Quietly, chocolate companies have been snapping up little makers of organic and fair trade chocolate; Cadbury, PLC (NYSE: CBY) started the trend by buying Green and Black's in 2005, and then Hershey (NYSE: HSY) jumped on the bandwagon, buying Dagoba Organic Chocolate in 2006.

Since then, fairly traded and organic chocolate bars have become more and more popular among consumers; while exact numbers are hard to find, organic chocolate sales have more than quadrupled since 2000 and were $94 million in 2007. Fair trade chocolate sales have been nearly doubling on a year-over-year basis since 2000.

I collaborate on a local blog for mamas in Portland, a famously liberal town. Today we posted a question from a reader, who wondered where it was good to shop for things like garbage bags, socks and paper. In her quest for information about sweatshop abuses and the like, she'd already discarded Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and Fred Meyer, a local chain owned by The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR). She asked, "I'd prefer my money not going to line the pockets of Target or Fred Meyer execs," and wondered where her money should be going.

A bunch of answers immediately sprung to mind, for me; I've recently been doing quite a lot of investigation into the employment and procurement practices at Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFMI) and learned that, not only was the company commendable for treating its employees exceptionally well, but also the CEO is one of the hardest-working, least-highly paid CEOs in the industry. He's humble and honest. I piped up in the thread to sing Whole Foods' praises -- but another mama responded that she preferred to avoid Whole Foods; the company isn't "local." Same with Trader Joe's, owned by the German ALDI Group -- fair trade products are procured whenever possible, they treat their employees like kings and queens, but the money couldn't be going further away.

Do we really care that much how far a portion of each dollar goes? After all, my best buddies and I eagerly snap up yarn died in women-owned cooperatives in Uruguay, and coffee grown by rainforest-friendly farmers in Panama. Is it about the distance the money travels? And if so, is any company really "good"?

Investing in organics has been a hot trend in the past few years. Demand for organic products is so high that some companies, like Stonyfield Farms, can't find enough organic milk to deliver on its organic yogurt orders. Organic farmers are doing well and news that even Wal-Mart would offer organic produce has inspired headlines that queried, will organics soon be everywhere?

In a word, no. And what's more, it's looking like betting on organics is bad for you, financially. Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFMI), long the darling of healthy-minded investors, isn't growing fast enough. The stock is down 27% since last week. This, coupled with news that Wal-Mart might be struggling with its organics goals, has us all wondering if we should just embrace pesticides after all.

As Alyce Lomax points out and we've mentioned a number of times here on BloggingStocks, the true irony about all this is that truly faithful organics fans are almost angrily opposed to large, industrial farms. So that, by embracing this positive, healthy movement -- by making organic Rice Krispies, of all things -- in the blindly optimistic American way, which is by standardizing, industrializing, making really really big ... American businesses are perverting everything that is organic. [The Onion made hilarious fun of this trend in a satire here.] It's just not "sustainable" if it's done in tons for the Kellogg Company (NYSE:K). As BusinessWeek says so eloquently, it's "the organic paradox: The movement's adherents have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but success has imperiled their ideals."

Not only have ideals been imperiled, but also: profit. See here's the thing.