Free Manuka honey

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Win a pot of MediBee Active UMF® Manuka Honey and give your body a boost of health!

Honey’s role as a functional food is finally gaining momentum following the successful First International Symposium of Honey and Human Health*. Scientists and researchers from around the world presented exciting research and new discoveries on the health benefits of one of life’s natural sweeteners, including restorative sleep, cough suppression and cognitive function.

Honey has been used for thousands of years to treat wounds but scientists have only recently begun to explain honey’s antiseptic and antibacterial qualities on everyday human health. Whilst most honeys commonly carry the anti-bacterial property hydrogen peroxide, active manuka honey has both hydrogen peroxide and its own natural anti-bacterial property. This makes it doubly effective for building up immunity and treating a number of ailments including sore throats, hayfever, energy loss, stomach complaints, oral infections and even MRSA, killing bacteria at source**.

Whilst we all know that honey is good for us, many people do not understand how a daily dose of Manuka honey has a wide range of health benefits for people of all ages. It is with this in mind that Medibee Active UMF® Manuka Honey has launched a consumer guide, entitled ‘Honey Bee Healthy’, written in conjunction with leading nutritionist Dr Chris Fenn. The guide shows how Manuka Honey can treat a number of everyday ailments and includes a selection of delicious recipes, interesting facts, celebrity fans and a special section for kids.

Dr Fenn says: “In our modern, complex world where food is often over-processed, or a synthetic version of the real thing, manuka honey is a natural food that not only tastes great but is an important health booster, particularly effective for building up immunity and warding off infection. The new guide reveals how active manuka honey is very different from other types of honey and will help consumers to treat common symptoms by building manuka honey into their daily eating habits.”

Manuka honey is made from the wild flowers of the native manuka bush found only in New Zealand. It’s one of the most highly prized types of honey in the world due to its powerful antibacterial properties. These are measured under laboratory conditions to detect the honey’s active ‘unique manuka factor’, or ‘UMF’. The higher the active UMF, the stronger its healing power. Manuka honey with an active UMF of 10+ is regarded by scientists to be of sufficient quality to be used medicinally**, with the UMF® registered trademark on jars proof of its content.
For free copies of the consumer guide please call 02920 388422 or e-mail honeybeehealthy@optimah.com

MediBee Active UMF® 10+ Manuka Honey is priced from £8.45, and available from Holland & Barrett health food stores in the UK and all good health food stores. For nearest stockist details call (from the UK)0870 850 7114 or visit www.williamransom.com for further information.

If you would like to win a pot of this lovely honey please email us at readeroffer@elixirnews.com with your name and address and “honey” in the email header by July 30 2008. We will put your name into a draw for the prize. Please note that no cash equivalent is being offered and the Editor’s decision is final.

References
* For further information on the First International Symposium on Honey and Human Health visit www.prohoneyandhealth.com

**How manuka honey treats common ailments

Immunity
Manuka honey helps to stimulate the immune system and assist the body in fighting infections www.manukahoney.com

Sore throats
A natural soother for sore throats, manuka honey also destroys the streptococcus bacteria commonly responsible for causing the sore throat itself. http://bio.waikato.ac.nz/honey

Hayfever
Manuka honey contains plant pollen which when ingested works like a vaccine against outbreaks of hayfever by helping the body to make antibodies against it. Source: www.cyberspacehealthclinic.co.uk/ailments/hay_fever

Stomach complaints, including heartburn and stomach ulcers
In laboratory tests the UMF antibacterial properties present in manuka honey were found to inhibit the growth of the bacteria helicobacter pylori believed to cause most stomach ulcers and indigestion. www.manukahoney.com

Oral infections
Manuka honey is known to possess high levels of antioxidants and antibacterial substances that help to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi. These antimicrobial properties make it beneficial in the treatment of various oral ailments including gum disease and mouth ulcers.
Select Honeys Demonstrate Antimicrobial Activity Against Oral Pathogens, Journal of Dental Research, 2002; 80:349

Energy
Studies show that manuka honey is an effective energy replacement and energy booster and is particularly useful for sports recovery. www.manukahoney.com/resources/research

MRSA
So powerful are manuka honey’s antibacterial properties that they have even been found to be effective against MRSA strains of bacteria which are notoriously resistant to antibiotics and sometimes responsible for closing entire hospital wards. www.manukahoney.com/resources/research/mrsa.html

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Gastromonic nirvana at the Real Food Festival

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Learn about how Trappist monasteries produce beer, sample rare European cured meats, including prosciutto from the Lombardian Alps in the far north of Italy. Try speciality sausage from the province of Ragusa in Sicily. Explore honey-based beverages, such as traditional aged Polish mead made from honey and sweet Ethiopian honey beer and more at the Real Food Festival in London this April.

Challenge the senses with Scotland’s best cask aged whiskies under the guidance of whisky expert Peter Gibson and meet the Chedderman, Tom Calver of Westcombe Dairy in Somerset, to hear about how his farm is protecting its farming heritage and the traditional methods of cheese production. Come along to a delicious magazine Taste Workshop at the Real Food Festival at London’s Earls Court 24-27 April.

Real Food will showcase hundreds of the most passionate producers that have been handpicked by a careful Selection Committee and subsidised to be there. One of the major highlights of the festival will be delicious magazine Taste Workshops, created by eco-gastronomes Clodagh McKenna and Sebastiano Sardo from Foodiscovery, where you can meet producers personally and take part in tutored tastings which will leave your toes tingling! There will be over 85 different delicious magazine Taste Workshops at the festival which have been categorised into distinct groups including: Meet the Producer, Discover Europe, Undiscovered Food and Gastronomic Nirvana.

Meet the Producer:

Meet the Producer workshops will include British cheese makers speaking of the challenges of producing raw milk cheese in a pasteurized world, Italian winemakers speaking of the impact of the climate and geography of their territorio on their product’s flavours and British farmers presenting sustainably-produced meat from heritage breeds.

Highlights will include:

Patchwork PatésThe Incredible Success of Patchwork Patés featuring Margaret Carter: In 1982, Margaret Carter, divorced with three children to raise, began making paté in her kitchen. Her start up costs were £9.00. Today, Patchwork produces eight award winning patés and is one of the UK’s top paté producers. Despite the commercial success the patés are still hand made using Margaret’s original recipes with no additives or preservatives. Come and meet Margaret Carter and hear the story of how she made it happen.

The Cocoa Farm – Meet the Chocolate Lovers. The Cocoa Farm (the only one in Australia) is run by a group of people so passionate about truly great chocolate they grow their own cocoa beans and make it themselves. They are obsessed with sourcing only the finest ingredients and treat them gently, interfering in the process as little as possible.

Discover Europe:This gastronomic tour of farmers, growers and artisan producers will take us from the tip of Italy to the temperate South of Sweden, sampling and learning about the best of artisans’ regional produce. Discover Europe workshops include:

Portuguese Sheep-milk cheeses paired with aged Port: The Iberian peninsula is noted for producing some of the world’s greatest sheep’s milk cheeses and the Portuguese gourmet cheeses can certainly hold their own with their Spanish cousins. Come and try the salty, fruity Quieijo de Evora, matured for at least sixty days; the strong earthy Azeitao, or the semi hard Queijo de Nisa which uses thistle flower for coagulation. These Portuguese greats will be paired with aged Port wines from the Douro’s best vintners.

Undiscovered Foods: The aim of this workshop is to turn the spotlight on food, sourced from all over Europe which is rarely found outside the region it is produced in. Sampling and discussing products as diverse as Hebriddean cheeses, rare breed air dried beef, small independent wine producers, honey made from bees kept on London roof tops or smoked tuna from Connemara. Undiscovered Foods workshops will include:

California Charcuterie & Artisan Beers: The New World’s Mediterranean – the long Pacific coast stretching along California into Mexico – is home to a climate that favours fruit trees and vegetable crops originating in Southern Europe. Today, Northern California is also proving to be a favourable climate for some of the artisan foodways native to Europe.

Gastronomic NirvanaIn Gastronomic Nirvana workshops we’ll attempt to define how and why certain foods have earned the gourmand’s devotion and gold plated reputations: a teaspoon of the purest caviar followed by a mouthful of melting crème fraiche, aged Spanish Iberico ham made from acorn-fed pork, or a crumbling shard of 3-year old Grana Padano cheese with a chaser of 25 year aged Aceto Balsamico di Modena. Gastronomic Nirvana workshops include:

The Ultimate Cure: an opportunity to taste two of the finest cured meats in the world, Culatello and Iberico ham. You will hear the history of these two great cured meats and learn about the traditional methods of production. Iberico ham, from Northern Spain, has a nutty flavour from the acorns the black pigs are fed on and Culatello, from the Po valley in Italy, is a sweet, intense and clean tasting ham.

Oyster Haven: In this workshop we compare the flavours of the finest French oysters; flavourful Belon oysters from Brittany; Marennes from the Charentais coast and Fines De Claire so called for their incredible clarity. The oysters will be coupled with expertly chosen champagnes or chilled Muscadet. This will be a day of pure indulgence for any serious gastronome …or seducer.

To find out more information on the Real Food Festival or to purchase tickets please call our hotline 0870 912 0831 or visit www.realfoodfestival.co.uk

The Real Food Festival is unique because:

A Selection Committee chaired by Lyndon Gee, former director of Slow Food UK, will select producers to ensure a high degree of integrity and quality for the event.
Small producers are being subsidised to participate, offering them a real opportunity to grow and develop their business thanks to our generous sustainers which include Whole Foods Market, Tyrells, Grana Padano and Daylesford Organics.

The festival will showcase hundreds of producers that have never been seen before at any large scale food and drink event, offering an unprecedented variety of great quality produce that has made the grade in terms of taste, provenance and sustainability.
The Real Food Festival is both a trade and consumer event, giving stakeholders the chance to reach both audiences.
Many of the producers will have not been seen before making Real Food a festival of discovery celebrating provenance, sustainability, quality and integrity in food and food producers.

The visitor experience will include:

The Food Market – the biggest Farmers Market the UK’s ever seen. The Wine Fair – Over 100 small producers of quality wines will be selected to offer their wines for tasting and to buy. Delicious magazine Taste Workshops – created by Clodagh McKenna and Sebastiano Sardo from Food Discovery, you can meet the producer personally and have tutored tastings on the things you love or always wanted to try. Cookery School – Our sustainable food guru, Barny Haughton, from Bordeaux Quay, Bristol, will be running a Cookery School where you can learn to make the simplest things like a loaf of bread. Chefs’ Theatre – The Chefs’ Theatre will stimulate the taste buds with presentations from some of the UK’s top chefs using seasonal and fresh produce to prepare regional dishes. Restaurants – A small selection of the UK’s most exciting and forward-thinking restaurants will serve signature dishes. Gala Night – A high profile Gala launch night will be organised for Thursday evening, 24 April 2008. Dinner Dates – Why stop at the event? Head to one of London’s Dinner Date restaurants and eat from a menu specially prepared for the Real Food Festival.