5 Mother Earth-friendly Mother's Day Gifts

This Sunday, why not celebrate both of your mothers? No, I’m not saying your mom is a lesbian. I’m saying that just because it’s Mother’s Day, it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice Mother Earth by buying pesticide-laden flowers, bleached cards, or worthless crap that you mom will just stuff in her closet.

So what’s a loving son or daughter to do? Try buying one (or more) of these 5 Mother Earth-friendly gifts:

1. Your mom probably remembers when Frances Moore Lappé came out with her mind-blowing book, Diet for a Small Planet, in 1971. This is the book that sparked a revolution in how we think about hunger, alerting millions to the hidden environmental and social impacts of our food choices. Now, nearly four decades later, her daughter, Anna Lappé, picks up the conversation with her book, Diet for a Hot Planet, which exposes another hidden cost of our food system: climate change. What better Mother’s Day gift than a book – or a set of both books – written by a mother/daughter team working to save the world?!

2. A Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership is a great way to repay Mom for those countless dinners she prepared. You’ll pay in advance for a portion of a local farm’s harvest and then your mom will receive weekly deliveries of organic fruits and veggies. Deliveries are often big enough to split between two households, so consider signing up yourself and mom for a joint membership if you live near each other. Most programs start in June, and you can find one near you via Local Harvest or Green People.

3. As the proud mother of two delightful fur people, I know what I’m getting myself from them for Mother’s Day: reusable produce bags! These bags are the best I’ve found in terms of convenience and washability, and they’re made of recycled plastic bottles to boot. While you’re on the Reusable Bags site, snoop around to see if there are any other products your mom might find handy, like this cool reusable gift wrap.

4. Many spas use nasty chemicals and cost a pretty penny, so why not bring the spa home to mom? Shea Terra Organics, for example, offers high-quality healing products from indigenous African ingredients. Recognizing the value of uncontaminated raw materials in a fragile world with so much at stake, Shea Terra has culminated a formula for sustainability and fair trade. From a rich organic shea butter lotion to dead sea salt scrub to a Moroccan deep tissue bath scrubber, their products offer more than just a sweet smell.

5. Fair-trade, organic chocolate. And not the kind with pus in it (stick with dark!).