How to Live on 40 Euros per Week as a Raw Foodist

This is my interview with Taz, a raw foodist who lives on the mountains in Spain and helps people via nutrition and raw foods 'in real life', as he says, and not through the internet. Some of the questions below are based on my earlier conversations with him via email. Taz has provided a lot of help and guidance for me on my health path and I am grateful for him for that and for allowing me to publish this interview.

Who are you and where do you live?

My name is Taz, people call me this because of the way I work like a whirlwind.

I live mainly in Andalucia in Spain but now and then I go to different European countries to help educate people about the benefits of superfoods and tonic herbs. In Spain we live totally in the nature, in the mountains, sleeping in the forest or in the winter in tipi, yurt or a camper van.

What is the raw food scene like in Spain/ France?

In Spain there has been for the last ten years an explosion of people waking up to their true nutritional needs. This is helped by the fact that you can live by collecting fruit and nuts from nature all year round, and from planting a small garden on abandoned land. Also it has a good supply of spring water in most towns.

As for France, there are organic supermarkets in every town and the prices are reasonable.

How did you become a raw foodist?

In one of the villages I lived I was working selling my own olive oil and almonds when a lady came along and offered me three cacao beans and a pear. I had lived quite a clean life up unto this point so instantly felt more energised.

It made me realize that there were more highly charged foods than what I was eating, this is why I eat very little now as I am only eating the highly charged foods and my body does not crave anything more.

What is your advice for people who live in the city and are tired from working too hard?

I believe that you will feel a lot better once you are living a more natural life closer to nature. I know hundreds of people who have made this choice.

The most important thing is to get all your spending down. This way you can approach life from a different direction. I personally can live on 40€ (euros) per week - that's for everything including all the best herbs in the world.

How can you live on 40 euros per week?!

I have often lived on no money. It's very easy when you live in nature, you just have to learn when to collect fruit for drying, nuts for storing and the best water straight from the mountain is free. By far the easiest place to do this is Spain as there the food grows all year around, even winter, where you will find olives, oranges, pecans, almonds, etc. You can collect more of something and exchange with someone for what you need.

If you are over-spending then you must work.. Shaman believe that we are caught in a dream and need to awaken but the society needs us dreaming...

Luckily I awoke from the dream aged 12.

I have never paid rent, I have never had electricity, except from the sun by solar panels. I have never had running water, I do not have bank accounts, credit cards.

raw food community, live on 40 euros per week, raw food on a budget

Mountains in Andalusia

What is your advice to someone who has no time to eat healthy, exercise and spend time in nature because they have a job, small children, and money worries?

It is very easy to eat healthy, everyone prepares food two or three times a day. This takes two hours, say, including the eating. Just make a shake once or twice a week and use the extra time to walk barefoot in nature. Small children are very happy eating raw foods and love to walk in the nature so much so that they never want to go home. They know what's good for them.

If you have a demanding job then this is your choice in life, you do not need money to enjoy nature. There are always parks or beaches nearby, and you can get an allotment or use a piece of abandoned land to grow veg.

How do you know that the water you drink is pure?

I drink analysed water from natural places where I live. We have a friend who has a digital meter and wherever we wish to collect water from we take a sample to her and get a reading. If it's below 50 p.p.m contaminates we drink it. It is the best piece of kit you can have in your pocket and costs only 70 euros.

When I travel I drink bottled water from the Alps.

I have noticed that many raw foodists have their own businesses...

Raw foodists are more entrepreneurial not only because they are closer to nature but also the foods are making you more intelligent and better at making decisions.

Do you find that the raw food diet restricts your social life?

A social life is something you involve yourself in with like-minded people. When you change your way of life you inherit a new set of friends. The people I socialize with are vibrating on a different frequency to people whose body is sluggish from poor diet, drugs, alcohol.

What benefits have you experienced from the raw food diet?

As I am a mechanic I see my body as a car. If you put Diesel in your car it goes along but now I feel like I am putting high octane fuel in my body, giving me more power, stamina and also an increased IQ.

You explained before that you don't support 100% raw - why not?

I personally believe you do not need to live a 100% raw lifestyle, especially at the start, as this puts too much pressure on people to conform to a rule. Later if you feel you can move to be totally raw then do so, but if you don't maintain it don't feel as though you have failed.

What are you up to this summer?

At the moment I am in Brittany in France, helping some people here. I will go to a festival to hand out leaflets about superfoods and tonic herbs, and maybe make up some shakes.

The festival is the best in the whole of Europe because they ban alcohol. The first time I went there I couldn't believe the energy created by 5,000 people not drugging their mind with alcohol.

It's called "Le rêve de l'aborigène"... ( Lereve-de-laborigene.net )

raw food festival in france, conscious festival

Le rêve de l'aborigène

Tell us more about the festival!

It is called 'the dream of the aboriginal'. It has a 'no alcohol' policy out of respect for the aboriginal people who were tricked into consuming alcohol so they could be moved from their native land, which they had lived on for 10,000 years, without the need for money.

I advise anyone who can take the time off to attend this festival on 18 July in Airvault, France. It is nearer to London than Newcastle by train and has an energy of happiness like no other...

raw food festival, the dream of the aboriginal

Can you recommend other good raw food hang-outs apart from the festival?

If you want to escape for a while look on a website called www.helpx.net. You can go on a working raw food holiday.

Tell us about the work the shamans are doing in Portugal and Spain?

Shamans of Spain and Portugal are weaving a new dream, whereby one man helps another but not for money.

"Whether you realize it or not, we are all dreaming the world into being. What we're engaging in is not the sleeping dream we're familiar with, but the waking dream we craft with our eyes open.

"When we're unaware that we all share the power to co-create reality with the help of the Universe itself, that power slips away from us and our dream turns into a nightmare. We begin to feel we're the victims of an unknown and frightening creation that we're unable to influence or change. Events seem to control us and trap us. The only way to end this dreadful reality is to awaken to the fact that it, too, is a dream, and recognize our ability to write a better story, one that the Universe will work with us to manifest. The nature of the cosmos is such that whatever dream you have about yourself and the world will become reality.

"As soon as you awaken to your power to dream, you begin to flex the muscles of your courage. Then you can dream bravely: letting go of your limiting beliefs and pushing past your fears. You can begin to create truly original dreams that germinate in your soul and bear fruit in your life."

- Alberto Villoldo, as quoted by Taz

didgeridoo festival, alcohol free festival, aboriginal festival, shaman dream

What would be your advice for someone who is interested in trying out the raw food diet?

I would advise you to learn what your body needs every day in the form of vitamins and minerals; and to find substitutes for bread and sugar before you start. Also have a good supply of healthy snacks. I recommend you to fast for one day before you begin as I have found that this helps people.

Practise making some raw food recipes before you start because if you spend a long time preparing a raw meal after you have returned from a hard day's work, and it turns into a disaster, you are more likely to eat some junk food.

Young people who change to a raw food diet sometimes do not understand the body's need for vitamins and minerals, which are not obtained from 20 bananas per day.

I would advise people to have at least 50% raw for the first year or two then adjust to how your body feels.

The most important is to eat 90% organic and to have a pure water source, and to take all your minerals and vitamins which are not in your diet naturally in the form of superfoods and tonic herbs. And take a course of zeolite every six months to remove harmful substances from your body's cells.

You are completely alcohol-free, why?

When you have a clean, healthy body and you drink alcohol it slows your speed of thought and reaction time and disassociates you from nature.

How does the environment make people unwell? You mentioned earlier that you meet many people like this.

The environment is poisoning us fast, starting 50 years ago with pesticides and growth hormones in animals, then Three Mile Island, then Chernobyl, then Fukushima along with coal burning plants, the list goes on. If we don't take preventative medicine regularly we will not survive the onslaught. All we can do is to regularly detoxify using spirulina, kelp and zeolite.

Raw food diet has been called the 'most expensive diet on earth' - do you agree?

Raw food diet can be very expensive because people who have money to spend buy lots of exotic fruits and raw products from shops. These are also time-consuming to make... But we have a saying: 'the poorer you are the better you eat', due to you having to make it yourself, therefore cutting the price and collecting the ingredients straight from nature or your garden for free.

What common mistakes do you find people make when they try to make the raw food diet work?

When people try to learn to drive a car they read manuals, take lessons, taking more than 40 or 50 hours of preparation just to press two pedals and move a gear stick. I have seen people go from a meat eater to raw food vegan in one day. Do your research, you are in charge of a highly sophisticated machine that needs more than a few bananas to make it run.

Most people turning to a raw food diet consume so much fruit it's unbelievable. I think it's down to laziness. You can pick up any fruit and be eating it straight away but most vegetables need some preparation. Also people believe they are being energised because they get a constant hit from the sugar glucose conversion.

This can sustain you for some time but in the end your healthy body is becoming worse than before and in the end will cause insulin problems. I have seen some people last as long as four years if they are young. Like David says, aim for a balance to start with, not 70% carbs.

Do you think exercise is important when eating a raw food diet?

Yes, regular exercise is important even if it's only for 30 mins per day. Many girls I know use a small trampoline, you can set it up anywhere. Also this is best for lymph blockages.

What do you eat in a typical day?

For the past five years upon waking I will make a shake with apple, banana, goji, astragalus, schizandra, almonds and reishi. I also take 6g of spirulina and 1g acerola per day, as well as some coconut products during the week. Some days I will add hemp milk or walnuts or chia to the shake. I will have another shake at 4pm but less so recently after adding panax ginseng and Siberian ginseng to the mix. Then I will do physical work for 8 to 10 hours without break. At night I have some buckwheat crackers, avocado, tomatoes or kamut spaghetti.

I eat very little food. I find my body no longer needs it. I never cook, time-consuming waste of time... I know some people who spend two hours cooking a meal only to fall asleep afterwards!

It sounds like you don't get many calories. Do you find it hard to keep a healthy weight and do you get tired a lot?

What is a healthy weight? A 1000 years ago we had to put on weight to survive though the winter like any animal. Now we have food at our disposal. We do not need to store energy in the form of fat, therefore I believe that we can look underweight but be perfectly healthy and have plenty of stamina.

The point is that once you have become clean from drugs, pollution, alcohol and bad food, then you can live on tonic herbs and superfoods only.

I do not get tired unless there are 4 or 5 days of clouds or rain, then my energy levels can drop. But as this is not often in Spain then I do not bother with D3 supplements.

Do you think there are nutrients in superfood powders and smoothies or do you think they are destroyed by oxidation?

Oxidation is caused when any food is in contact with air after being cut or ground. I buy all my products whole or vacuum-packed and keep them in the dark. When the foods are in the blender, it is best to keep blending to no more than 30 seconds and to drink quickly - this way they will only lose a small amount of nutrients.

People are still alive eating cooked food... But heat and oxygen are the best ways to destroy nutrients.

How many hours of sleep do you need per night?

I go to sleep just after it gets dark and sleep til 7, winter or summer.

What cooked foods do you eat?

Kamut spaghetti, once a month I may cook a curry with quinoa.

Where do you get your Omega 3s from?

The Omega 3s I get from flax seed oil, it must be a brown bottle, not larger than 250ml because it starts to oxidise as soon as it's opened. I try to use it within 2 weeks and I also eat lots of purslane.

Do you recommend people take blood tests to check for hormones, vitamins etc.?

Full spectrum blood analysis is the best. Some doctors now in France are giving this before making any comments on your health.

What do you think about kefir for probiotics?

I see nothing wrong with a little kefir but in Spain we do not feed it sugar, we feed fruit. Personally I don't use it.

Do you notice that you are more sensitive to toxins and certain foods since you became a raw foodist and is it a problem? For example, do you get allergies from the pollution in the cities? I think I have got more sensitive since starting to detoxify my body.

I would say the opposite. I would normally get a bad hay fever from the new GM crops but now I suffer very little, the problem in the cities is the car exhaust. If I go into the city I wear a mask.

You have in the past served raw food meals to people...

I had many people eat my meals who did not even know what a raw food meal was but because it was cheap they were willing to give it a try. This is what makes me happy in life, to save people's health.

Do you have a book recommendation?

There is no better than 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. I still read this book many years after first buying it, as every page is an inspiration to live life to the full.

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Thank you so much Taz for this inspiring view into your life! There is so much information here worth gold... I hope many people will read this and get ideas to lead a healthier and happier life.

To order tonic herbs and superfoods from Taz's shop, The Raw Smile Shop, you can view the catalogue here.

CHR Natural Health