TODAY'S TURN: Take a dairy section detour

Organic Valley Family of Farms produces batches of gourmet butter that win awards all over the world. It's completely organic and part of a small family farmer-owned cooperative.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "They give out awards for butter?"

I guess when you take extra care to raise dairy animals the right way, with organic feed and pastures, your product is going to contain extra yum. The company even kicks 10% of profits into local communities. The best part is, you can find it at most any major grocery or health food chain.

I grew up surrounded by farms so we used to get our milk, eggs, etc. fresh from the folks down the street a-ways. So I can testify that the overprocessed, oversalted, oversaturated pale yellow sludge we paste on our morning toast is NOT true butter. As fresh as possible is how it was meant to be.

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Check out even more goodly goodies from Organic Valley

Share a Good Turn with a Friend!

Here's your good turn for today: share this site with a bunch of your friends.

See that little green icon in the right sidebar that looks like conjoined tadpoles? It's a ShareThis button. It's under the the subhead that says "Share a Good Turn with a Friend." (Well, you might not see it I guess. For some unexplained reason, it simply doesn't show up sometimes. Kind of hit or miss. It's the pothead of icons that way.) Click that thing and you're free to spread the word...

If it were any easier, it'd be on Rock of Love.

Some chocolate tastes a bit sour

Speaking of chocolate... found a captivating slideshow that tells the story of much of the world's chocolate. Stripped of romance, it's a cutting reminder that we need to make sure the entire chocolate chain is doing their best to improve working conditions.

See "Chocolate's Not-So-Sweet Side" at msnbc.com.

West Africa produces the biggest pile of cocoa in the world - 40% comes from small farms in the Ivory Coast alone. The slideshow sketches a scene of child labor in that country that probably won't show up on an FTD commercial.

Chocolate companies, exporters, middlemen and small cocoa farmers all have their jobs to do. Now we just have to figure out who's got the responsibility.

TODAY'S TURN: Give chocolates with real heart

I'll spare you the dog-tired, extra-toothy Valentine's Day carnival schtick ("It's that time of year again guys!" or "Love is in the air" or "Cupid is aiming his arro -- okay, make it STOP!!!)

Let's just get straight to the point, because you're busy and... well... your lady is serious about chocolate. Very serious.

Here's how it works:
Chocolate = yummy
Good chocolate = Good times
Extra good chocolate = TBD

This year, pick up some chocolate that's extra good in a new way: chocolate hearts from Divine Chocolate. This fair trade company is co-owned by the farmers of Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana. The farmers' ownership helps build schools, sink wells for clean drinking water, and set up mobile medical clinics in remote growing regions.

Can't get much gooder than that.

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Find out where to buy sweet love from Divine Chocolate at a store near you.

TODAY'S TURN: Drop the chops in half

Meat, for lack of a better word, is good. Meat is right. Meat works. Can you tell I like meat?

I'll never be a vegetarian, but they may be onto something. Eating LESS meat may be good too. Good for the land. Good for the gut. Good for poor people around the world.

Here are some recipes that do more flavor-packing than meat-packing. They all include meat. They just include less.

Take my beloved beef for instance. I look at a steak like a shark eyeing Robert Shaw, but it comes with a price. The average feedlot steer in the U.S. downs 2,700 pounds of grain. Not only could that grain be used to feed hungry people, but just growing the stuff takes up a lot of land. And more land for grazing pastures. Enter deforestation. Enter soil depletion and water waste. And exit the rural families who are left without land, without jobs and forced to drain into urban slums. Doesn't happen this way with all meat producers, but it does happen.

So if you don't want to chuck out the chuck, it couldn't hurt to carve some of it out of the menu.


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Less Meat, More Flavor Recipes
- Stir-fried Greens with Pork Shiitakes, and Black Bean Sauce
- Shrimp Pad Thai
- Korean-style Tofu, Vegetable, and Beef Stew
- Coconut Ginger Curry with Vegetables and Halibut