Organico Bantry

Call in to Organico to see all our luxury Christmas goodies, and choose your own hamper which we will present for you in a wicker basket…or tell us who it’s for and we will select for you! Organic Booja Booja chocolates, Green and Black’s biscuits, delicious organic wines and ports, Luxury Gluten Free Mince Pies (or our own spelt mince pies), Gluten free Cakes (or our own amazing cakes!) chocolate covered ginger…and much much more!

Or chose skincare…Dr Hauschka Rose Cream, Bath oils, Masks…we have the full range of face creams and body products!

In Organico Cafe we have Amnesty Cards, Fairly Traded oil burners, seaweed baths, essential oils, beautiful tea pots, hand made irish soaps…

Organico, Glengarriff Road, Bantry. (027) 51391.

Organico shop now has organic certification? Yes, it’s true – shops now need to be certified by an official certification body. If we want to sell loose organic vegetables, that is. And don’t want to be taken to court by the Department of Agriculture. Or don’t want to sell our lovely organic veg in plastic packaging, which is the only alternative to certification.

In Organico we sell lots of organic fruit and veg loose, which we buy from certified organic suppliers. And we are very careful about how we source our fruit and veg, because we feel passionately that fresh organic fruit and veg should be affordable and available to everyone. And we use it in our cafe too, so we would want to be getting the best quality. But until this summer we had no idea that we were technically ‘breaking’ Irish law.

Becoming certified (we chose to join the Irish Organic Trust) was actually very easy, because we were already doing most of the things they want us to do. To keep our certificate we need to do a bit of paper work and we need to keep in good contact with the Organic Trust. And they will visit us every year, and next year we hope to obtain Organic Certification for our Bakery.

All this is good – we are very happy to be working with the Trust and to be improving our service to our customers. What I think is very wrong is that many shops would be very put off by the way the Inspectors from the Department came in to our shop and started telling us how ‘bad’ we were. When actually, we were only breaking the letter of the law, and their job is to inform us of the law, which they had never done. And their attitude was such that we felt harassed, when their job should be supporting retailers selling organic produce, not terrifying them so much that they give up, or even worse, start to sell their vegetables in plastic packages like supermarkets do.

If you want more information on this topic, or if you have a shop and want to become a certified organic retailer of fruit and veg like Organico, please contact me (Hannah Dare) at info@organico.ie or the Organic Trust, and beware of the Department of Agriculture Inspectors!

Apparently, adults can suffer from up to 6 colds a year, some caused by viruses like the influenza or ‘flu’ virus. A patient feeling unwell with a cold or flu should always keep warm, drink plently of fluids like herb teas, and get as much rest as is possible. Viruses are transferred by sneezing so a handkerchief is advisable to stop you infecting others!

A quick tip on that note – on plane journeys, especially in the winter, you can be stuck next to someone sneezing and coughing for hours. What I always do is take a bottle of Coliodal Silver with me, a spray it in my mouth every half hour. This may sound a bit over-cautious, but one year I went to the UK by plane every month for 10 months and I nearly always came back with a cold!

Sambucol (extract of black elderberry)

In Organico Bantry we recommend different cold and flu remedies depending on the patient’s symptome, age, lifestyle etc., but one of the remedies always worth trying is called Sambucol. It’s a patented remedy developed by virologist Dr. Madeline Mumcuoglu, an Isreali scientist who observed the action of an extract of Elderberry in retarding the development of viruses of many kinds.

Elderberry (Sambucus Nigra) is commonly used as a food product for wine, pies and jelly. It’s leaves were traditionally used for pain relief and applied to wounds to promote healing. Other traditional uses include the treatment of infections and coughing. Elderberry contains many different flavoniods, indluding Quercetin, which help fight infections. Taken several times a day, elderberry extract has been shown to reduce the duration and severity of colds and flues. It may also be effective against the Herpes Simplex virus.

Recommended Dosage: 5 to 10 ml twice daily.

Contraindications: Not reccomended for people with auto-immune conditions.

If you are unwell for longer than a couple of days with a bad dose of the flu, please consult a medical practioner.

References:

¹Zakay-Rones Z, Varsano N, Zlotnik M, et al. Inhibition of several strains of influenza virus in vitro and reduction of symptoms by an elderberry extract (Sambucus nigra L) during an outbreak of influenza B in Panama. J Alt Comp Med 1995;1:361–69.
²Serkedjieva J, Manolova N, Zgórniak-Nowosielska I, et al. Antiviral activity of the infusion (SHS-174) from flowers of Sambucus nigra L., aerial parts of Hypericum perforatum L., and roots of Saponaria officinalis L. against influenza and herpes simplex viruses. Phytother Res 1990;4:97–100.
³Mascolo N, Autore G, Capasso G, et al. Biological screening of Italian medicinal plants for anti-inflammatory activity. Phytother Res 1987;1:28–31.

In Organico Bantry we recommend Quest’s Kyolic Garlic as the best garlic supplement. Kyolic Garlic is an aged garlic product which is made from organic garlic, which from the very start makes it differnt from other garlic products on the market. Aging garlic sounds like a strange thing to do but in fact it makes a stronger, more stable product which has more uses than garlic oil or garlic powder and is less irritating to the digestive system. Unlike most foodstufs, processing, and specifically aging, does miraculous things to garlic. It triggers the formation of a cascade of compounds that do not already exist in garlic.

Kyolic has been researched extensively for over 50 years, resulting in over 550 peer-reviewd articles reporting studies showing the following effects:

• Cardio-protection – enhances and reduces a wide range of cardiovascular risk factors including elevated homocystine, serum cholerterol, triglycerides and platelet aggregation
• Liver detoxification – protects the liver by quickly eliminating toxic chemicals. An effective heavey metal eliminant.
• Immune -enhancement – enhances various exssential immune factors such as macrophages, T-lymphocytes, natural killer cells and anti-body generation.
• Protection from oxidents and radiation – contains anti-oxident phytochemicals that prevent oxident damage.
• Anti-stress and anti-fatigue – improvews physical strangth and reduces stress and fatigue
• Anti-cancer – inhibits development and growth of tumours.
• Anti-candida – anti-fungal properties
• anti-aging and anti-depression -improves memory function, enahnces nerve growth and improves serotonin utilisation.

The conditions that Kyolic Garlic has been shown to help include:

• Circulation problems including Reynaud’s Disease (in as little as 90 minutes)
• Blood Pressure – Kyolic Garlic has been shown to reduce Hypertension (raised blood pressure) in as little as 3 days
• Cholesterol – Kyolic has been shown to lower cholesterol levels over a period of 3 – 6 months
• Candida infection – Kyolic has been shown to have powerful anti-fungal properties and to promote the growth of friendly bacteria, along with an anti-candid diet of course!
• Anemia (in 61 % of patients)
• AIDS – because of immune boosting properties
• Cancer

It is reasonable to look at Kyolic as a substitute for a multi-vitamin, as it aids the digestive system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, it detoxifies the liver, is an anti-oxident, increases whith blood cells and lowers cholesterol.

Choosing the right Kyolic product is very important (300mg Kyolic is best for Candida infections) as is having the right safety advice (you should not take Kyolic if you are taking Warfarin for example). For information on alternative health call in to Organico and talk to one of our highly trained staff who can advise you.

Remember – always consult a qualified medical/health practioner if you have a health issue.

Organico Shop, Glengarriff Rd., Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland. Phone +353 (0)27 51391