Green your Christmas: food hamper

Take the pressure off whoever's cooking on the 25th with a hamper. We've been scouring the organic world to find the best -- from a modest £25 to a whopping £1,500.

If you're a high street shopper, head in the direction of M&S's modestly-priced £40 organic hamper. At the time of writing they had mysteriously disappeared from the M&S website, but keep an eye out or call the order line on +44 (0)845 603 1603. If you can track one down you'll get biscuits, tea, nuts, olive oil and elderflower, but oddly no wine -- since when did organic foodies not like a boozy tipple?

Fear not, for there's booze aplenty in Daylesford Organic's £1,500 Simply Daylesford (pictured), from fine champagne to a 30-year-old vintage port. And no, that's not a typo -- it really is £1,500, though that pales in comparison to Fortnum & Mason's outrageous £20K Tercenturian one.

For the rest of us mere mortals, we'd recommend Abel & Cole's £80 Pantry Hamper with Book, which comes with a copy of Keith Abel's excellent vegbox cook book, and Tree2mydoor's £125 Christmas Weekend Organic Hamper.

Abel & Cole's hamper is rammed with Christmas pud, Booja-Booja vegan chocs and Abel's own-brand goodies, plus you can get it delivered to your door for free if you're a Abel punter. Tree2mydoor's hamper includes SmartPlanet staples from the likes of Village Bakery, Duchy Originals and Organico -- plus it has the unusual bonus of including a £15 gift voucher, so your giftee can buy you a thank you present perhaps.

Finally, for a cheaper option, Ethical Superstore does a fine-looking £25 hamper stuffed with Fairtrade chocolate treats.

Wood, it seems, is the packaging material for organic food hampers this season, edging ahead of wicker, hat boxes (we've never understood those) and plain old cardboard boxes. So far, however, no company's gone the extra mile to say its wooden boxes are FSC-certified -- let's have that for 2008, please.

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