By Heidi Trautmann

The Karmi Gardening Club has organised a talk show at the Karmi Levant Restaurant which for the occasaion had opened its rooms for an interested audience, most probably because Debbie the owner is also interested in the benefits of the nature around us and how to make use of it for our food.... and our beauty ...because we are all beautiful when we are healthy and happy and look at our friends and family with a smile.

Healthy living....should be the title for our whole life, for our family, and not the easy way out when we, the family carers, if man or woman, are under pressure or are too lazy to really care, that is, to use deepfrozen food instead of shopping more than once a week, to take antibiotics instead of sweating it out, to believe what the TV adverts tell us about products for our health or our body care.

This is a leitmotiv some people have made their job and their passion. They realised that the conservative medicine has a pill for everything but as medicine is a chest of drawers with each discipline carefully separated from the other in different drawers, so the one doctor of drawer no. 1 does not realise that the problem you are having is actually caused by something the doctor of drawer no. 5 should take care of. Therefore the arrow they are sending off is often without any effect, or the wide-spectrum antibiotics have damaged your stomach walls and your immune system lies on its back fighting.

One of these people is the herbalist and nutritionist Mariam Khan Gokcebag from Lefke who gave us a short glimpse into the field of nature’s garden with its benefits for us and how we can make them ourselves. In a one-hour slide show she showed us some samples of common plants that grow in our backyard – or if we don’t have one – in the hills where nature is still undisturbed: Dandelion – pine trees – violets – calendula – plaintago – nettle.....She handpicks them – uses their leaves, roots to process them into either dried herbs, hydrosols, oils and tinctures.

There is a herb for or against anything we might complain about in the course of our life. It is basic knowledge, however, that we must keep a proper diet first of all. We cannot expect a herbal or even chemical medicine to help getting rid of our problem if we counteract by eating and drinking things which we should not if we suffer from certain ailments.

Mariam specializes in workshops all around the herbs, its search on nature walks and its production at home. She has a wide variety of products ready made to offer, and also a book that explains all to you. Also in questions of nutrition she can advise you.

Contact her if you want to learn more: mariamherbs@yahoo.com or call her 0090 542 872 5573