The Green Life

My Eco-Valentine

Pink and red may take center stage this Valentine's Day, but that's no reason to forget about green. For the flower lovers in your life, consider seasonal bouquets grown as locally as possible. While imported flowers undergo inspection for pests, pesticide residue gets a free pass. That encourages growers to use highly toxic sprays, says the Pesticide Action Network. Look for blossoms that are organic or certified by the VeriFlora Sustainability Council, such as those sold at californiaorganicflowers.com. In season this time of year are bright anemones, tulips, and Dutch irises. Now what about chocolate? Selfless Sierra Club staffers tested 15 chocolate bars--all certified organic or fair trade, or made by small-scale artisanal companies. These three emerged as crave-worthy winners:

Artisanal
Madagascar premium dark chocolate by Amano Artisan Chocolate
Made with only cocoa beans, cocoa butter, cane sugar, and vanilla pods, this bar (minimum 70 percent cocoa) earned top marks for its tempting appearance, smooth texture, moderate sweetness, and pure cocoa flavor. This, our panelists agreed, is how chocolate should taste. amanochocolate.com

Organic 
New Moon 74 percent bittersweet dark chocolate by Dagoba Organic Chocolate
Organic cocoa beans, evaporated cane juice, cocoa butter, and non-GMO soy lecithin (an emulsifier) make up this smooth bar, which earned the highest score for aroma. One panelist described it as "dark and satisfying," and many detected coffee and earthy flavors complementing the "solidly unadorned chocolate" taste. dagobachocolate.com

Fair Trade
Art Bar exquisite Swiss dark chocolate with coconut by Ithaca Fine Chocolates
Certified both fair trade and organic, this bar (minimum 58 percent cocoa) scored better among panelists favoring semisweet or unsweetened chocolate over a sweeter bar. The coconut was a turnoff for some ("Reminds me of a flavored coffee," one noted), but most liked the nutty flavor and preferred it to other fair-trade entries, which struck tasters as "a little grainy" and too fruity, "like Skittles." ithacafinechocolates.com

Trendsetter: Art Pollard, Amano Artisan Chocolate

The Wasatch Range may not have Oompa Loompas, but crisp air makes the region suited to manufacturing small batches of single-origin dark chocolate. That's the specialty of Utah-based Amano Artisan Chocolate, which former physics lab machinist Art Pollard founded in 2006. Inspired by Belgian chocolate he tasted during his honeymoon, Pollard began studying the delicacy a decade ago, tracking down small-scale plantations with world-class cocoa beans and retooling lab equipment to make his own bars. Today Amano uses mostly vintage processors and is one of fewer than 25 artisanal bean-to-bar chocolate companies in the United States.

Q: What's so special about single-origin chocolate bars?
A: Every area creates its own flavors as a result of microclimates, soil conditions, and genetics. If you pick apples from nearby valleys, they taste pretty much the same. But cocoa grown two valleys apart--it's vastly different. It's a more sensitive crop, and there has been little effort to settle on distinct varieties as we have with other fruit.

Q: How can small chocolate makers influence a $13 billion industry?
A: Large cocoa companies don't encourage distinct native varieties, which have emerged from growing in a particular area for thousands of years and may have better flavor. Instead, preference goes to crops that have disease resistance and high productivity. Historically, it's been hard to separate one or two tons that are really special. We're helping farmers produce better beans and paying premium prices for them. Without that, we could lose the genetic heritage of cocoa.

A Healthy Start

Year after year, we resolve to get fit and, increasingly, go green. But studies suggest lasting change requires a bit more specificity than resolutions like "drive less" or "exercise more." To get started: 1. Make a list of short daily or weekly car trips. In the United States, one in four trips is a mile or less. 2. Identify walkable trips on this list that add up to at least 28 miles a week (go farther if you plan to bike). Research shows that people who maintain weight loss burn calories equivalent to this amount of activity. And cutting four miles from daily driving trims about 1,600 pounds of greenhouse-gas emissions annually.

Fresh Reads

Skip the postholiday letdown with a slew of new books. Start with Forecast (Henry Holt and Co.) by Stephan Faris--an account of climate-change impacts on cultures, politics, and economies worldwide. For a pick-me-up, turn to The Essential Green You by Deirdre Imus (Simon & Schuster), which includes shopping lists, recipes, and explanations of product labels. Ready for more green lit? Check out Death by Leisure (Grove Press), in which author Chris Ayres infiltrates the Los Angeles "leisuretocracy" to examine (with no small amount of humor) how high-flying U.S. lifestyles have contributed to environmental and economic collapse.

Green on the Go

Calculating carbon footprints can involve fuzzy math: You take your best guess at distances traveled and vehicle efficiency, and hope for a good estimate of your impact on the planet. The GPS-enabled calculator Carbon Diem, set to launch this year, aims to provide more-accurate measurements with less effort. It's part of a wave of new applications, such as Avego, Ecorio, and Carticipate, designed to make low-impact transit a no-brainer. Carbon Diem loads onto location-aware mobile devices and measures speed and movement patterns--the evenness of trains, for example, or the starts and stops of buses--to track emissions associated with your chosen mode of transport. carbondiem.com

Cyclist Survival

Biking to work in the spring and summer is a joy, but you'd have to be nuts to do it in the winter, right? Not at all, say "icebikers," diehard cyclists who pedal through sleet, snow, and dark of wintry night with a little extra gear and a lot of finesse. Here are some of their strategies:

Mix and Match
Features built into cycling gear are useful in warmer months but can leave you cold and damp in the winter. Enthusiasts at icebike.org recommend turning to items designed for other sports, such as hiking. To keep your toes from going numb on the pedals, opt for lightweight, waterproof boots roomy enough for wool socks. Or try a pair of water-repellent, insulated booties that fit snugly over cleats or regular shoes, available from rei.com and performancebike.com.

Play It Safe
Bright, reflective clothing and lights are so important for winter cyclists they almost go without saying. What else can you do to stay safe on a cold-weather commute? Dressing in layers can limit your range of motion, so opt for a helmet-mounted mirror, which allows you to scope out traffic without craning your neck. Try to brake and turn on drier patches of road, and use only your rear brake to minimize swerving and skidding when forced to stop on slippery ice.

Baby Your Bike
Water, ice, road salt, and mud can accelerate the deterioration of a bike's moving parts and brake pads. For a ride that stays shipshape whatever nature pelts, slams, and splashes your way, ramp up your bike's maintenance. Chicago-based bikewinter.org suggests installing front and back splash guards, cleaning wheel rims as soon as they acquire gunk, and lubing moving parts at least once a week. If batteries or battery-powered lamps detach easily, bring them inside when temperatures drop below freezing to prolong their life.

Green Biz

"Vote with your dollars" has become a common refrain among proponents of products ranging from renewable energy to all-natural shampoo. But for the average consumer trying to avoid certain chemicals or business practices, finding info can be overwhelming. A new crop of databases packed with information about the social, environmental, and health effects of consumer products--and the rise of mobile devices that allow on-the-spot access--could change that.

For the Web site goodguide.com, academics and technologists have devised an algorithm to rank personal-care and household products based on data from U.S., European Union, and California regulators, as well as nonprofits and research institutions. Tokyo-based start-up Rinen is developing an environmental-load calculator (opentrace.org) based on manufacturing inputs. However brilliant the algorithms, Jeff Hohensee, CEO of the consulting firm Natural Capitalism Incorporated, says the biggest challenge for Web sites like GoodGuide and OpenTrace may be reducing consumer effort to zero. "People are not doing backflips for things that are sustainable," he says, but as these new tools evolve, you may not have to. "If [businesses] are not way out ahead of the curve," Hohensee says, "they're going to be way out of business."

Cocoa Quiz

Which country eats the most chocolate per capita? (a) Belgium (b) France (c) Germany (d) Mexico (e) Switzerland (f) United States

Global demand for cocoa has increased by what annual percentage for the past century?

Answers: (e), 3 percent