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by Julia Briscoe

I work as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, specialising in Complementary Therapies, my core therapy being homeopathy.  I also run a couple of support groups for people with cancer or end of life needs, one of which focuses on self-help techniques and relaxation / meditation.  Self help, in my opinion, is something that should be easy, low cost and sustainable in terms of inclusion into a lifestyle.  It should also be suitable for all, not just my cancer and end of life care patients so it’s lovely to have been asked to share a few of the suggestions I make for my patients.

Obviously many of my patients are extremely unwell but none the less, one of the first things I assess when I treat someone for the first time is their nutritional status.

Cider vinegar, also known as Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) often comes up as a suggestion for people to try as a low cost nutritional supplement.

ACV is made by crushing apples and squeezing out the liquid.  Bacteria and yeast are added to the liquid to begin the fermentation process.  Ultimately, this produces what is known as ‘The Mother’ which looks like a cobweb.  It is this that gives cider vinegar its famed healing powers.  Therefore ideally, if possible, unfiltered cider vinegar is the best, although I have seen good results with cider vinegar bought in any supermarket or health food shop.

After Andy Wright from Llanidloes had completed his C.A.T MSc dissertation on local food entitled 'Can Llanidloes Feed Itself In Light of Peak Oil' he was inspired to get involved with helping local school children to learn more about where their staple foods come from before they find them on the supermarket shelves. Having spent the year creating a bakery CSA (community supported agriculture) and experimenting with sourdoughs and local traditionally milled grains to produce beautiful rustic ciabattas, mixed grain loaves. Andy and his wife Leanne had heard about the Bake Your Lawn

initiative (www.realbreadcampaign.org) when they visited a local water powered flour mill near Aberystwyth.

Bake your lawn is a national project sponsored by ? to grow wheat from seed on an area previously given over to grass lawn. Andy contacted Lisa Stead who runs Llanidloes Primary School's wildlife club and Eco Schools accreditation. Mrs Stead had already established fantastic gardens for her receptions class and raised beds for the other infant classes in the school and was delighted to hear from Andy and to get the children involved in with Bake Your Lawn.

Together they decided that the newly created raised beds directly outside the infant classrooms would be the obvious choice for pupils to sow, water and observe the wheat in each stage of its cultivation during the spring and summer months.

Andy planned to return to school in Autumn to assist with the harvest when hopefully the children of Llanidloes Primary will be able to use a hand operated grain mill to convert the resulting wheat grains into flour and to bake a loaf of home-grown bread.

(From The Real Bread Campaign)