A conscience eased and a palate teased

9:27am Monday 3rd March 2008

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FOOD shopping these days can seem like negotiating your way through an ethical minefield - should you consider animal welfare issues, go organic to avoid pesticides, or low fat to avoid obesity?

The 'guilt' list seems endless, but buying food with a Fairtrade mark could be one easy way to ease your conscience.

The logo is an independent guarantee that disadvantaged people in the developing world who produce your food are getting a good deal. The movement, initiated in the late 1980s, is celebrating annual Fairtrade Fortnight which runs until March 9.

This year, well-known chef Sophie Grigson has edited a new book, The Fairtrade Everyday Cookbook, to support the campaign. It's filled with recipes using Fairtrade ingredients created by aspiring cooks nationwide, as well as celebrities.

A Moroccan recipe with bite has won Charmouth chef Sheila Gilbey a place in the new cookbook.

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) with Moroccan Sauce is one of Mrs Gilbey's many culinary creations and is made mainly with Fairtrade ingredients.

Mrs Gilbey said: "I found out about this online, on the Fairtrade website.

"One of the stipulations for sending in a recipe was to use Fairtrade produce as much as possible."

Quinoa - the grain of the Incas - grows mainly in South America and is a fairly bland, wholesome grain, so Mrs Gilbey livened it up with plenty of Fairtrade spices.

Mrs Gilbey will get plenty of opportunity to show off her creativity in the kitchen when she and husband, Nick, open The Abbots House - the former Queens Arms - as a restaurant with rooms in Charmouth in mid-April.

Mrs Gilbey has had three of her recipes published on the web by www.foodfullstop.com and when her new restaurant is up and running, she is planning to write The Abbots House Cookbook' containing many of her most popular dishes.

"We will be using as much Fairtrade and local produce as possible in our restaurant," she said. "It is an area we are passionate about."

Sophie Grigson added: "The Fairtrade movement has come a long, long way in the past few decades. It's spreading and growing and drawing in more producers, and, as importantly, more consumers. People are realising that buying Fairtrade ingredients is a small way to make a big difference.

"Not only do you and I get something good to cook with and eat or drink, but someone else, the person who put in all the work growing or making that item, gets a decent wage. In short, a win-win situation."

But isn't that always the case anyway? No, says Sophie, but for the public, "it comes as something of a shock to discover that this perfectly fair assumption is often wrong."

Under Fairtrade, producers receive a minimum price to cover the cost of sustainable production and an extra premium that is invested in social or economic development projects.

Olympic hero, Sir Steve Redgrave - one of the celebrities featured in the cookery book along with Natasha Kaplinsky, Oz Clarke, Sheherazade Goldsmith and others - says: "As an athlete, I have always thought it's so important to be aware of the origins of my food, which is why I look for the Fairtrade mark when I go shopping.

"With the nature of my work I have been lucky enough to travel around the world and have experience of the communities that Fairtrade helps. It made me put into context the massive impact that something as small as my weekly shopping can have."

An increasing range of Fairtrade food - not just the original pioneers, coffee and tea and chocolate, but latest additions such as fruit, spices, biscuits, vegetables and jams - are now available at a variety of shops and supermarkets.