How would you fare solely on a raw diet from nature’s yield? Does munching on leaves, shoots, stems, roots and bark from forbs and trees sound appetizing to you? Or maybe wild grains and grasses, fungi, fruits, nuts and berries are more appealing? For Tadas Lomanas, this type of diet of nature ‘in the raw’ is his food of choice. Tadas is best described as a pioneer of raw wild foods, a minimalist, poet, musician, naturalist, permaculturist or maybe even an ascetic. His passion is to fuse and harmonize with nature by living intimately within it. Tadas finds much delight from his extremely austere lifestyle and from his process in obtaining a body-mind transformation. By observation and experimentation, he is figuring out the effects of various wild raw foods upon his mental, physical, and spiritual self.
Primarily due to a digestive problem, Tadas turned to vegetarianism at the age of 19. He graduated from the Lithuanian Military Academy and during his 5 years of military service, he began to read and self-reflect. He read publications about raw foods, but also consumed the series of books written by Vladimir Megre, The Ringing Cedars of Russia (Megre’s works are known worldwide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Megre). Megre’s books focus on the philosophies of a mystical woman name Anastasia. Her ideologies were based in the power of nature, ecology, and the development of back-to-the-land communities or eco-villages that included a good measure of conservative family values.
Tadas incorporated much of Megre’s ideas into his austere lifestyle. He escaped the noise and stress from city living and bought 8 hectares of fields and forests, upon which sits a rustic cottage, small pond, garden, and apiary. Located 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Vilnius near the village of Giedraiciai, here is where Tadas has submerged himself for the last 3 years. Although during his first year he went back and forth from the city and succumbed to his weakness for sweets, Tadas began a regime of eating mostly fruits, herbs, honey, and nuts.
Each year he pushes his limits. Tadas makes various concoctions of ‘herb cocktails’ (observe ‘herb cocktail” in the making on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZeAJsD6s9w ), with ingredients, to name a few, from sorrel, plantain, dandelion, ferns, nettles, yarrow, St. Johns wort, maple leaves, bent grasses, and apples. He believes plant cellulose absorbs and removes toxins, and restores intestinal micro flora. Not only has his physical health improved, but Tadas states that his emotional health has been heighted to a more stable and amplified good mood.
Tadas’s harmony with nature has been a spiritual experience. He believes that God is in nature, so to respect and live harmoniously with the laws of nature is to be part of God’s graces.
In the warmer months, Tadas lives in a tent, bathes in his pond, and harvests wild foods. He has cultivated a small apiary, juvenile walnut forest, and a small garden, although his gardening style is unconventional; he scatters seeds and nothing more, leaving the plants to survive on their own.
Now it is mid-December, with evening lows dipping to 8 degrees F and outside the ground is covered with snow. Experimenting with human-hibernation, Tadas does not heat his cottage, although he affords himself the amenities of electricity for light, to charge his mobile phone, and to power his computer. He sleeps most of the day and rarely goes outside, only on occasion to harvest some pine needles or tree buds. During the winter, he never drinks any liquids, only water with honey, which he claims is once a month. His food intake for this particular day was 10 apples and a head of cabbage, plus the dried pumpkin, apricots, dates, and hazelnuts we shared during my interview. A friend had brought Tadas supplies from Vilnius, which included carrots, apples, raw peanuts, walnuts, cabbage, persimmons, and bananas. Understanding that he is still connected to the technological system, Tadas sees each year as one step closer to his goal of completely detaching from it. The motto to think globally and act locally, which he gleaned during his attendance at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, is what Tadas believes everyone must responsibly do to the best of their abilities. Tadas Lamanas is a stellar representative of one who treads tenderly on the earth while living robustly as an example for others to consider.
Tadas Lomanas can be found at: http://toltikkontaktai.blogas.lt/
