Dimithrios Therianos an expert for polyphenols*
Dimithrios life is deeply rooted on Zakynthos island. It is as deep as olive trees. Farming and living from olives and vines was passed through generations. Dimithrios rediscovered his way of farming and living with himself, family and community. He talks about this long and exciting journey where compassion is the keynote.
"Zakynthos has a positive energy, thin, fine, can be everywhere, energy to take care not only for oneself, but for all Greece and all the world. It is also one big center of civilization. I see it as a small paradise for everybody, for the people that leave here and for visitors" an interview with Dimitrios Therianos.
I have a method to do olive oil more reach with polyphenols** and I want to protect this by registering the patent. In this way it can stay for everybody since I do not want to hold it for myself. (**The flavonoid polyphenols in olive oil are natural antioxidants that contribute to a bitter taste, astringency, and resistance to oxidation. They have been shown to have a host of beneficial healing effects from healing sunburn, lowering cholesterol, blood pressure, and risk of coronary disease. diabetes, cancer, arthritis, alzheimer ...weight control)
I'm 42 years old, I was born here in this village. I'm a farmer, my father was a farmer, I grow raisins, olives, and wine. I never met my grandfather from the father's side, but he was also a farmer. I learned from my father. He also worked in community, as a president of this village of approximately 200 residents, and for the board of the Zakynthos. My goals are to continue farming and also to work in the community, for my village, for the island and for the whole Greece.
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My olive oil is among top 10 in the world in terms of quality and amount of polyphenols - but I still learn something new every day. I want to make better oil every year, and to find limits in how good it can be. It all depends on the time of the picking, location of the trees, soil, microclimate, weather, stones…
I make organic, natural food and medicine, healthy products. I learned from ancient books, Hippocrates and others. I learned that food is medicine, and medicine is food, and that one needs a healthy body to have a healthy mind. I started to use this knowledge in a practical way. I wanted to make my farm bigger and more open, but to do this, I needed scientists close to me - to prove the things that I learned and practiced. So I did a research and found two professors from the University of Athens, who worked in a very special way, mixing dogmas of our ancestors with new technology systems and experience. We started to work together with the university, and I learned new things again, to make better service for my products and my people. If you keep knowledge only to yourself, you don’t have a life - we must pass knowledge to other people.
My vision when I was young was to make something and to bring all my brothers and sisters together. At the farm, it’s a kind of synergy between us. I am good at something, my brother and my sisters are good at something else.
What I want to do here is to be a sender for the world. Everybody can come here and can feel everything, the products and the phyloxenia (friendship with the people that we don’t know).
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In 2013, we have opened the farm to the public. It was a difficult time, because we lost a part of our product and I began to get scared a little, questioning if what I do is good or not. At the time, all of the people said to me, ‘leave this path, leave organic farming, because it’s not good for you, you’ve lost a lot of money.’ But I said no, with my passion I believed in it, and I said ‘I started it and I will continue’.
We started with tourism alone, on the internet. At first, it was going slow, but then we started to learn how to work alone, without a tour operator. Slowly, year after year, we got more and more guests. At the same time, we had to work elsewhere, my brother as well. But then I started to look towards my farm and my villas.
Dimitrios second passion are raisins wich he grows organically and dries in the sun. He wants to follow the same steps as in olive oil production. Carefully analysing the crops and testing the results in collaboration with university lab to learn more about raisins and their benefits as a healthy food product. “…olive oil and raisins, I did also mix them and I think it brings something new . This oils are now analysed. Oils for massage are different. Massage oils that can be strong for the body, are mainly from the herbs for example . I want to do massage olive oil with high numbers of polyphenols.”
At the same time, I was starting to know myself better - so for me, it was like a trip of Odyssey. You leave your home, you go around the world, you learn from what you see, and then you return back to you. But in the time you return, a lot of things have come and taken your position - so you have to take back your position. From the philosophy part of our life, we can say that the thoughts and what we do, we look and we are far away from ourselves, so in the time we make this trip, we understand what has happened, and then we return back to our original selves.
In 1999, when I became a farmer, I started to feel like the father of the family - my father started retiring and I took over his role.
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It also applies to the work in my newly built villas. To work in a nice, positive way for our guests. To give the best we can give to them.
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MY IDEA IS to make Zakynthos an ecological organic island. IN 2011 we created a non profit company Eco Zakynthos to connect all agro tourism. For me ECO Zakynthos means to pass the vision. I never give up on a vision… It is like a drop on the rock.. it makes a hole. If you have your vision in the heart and you work for it slowly, one day it becomes true. If everybody, political system, associations, businessmen, would start to listen to our vision, take it and talk about it, one day I think it will become true.
Dimitrios does not have a family of his own, but he is very close to his sister. She is a painter, 10 years older than Dimitrios and she used to take care of him, like a mother.
I am very close with the whole family, both my sisters and my brother. We like it like this. It’s not easy to be at peace with family, but the vision in our heart, our soul, is to be together and to help each other. /you can enlage the images by clicking on them /
Zakynthos is my base. I make all my experiments, research here. Here is my farm, my family. I don’t want to move away permanently, but I want to have two lands. One here and one in Athens, to move between the two and to be dynamic
My goals are to continue farming and also to work in the community, for my village, for the island and for the whole Greece. /you can enlage the images by clicking on them /
Mistakes are a part of my life! I like mistakes. They are to teach me something and after I can be the winner. The people that follow the heart are happy people. It is the vision… I want to cultivate the trees, myself and my philosophy.
I try to feel my body. What I need is to feel nice and relax. I do not want to press a lot my body! I like to go slow, to see it, to work it, and everything comes in the right time! For me, what makes me happy, it is to start and understand my real self. We are travellers, we change our bodies, we come here to die… and my reason to die is to be true. I want to die in my life for the truth. First of all to myself and after to the others.
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