.cafecanopy.com; 888-299-1147)

CHOCOLATE

La Siembra Group's Cocoa Camino (www.lasiembra.com/home.htm; 613-235-6122) hot chocolate, chocolate bars. Buy at globalexchange.org, www.serrv.org and www.chocosphere.com.

Green & Black's and Maya Gold Chocolate $3.50-$4 for a 100-gram bar (www.greenandblacks.com)

Equal Exchange (see above) hot-cocoa mix ($6 for a 12-oz. can)

See Coffee and Chocolate product reports at www.thegreenguide.com.