This holiday season, rise above the noise of excess and gift with purpose by selecting presents that champion your values. Consider purchases that restore ecology, improve livelihood, and ensure animal welfare for farming communities. To support a sustainable and regenerative future, give clean and nourishing food and beverages.

My memories of Nana, my paternal grandmother, are vivid. She taught me the proper way to place a single slice of lox on top of a bagel smeared with cream cheese. The trick was to spread the lox out so thinly with the back of a fork that you could see the hole of the bagel and the white of the cheese through it. Lox was a true luxury food in the 1950s and not to be eaten lightly. Nana’s emphasis on frugality was, I now understand, the psychological residue of her experience of multiple life crises – immigration from Poland to San Francisco in the early 20th century, the 1906 earthquake, World War I, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, and World War II.

Only two strains of probiotics are shelf-stable, whereas different and diverse strains can be present in refrigerated probiotics. But shelf-stable probiotics have the advantage that they can be used in other food products, like granolas, butter, soups, etc. Just don’t mess with the packaging or open blister packs until you want to use them, as they are packed for preservation. Dead probiotics won’t harm you, but they don’t have any health benefits either. 

The coffee harvest period begins in October in the low altitude and extends until March in the higher-altitude areas. If traveling during this period, consider checking out the El Carmen Estate, a coffee plantation founded in 1930 in the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range next to the quaint town of Concepción de Ataco. Consider taking the integral tour, a three-hour immersive adventure into all things coffee. 

Drip coffee. French press. Espresso. Double espresso. Cold brew. Latte on draft. There are very few things people are as loyal to as they are to their favorite coffee - from bean to brew method to barista. We consume 12 billion pounds of coffee per year worldwide. About 83 percent of adults in the U.S. consume coffee. Ninety percent of coffee production takes place in developing countries, with Brazil at the number one spot.