I do find cooking remarkably therapeutic.  The other weekend, with Jan just returned from a lengthy day at the Royal College of Nursing’s Complementary Therapy Conference at the Queen’s Medical Centre NHS Trust, Nottingham, I thought that I would busy myself with the preparation of the evening meal whilst she recounted the day’s events.

The previous afternoon I had thought that a leg of local lamb would be just the ticket for the meal, but upon arrival at Mick the Meat I discovered that he had already scrubbed up for the day and, therefore, I was forced to the nearest supermarket: a rare experience for me.

Eventually gaining access to the car park, I was confronted by a sort of automotive musical chairs.  Round and round we all processed until, suddenly spotting a protruding posterior from a lowly hatchback, the car in front jammed on its brakes, flicked on the hazard warning lights, and refused to budge. Fifteen minutes later, after several similar incidents, I thought to myself “Blow this for a game of soldiers” and nipped smartly beneath the bumper of a vast 4X4 into a vacant spot. Beep!  Beeeepppp!  From her lofty seat behind the wheel, a rather haughty lady gesticulated rudely.  Good heavens, this shopping business IS competitive!

Extricating a trolley from the serpentine line of steel mesh was my next unenviable task.  I pushed and pulled to no avail until a sweet old lady suggested that I might require a £1.  What?! Anyhow, it seemed to do the trick and I stumbled, somewhat bemused, into the store. Glory be, does one require a driving licence for a shopping cart? If not, why not? By the time that I had reached the vegetable stand, I was battered and bruised from every angle. Also I had had to suffer the ignominy of extricating myself from a pile of toilet rolls, after jumping sharply backwards to avoid a surfing trolley in the aisle.

Rather reminiscent of my first visit to New York, I stood mid-store gazing skywards searching for a sign saying ‘Meat’.  Aha!  Got it! I approached tentatively the counter, an aquarium-like construction in which was displayed a variety of choice cuts. However its somewhat convex exterior tended to distort the view through my bifocals. Can I help you, sir?  I pointed vaguely through the glass at what I thought was a leg of lamb.  This one? No. That one?  No. Why is it that superstores choose to put the smallest people with the shortest arms in charge of these gargantuan glass tanks?  For fear that the obliging young lad himself might end up displayed amongst the chops, crown roasts and sausages, I opted to compromise and, with some relief, returned home with a shoulder!

Still, let’s hear about Jan’s day for a moment....  

Paediatric pointers.
The day was finely organised by Virginia McGivern, who is currently working at the Queen’s Medical Centre as a Complementary Therapy Nurse Specialist within Children’s Services.  Virginia won the Child Health category in the Nursing Standard Nurse 1998 Awards for her work in complementary therapies with children. 

In 1996, she set up one of the first Complementary Therapy Services for Children in the country. Clinics are held every Thursday and Friday for children with varying conditions: she offers massage, aromatherapy, therapeutic touch, relaxation techniques, music therapy and baby massage instruction to children with various conditions.  Thanks to funding from the Wallace and Grommit Foundation, the service will be full time from this month.    

The Conference, ‘Complementing Children’s Care’, was designed to display the wealth of expertise available in the United Kingdom for children and young adults and to enable delegates to network, sharing ideas and experiences. The speakers came from different fields of Complementary Therapies, incorporating a wide range of skills. The emphasis was on the importance of competency, qualifications, research and education relating to the use of these therapies.

First to speak was Jenny Gordon, who is the current Chair of the British Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition Constipation Committee, a multidisciplinary group who are developing national guidelines for the management of childhood constipation.

As typical reviews of complementary therapies conclude that there is a lack of research into their effectiveness, Jenny is currently in the middle of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) investigating the efficacy of reflexology as an intervention in the management of childhood constipation.  However, complementary therapists point to the difficulties of using standard research methods as appropriate measures of evaluation and, therefore, Jenny’s presentation highlighted some of these challenges and discussed possible strategies for future paediatric CAM research.

Dr. Lesley Powell , who followed, is a Research Fellow at Coventry University. A Health Psychologist, she is qualified also as a massage therapist with interest and experience in both the development of interventions for parents and their children with disabilities and/or health concerns and in training ‘therapists’. She is particularly interested in the promotion of positive touch for children with all disabilities, emotional and behavioural problems, illness or chronic conditions.

The Research Team at Coventry University run a Training and Support Programme (TSP) for parents of ill or disabled children, which provides parents with training in simple massage techniques that can be used with their children in the home environment. The TSP consists of 8 weekly sessions delivered by suitably qualified therapists, who also receive TSP training at the University. 

The results of a pilot study, which was carried out to evaluate the impact of the TSP among parents of children with ataxia [defective control and coordination of voluntary muscles], indicate that the TSP may enhance the psychosocial well-being of parents of children with ataxia although a randomised controlled trial will be necessary to determine whether the changes reported are in fact due to attending the TSP.

Prior to an afternoon of fascinating workshops - Michelle Bennett (Indian head and neck massage), David Howells (Bowen Technique) and Merlin Young (Acupuncuture) - Julia Fearon stepped up to the podium.

Julia Fearon, a Royal College of Nursing activist for many years, is Chair of the RCN Complementary Therapies in Nursing Forum.  In conjunction with ‘Freshwinds’, a charity based in Birmingham providing complementary therapies, advice, advocacy and support for adults and children with life threatening and life limiting illness and for children with life changing illness, Julia has helped to establish a Children’s Complementary Therapy Network for anyone interested in working with children and complementary therapies.   

A baby massage and baby yoga instructor, Julia demonstrated that, if they become an integral part of family life, complementary therapies can equip families with the tools to help them in times of crisis and maybe even prevent some crises occurring. She thinks that teaching baby massage and baby yoga techniques to parents and carers can help achieve this, providing families not just with physical benefits but also psychological support and coping strategies to help them negotiate life in the 21st century.

To this end, Julia is leaving the NHS to pursue her own independent therapy business focused on providing access to complementary therapies for families and children.

Meanwhile back in the kitchen.....
Although I would never ingest essential oils, I do use a lot of aromatic herbs in my cooking and I am indebted to Daniele Ryman’s fascinating and invaluable guide to aromatherapeutic foods, Aromatherapy In Your Diet, for getting me started.

The use of edible plants as medicine began with the Ancient Egyptians. They grew fields of cucumbers, leeks, radishes and garlic - all extremely active and therapeutic plants - and other highly valued herbs and spices.  The slaves building the Great Pyramid at Giza were given a clove of garlic per day to give them strength and keep infections at bay. Garlic is still highly valued today for its antibacterial and antiviral properties.

The Ancient Greek Hippocrates, the ‘Father of Medicine’, prescribed onions for water retention, chervil for those depressed with a liver or stomach malady, rosemary for liver disorders and mustard for sciatica.  The renowned gourmet Epicurus would insist on the use of at least five aromatic herbs if he were to enjoy a meal and Theophrastus, the ‘Father of Botany’, was noted for his use of digestive plants in cooking - caraway and pepper with oysters, oregano and fennel with fish, parsley and oregano with meat.

The Romans, on the other hand, had originally eaten very plain foods, but as they conquered further afield they brought back many plants, herbs and spices, and ways of using them in cooking. Like the Greeks, they became great eaters and it is doubtful that they could have coped with their enormous banquets without the help of aromatic and digestive herbs and spices.

In Asia, also, foods and their cooking were regarded as medicinal. Ayurvedic principles require the body to be treated by food first, and only then by medicine, and food treatments are based on the six tastes - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent.  The sour taste, for example, would be provided by something like lime, for the purpose of stimulating the digestion and benefitting the heart.  In China, the same types of eating principles were being formulated: for health, aroma and flavour, five tastes should be combined - salty, sweet, sour, bitter and pepper hot.  The principles of yin and yang were and still are very important in Chinese cooking: the Chinese believe that there is a direct correlation between the properties of the food you eat and the yin-yang, or healthy balance in your body. 

Strange as it may seem, the chilli which livens up so many curries was not introduced to India until after the great explorations of the fifteenth century, when Columbus discovered the Americas. Before then, to ward off bacterial infections in meats, the Indians had used ginger, pepper, mustard and other hot spices.

British roast beef and horseradish or mustard was not simply a fortuitous taste combination; both spices are preservative in action, with very strong essential oils, so they were used primarily to make the meat wholesome. The mint served with lamb is again acting as an antiputrefactive. Of course, apart from making the meats safer to eat, the condiments add to the satisfying sense of smell and taste.  A French cook would not dream of simmering a pot of haricot beans without adding sprigs of thyme and parsley to enhance the aroma and taste and, like the Ancient Egyptians, to aid digestion.  The French also cook with a lot of wine, and this too is protective as well as adding a little je ne sais quoi.  Garlic, the characteristic of French cooking to many people, is the ultimate flavouring, but it is its potency as an antibiotic that makes it so valuable.

Now, in the twenty-first century, when our general health is under stress from lifestyle, pollution and pharmaceutical solutions to illness, we are urged to turn again to the old traditions, to the natural remedies, to the healing powers of the essential oils contained in simple plant foods.

I slammed in the lamb, liberally coated with our own Extra Virgin Olive Oil, supplied by aromatherapist Wendy Todd from her finca in the hills behind Malaga, and a little crushed garlic, on a bed of rosemary freshly cut from the burgeoning bush outside our back door. To keep the meat moist whilst roasting, I sloshed into the pan a glass of Gaston Hochar’s superb Chateau Musar from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, discarded the previous evening by one of Justin’s ‘responsible’ (he was driving) friends.

To accompany the dish, I parboiled a few potatoes, let them cool, and tossed them in Herbs of Provence before putting them in the roasting dish.  To liven up the leeks and carrots, I added a little fresh basil and coriander respectively.  Voila tout!

Whatever happened to Peter Wilde?
Some may recall that a few months ago [Newsletter 153], in a piece about Oudh, I mentioned the man who several years ago tried to re-establish the English Rose Oil industry. For the first time in 250 years, Peter Wilde’s English Rose Oil was used for perfumes, skin care products, aromatherapy and - most memorably of all - the World’s Most Expensive Soap - which was sold as a limited, signed, first edition in Harrods, at £150.00 per box!

His customers included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Diana.

Dr. Peter Wilde had devised a revolutionary new technique for the cold preparation of essential oils, which protected all the fragile, volatile, heat sensitive components that are lost and destroyed by traditional steam distillation and the hexane extraction process.

Peter’s phytols, as they were called, quickly became de rigueur for knowledgeable therapists, and Peter was in great demand as a speaker at aromatherapy conferences around the world.  Therefore, I was a little surprised when he seemingly disappeared without trace. However, I was far, far more surprised when, out of the blue, I heard from him recently!  Now he could answer my question: How on earth did he end up in Thailand?

In 2001, Peter had been invited to visit Thailand and his technology came to the attention of a now famous politician, Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra, who was then seeking election as Thailand’s Prime Minister. On his behalf, Peter was asked by the Thai Rak Thai Party to go to the North East of Thailand to talk to the local farmers, who grow hundreds of hectares of eucalyptus trees, as a cash crop, for the paper and fibre board industry.

However, somewhat surprisingly, Thailand also imports hundreds of tonnes of eucalyptus oil each year from Australia, which forms the active ingredient of an inhaler that every Thai puts up their nose to ease breathing in the polluted atmosphere of Bangkok.

Peter’s message to the farmers was simple: “we are going to make you rich, we are going to buy your eucalyptus tree leaves and bark to make eucalyptus oil.” Mr. Thaksin duly became Prime Minister, and still is, but he forgot about this wonderful opportunity.

Still, it was perhaps not entirely coincidental that Peter was introduced to the Chairman of South East Asia’s largest civil engineering company, Italthai Group.  The family of this very rich and powerful man owns huge amounts of land in a remote rural region of Loei Province, 700 kilometres north of Bangkok.

Some of the land was already under cultivation growing grapes (and making excellent wines), but Peter was flown by private plane to view an estate under the Phurua (Ship Mountain) and, over lunch, he was asked.....

Would you like to grow roses and jasmine here and make oils from the flowers?

After a few micro-seconds consideration, he agreed.

In Thailand, it is customary to offer 2% of the equity in a new venture to His Majesty The King, as a gift. In this case, however, the shares were offered to Her Majesty The Crown Princess Maha Shakri Sirindorn. Later Peter was told that she declined the gift but insisted on buying 33% of the company, for which she paid cash.

So, Peter found himself a one-third shareholder in a new company, Phurua Natural Oils Company Limited, together with the Crown Princess of Thailand and one of the country’s richest families.

Planning started immediately and by mid 2002 a site had been selected, building of a factory was underway, and equipment was being fabricated.  The construction and installation started in July and, despite the worst floods in living memory, production commenced in October.

Now, after 3 years living amongst the Isaan people in one of the most primitive and inaccessible regions of Thailand, Peter is back in the UK.

He has not only built a magnificent, state-of-the-art, 3,000 litre extraction plant, proving the viability of the new cold extraction technology that he invented, but he has also discovered the amazing Mon Rose, an old indigenous damask rose, which contains none of the dreaded allergen methyl eugenol.  The oil from Mon Rose has not only this advantage, but it contains also a full complement of natural, therapeutic, flavenoids, carotenoids and antioxidants.

A wide new range of exquisite fragrance and flavour oils, without any hexane or alcohol and without being damaged by “cooking”, are also prepared from organically grown local raw materials. This range is now a commercial reality....developing and expanding!

Essentially Oils is delighted to announce that it has been appointed the Exclusive Distributor of these exciting oils, bringing them to
Aromatherapists throughout the whole of Europe.

Biodynamic farming?
Are you interested in stocking any biodynamic oils? I was asked recently.

To be honest I wasn’t really sure, because I know little about biodynamic farming except that it was spawned by the late anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, who inaugurated a movement to develop the faculty of cognition and the realization of spiritual reality. However, by chance, I happened upon an advertisement for certified organic rose geranium being grown on a farm in the Transvaal, South Africa.....

By working directly with this farm and others like it - organic and biodynamic* growers - we are able to ensure the integrity of the soil and help protect the health of those who work it.

I looked for the asterisk, searching for a definition of biodynamic, because to my classical mind, in Greek, it is simply life (bios) power (dunamis).  However, it seems to mean a little more than that according to the definition in the small print.....     

Holistic farming that goes beyond certified organic, treating all entities on the farm - plant, mineral, animal and human - as part of a self-contained ecosystem, and considering the impacts of the larger universe on plant growth.

By sidestepping the preconception that light makes chlorophyll plants grow, biodynamic farmers think that other energies contribute to a plant’s growth.  Because of the differences in these contributing energies, planting a crop one day will be totally different to planting it another day.  In fact, planting during certain days of the moon cycle is important.

However, biodynamic farming is not easily learned from a textbook, but rather it is better “sensed” through “experiencing” it.  Therefore, it is best to learn biodynamics through observation and feedback from a practising biodynamic farmer.  For example, instead of indiscriminate distribution of large quantities of compost and organic materials over the soil, the correct disposition of specific quantities of specific qualities of organics can maximize the crop’s potential more effectively.  It is far more complex than just planting crops organically. There is an integrated relationship between plant, animal and soil that must be understood.   

Frankly, it all sounded a little nebulous to me and so I thought that I would check out these specific quantities of specific qualities of organics, and their production.

The biodynamic compost and spray preparations created out of natural and organic substances are used in minute doses to enhance soil life, plant growth, food quality and animal health. They act as bio-regulators and effect a beneficial influence on the whole biological cycle of the farm [Raupp, J. & U.J. Konig (1996): Biodynamic preparations cause opposite yield effects depending upon yield levels. Biol. Agric. & Hort., 13, 175-188]. 

They are essential to biodynamic agriculture and their use is a recognised requirement of the Demeter Standards.

The production of preparations takes place on the farm.  The method of production involves taking certain plant materials (chamomile flowers, grated oak bark and dandelion flowers), cow manure or quartz meal, placing them in selected animal organ parts (cow horn, bovine intestine, cattle, pig or horse skull, and bovine peritoneum) and fermenting them in the soil for a period of time, usually half a year.  Another preparation, which is not affected by EC Regulation 1774/2002, involves yarrow flowers and stag’s bladder.

The organs used are chosen for the unique properties they possess as a result of their former function within the animal organism and are applied to catalyse the fermentation of the medicinal plant material and animal manure substances of the preparations.

Produced in this way, the preparations develop a strong yet subtle power whose effect may be compared to that of homoeopathic remedies.

If this is truly holistic farming that goes beyond certified organic, I do wonder where we are headed next. Comments please!

Finally.....
By the time you read this Justin and I shall be en route to India to visit Jammu and Kashmir to check out this year’s lavender crop. It should be an exciting time because, if all goes to plan, and that is certainly the hope in India’s only Muslim-majority province, which has suffered a bitter insurgency since 1989 that has claimed at least 40,000 lives, Kashmiris will have taken the first bus service in more than half a century to link the Indian to the Pakistan portion of this disputed state. I just hope that the recent fall of 70 feet of snow, the heaviest in more than 40 years, has cleared in time!

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