Healthy Edible Gifts

by Deborah English — December 20, 2007

There is nothing that delights the senses more than an artfully displayed array of colorful food. Show your health-conscious family and friends how much you love them by giving healthy edible gifts these holidays. (And show your "health-careless" friends how delicious healthy food can be. Hey...you might even convert them!?)

The following edible gifts are a breeze to put together, and packaged thoughtfully, are mouthwateringly appealing:

• Pour good quality extra-virgin olive oil into pretty glass bottles with corks. Add fresh rosemary sprigs, peeled garlic cloves, and whole black peppercorns to the mix. Cork and dip tops into colored hot wax. Let cool, then tie a fine silk ribbon around the neck.
• Layer dried red kidney beans, haricot beans, baby green lima beans, chickpeas, and black beans into a glass jar.
• Potted herbs flourish on a sunny windowsill. Buy culinary herbs such as basil, rosemary, Italian parsley, chives, and thyme. Plant into little tubs and give to a friend who loves to cook.
• Arrange organic dried fruit into airtight glass jars. Dried apricot, pears, peach, pineapple, cherries, and apple make a gorgeous display.
• Toast a mix of organic nuts and seeds. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds, almonds, brazil nuts, and hazelnuts look good, taste good, are good.
• One thing leads to another...How about the ultimate power-pack snack: Mix any or all of the above dried fruit, nuts, and seeds, plus sultanas, organic coconut thread, and the best quality bitter dark chocolate pieces into a lovely glass jar.

Happy gift-giving people!