• Why not give out other little gifts? Pens, pencils, balloons, fake tattoos, stickers – or even tooth brushes!!!
• For home (maybe not so suitable for Trick or Treaters) you can make little ‘Vampire bites’ by slicing apples into thin long slices and spreading nut butter in the middle, with some bleaches almonds as teeth! Any nut butter in the middle makes a tasty healthy snack…
• Mix nuts and chocolate nuts, this will reduce the sugar and the protein in the nuts will balance their blood sugars a little bit more than pure chocolate…
• I’m not a fan of Baby Bells but it is a cheese that is suitable for Trick or Treat…and again, the protein is a good way of balancing the effects of the sugar. So when they all get home with their bags of goodies, it’s no bad thing to have cheese cubes ready to go…
• Fruit is an obvious option, not always well received, but still good to try.
• Small toys…if you can buy a pack of little somethings that can be given out in singles…
• Do you have any old Christmas Crackers lurking anywhere? Or anything else that goes bang!
• Apples dipped in chocolate is better than apples dipped in toffee, as the latter can really damage teeth.
• Even packets of crisps might be a better option than more sweet things! Still junk food but slightly less damaging.
• Better still would be salty nuts, preferably not peanuts but almonds or cashews, and in an ideal world freshly salted/roasted and salted by you so you know the salt is a healthy sea salt and is lightly used without any added MSG. In tiny bags…
• Little juice cartons – again, not a huge amount of difference perhaps between fruit juice and sugar but at least you can limit the other nasty additives in many sweets. If you buy them in packs and only give one out it’s not too expensive.

All other ideas welcome! Happy Halloween everybody – it only comes once a year so lets enjoy it and make the most of the family time together. Don’t be scared to have some fun!!!

I had read this already, when I was researching for an article on healthy oils, but it is still amazing – a study published in the Clinical Journal of Oncology found that eating flaxseeds can reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer by up to 40% This is due to the lignan content of flax. Lignans, a very important type of phytoestrogen, apparently kill off cancer cells and prevent secondary tumours by stopping the growth of new cells.

In the bowel, lignans are turned into enterolactone. The study looked at 1,140 postmenopausal women with breast cancer. Women with the highest blood levels of enterolactone had an approximately 40% lower mortality risk and a lower risk for disease progression. It was found that enterolactone protects against cancer growth, irrespective of oestroegen, by promoting cell death and inhibiting sprouting of new blood vessels. This is pretty amazing – and luckily eating flaxseeds is not expensive or unpleasant.

Holford says: ‘We are losing the cancer war. The number of new cancer cases has increased by 20% in under a decade and now stands at 12 million a year, according to new figures from the World Cancer Research Fund. Conventional treatments are actually not that effective. A comprehensive meta-analysis of trials on chemotherapy concludes: “The contribution of chemotherapy to five-year survival in adults was 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA.” The scientists conducting this meta-analysis emphasized that these figures are an optimistic estimate. The ‘holy grail’ for targeting cancer is some kind of treatment that kills cancer cells, but not healthy cells. My three favourite alternatives to conventional chemotherapy are photodynamic therapy, mega-dose vitamin C and salvestrols. I explore these and other ways to make yourself cancer-proof in my book ‘“>Say No To Cancer’.

We always recommend

The cookery classes will feature topics ranging from Super Soups to Indian Takeaway; the Healthcare classes will focus on Balancing Blood Sugar (which affects energy levels and weight issues for the whole family) as well as Natural Hormone balancing and Natural Stress Relief. Each healthcare class will also focus on food and healthy eating (for example Christine Meadows is very good at sprouting so she will show us some of her tips).

Everyone is welcome to join up; we will tailor the course around the participants we get. We are involving nearly all our staff this first year so you will get a variety of styles and advice!

The classes run each Tuesday evening starting September 28th in The Tech. To sign up please contact Anne McGrath at Scoil Pobail Bheanntrai. Open Evening +enrollment with fees Tues Sept. 20th 5.30pm -7.30pm.

Hannah Dare

What you need:

Carrageen Moss – a good handful of the dried seaweed (about 5 grams)
1 Organic un-waxed lemon
1 Teaspoon manuka honey or local honey per person
1 pint cold water (preferably spring water or filtered water)

Juice your lemon. Put the carrageen moss into a medium stainless steel pan, add water to cover, add the shell of the lemon if it is organic, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice. To serve, strain into a large mug and add honey to taste. keep the pan near the stove and heat up more as needed.

You can also add sage leaves or thyme leaves – sage is good for sore throats and thyme for chesty coughs.

Drink as often as you need to – 3 to 4 mugs a day while you are feeling under the weather always works for me!

For Fleur,

i bought some Colloidal silver from you by mail order last week. I wanted it for an old pet sheep with severe footrot on one foot. I have spent a fortune on vet treatments for him ( he is a neutered ram and very gentle) None of these have worked and I was considering, as a last resor- having the toe removed. He has been going round on his knees. As the flock are rescues from slaughter, ( we are vegetarian animal lovers) it meant a lot to us to give them a natural life – which never happens with farm animals. But we also had to consider his quality of life and comfort and it was heartbreaking not to see any improvement after almost a year.

After one week on the colloidal silver, the infection and inflammation have gone and he is starting to walk properly again.

We have a ways to go before his foot is right but I never in my wildest dreams thought this product would be so good, it was a last resort to be honest. Im going to tell everyone about it.

Do you have any ointment or salve with the silver in it??? Feel free to use this email for your website if you want to,

Many thanks,
Maria Burke

Note from Organico: Obviously, we cannot make any medical claims for treating footrot with Silver, as it has not been tested for this purpose.

If you would like to order Colloidal Silver (now called High Stability Silver) please click here

Osteopathy is a system of diagnosis and treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. It works with the structure and function of the body, and is based on the principle that the well-being of an individual depends on the skeleton, muscles, ligaments and connective tissues functioning smoothly together.

To an osteopath, for your body to work well, its structure must be in balance. Imbalance can occur for a number of different reasons – accidents, stress, your work, giving birth…Osteopaths work to restore your body to a state of balance, where possible without the use of drugs or surgery. Osteopaths use touch, physical manipulation, stretching and massage to increase the mobility of joints, to relieve muscle tension, to enhance the blood and nerve supply to tissues, and to help your body’s own healing mechanisms. They may also provide advice on posture and exercise to aid recovery, promote health and prevent symptoms recurring.

You can visit an Osteopath for a number of different conditions. Sometimes people visit osteopaths simply for a check up (a bit like servicing your car!). Many people take babies to visit osteopaths after birth, as birth can be very traumatic and many babies can be helped by some gentle balancing. And new mothers can find the treatment very beneficial also. All kinds of back pain and tension can be relieved, and if you are in an accident then you can relieve the shock very effectively.

Anyone who would like to start their own garden should come along to a free Open Evening in Organico Cafe on Friday the 15th of April at 7.30. Get Growing, a local Charity run by vollunteers who are experienced and passionate gardeners, is starting a serise of hands-on classes which will help you to plan and start to grow vegetables in whatever space is available to you. The classes are free. For more information contact Shalila on 02766296 or on getgrowingirl.sb@gmailcom.