The Man From Funkey Forest
Erik Adams on Capitalism and Consumption

Interview with Erik Adams by Sienna Blake,
Vegan Voice magazine No 31, Sep-Nov 2007

I’m sitting at a table surrounded by bushland on a ridgeline that backs onto a national park, inland from Byron Bay. This is Funkey Forest mountain retreat centre, a 200-acre sanctuary for both wild creatures and humans, and I’ve come to subject founder Erik Adams to a VV interview.
Erik, along with his partner Jessica, a naturopath, runs a range of retreats throughout the year, including Zen meditation, yoga, organic juice fasting, deep ecology, forest treks and integral philosophy. They’re about to escape the winter for a couple of months at raw food guru Gabriel Cousens’s Tree of Life rejuvenation centre in Arizona.

It’s a breezy morning with lots of sun. Erik brings out peppermint tea and a dish of goji berries and cacao beans, and I instruct him to prepare for the interrogation. He laughs and throws Daisy the dog a fallen branch. Not much fazes Erik. It’s too tranquil here for that. I ask how he arrived at this point in his life – how he became a raw food vegan.
“It was just an evolution of my own consciousness,” he says, giving the matter some thought. “As a teenager I was very questioning of everything and got into reading a lot of Indian mysticism. I was interested in the counterculture; I’m a musician and when I was a teenager I played in psychedelic bands and was into ’60s music. That led me to yoga and meditation and going to the local Hare Krishna temple.”
He was always a clean-living type of guy from the start then? Erik smiles at this. “Absolutely not. I was a rebellious teenager and I got into smoking and drinking and taking other drugs and rebelling against what I saw as the status quo. When you’re young I think you’re usually fairly conformist and subservient to whatever has been given to you and then at a certain age you start to question that reality. You begin to question the paradigm of your society, which is pushing a particular way of being, whether it’s being a consumer or taking on the Australian consciousness of barbecues or sport or beer or achieving material possessions as your primary aim in life.”
How very un-Australian of you, I say, to question such things. He pops a bean into his mouth. “I was brought up by my father and we ate a typically poor diet, a standard Australian diet. But my father was chief health officer of NSW and later Australia, and he was an inspiration to me simply because he was a humanitarian. He was very much into preventative medicine. He helped set up Medicare in the ’70s and was working in health education, trying to get people to stop smoking. He was there when the whole AIDS explosion happened. He always believed in the preventative approach rather than the pharmaceutical. What inspired him was to work for people.”
Erik’s mother studied philosophy, Marxism and Marxist feminism at Sydney Uni in the ’70s. “She helped influence me in questioning the capitalist system,” says Erik. “She made me see how detrimental it was to individuals and society and the planet. I wanted to look deeper; I felt there must be more to life than just becoming a good cog in the machine.”
When did he get interested in vegetarianism? “I started going vegetarian in my late teens, but I really got into it when I came up here when I was 21 and moved into a household of older, Sannyasin vegetarians. They educated me. I had to cook for the whole household once a week and so I was forced to be a vegetarian chef, which was a great learning experience. We were gardening together as well and it was then that I became much more committed to it as a discipline.”
What about going vegan? How did he move on to that? “I went vegan in my early 20s but I got quite sick because I was a junk vegan. I’m sure some of your readers have gone through that. I didn’t understand nutrition and I wasn’t thriving; I was struggling at university and I got Ross River fever on top of that. So I went back to being a vegetarian and stayed that way for quite some time.
“Over the last three or four years, after working in the health food industry and studying nutrition and Ayurveda and getting into raw food, I started having a better understanding of how to eat a balanced diet.”
Raw obviously suits him, I say. What would he say to someone like me who loves raw food in summer but isn’t as inspired in winter? Is that a common complaint? “Absolutely. The danger of the raw food movement – and I’ve seen this up close because I’m doing a masters degree in vegan raw food nutrition and have been hanging out with that community a bit in the States and here – the greatest pitfall is to try to go hardcore all at once. You know, to go 100 per cent – this idea of some perfected being that you can achieve through absolute nutritional or dietary purity. There’s a danger of being obsessive. Also, that kind of extremism can scare away the people who just want to introduce it step by step.
“It’s a big step just to be vegetarian, an even bigger one to be vegan, and it’s another big step to being more predominantly raw. But when you bring more raw foods into your life, it’s actually easier to be a healthy vegan, I’ve found. Once you know how to do it properly you’ll get a more balanced nutrition, but you really have to have a deep understanding of your own constitution – know what you need when you’re out of balance and how to rectify it.”
Okay, can I mention the dreaded B12 right about now? Did Erik see the recent television program where they had a raw food vegan on and they said that he had the lowest level of B12 they’d ever seen? Didn’t really do a lot for the vegan movement … “I did hear about that. And you know, one individual doesn’t represent everyone.”
No, especially with B12. It seems to be a very personal thing that works differently with different people; I mean, even meat-eaters can be B12-deficient. “That’s right. But B12 is extremely important and my teacher, Gabriel Cousens, has previously written that B12 was available from vegetable sources but now has turned around on that. He is adamant that it’s important to have healthy B12 levels and he now recommends taking B12 supplements. I’ve had B12 anaemia probably twice in my life and it’s not a good thing. It’s a dangerous condition. I take a B12 supplement and it’s a synthesised thing so I do have a problem with that, but I also believe that if you eat a lot of food straight out of your garden and you’re eating microorganisms that are in there, it helps. If vegans aren’t thriving, it just looks bad for everybody.
“People say that there’s no example of veganism in history. But we didn’t have the kind of knowledge and understanding we have now, and the options. I do think veganism is the diet of the future.”
Whether we have much of a future remains to be seen, I say. It’s a sad thing but I think the majority are not going to choose veganism out of compassion, but maybe they’re going to have it forced on them because of what we’ve done to the planet. Would he agree with that?
Erik gives a wry laugh. “Yeah, that’s the only way we change generally, when the shit hits the fan. I’ve just been reading the UN report, ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’, and it is incredibly depressing. It’s bleak, and there’s still so little awareness. I mean, in Al Gore’s film he mentioned nothing about the impact of livestock and the agricultural industry.”
Well, he is a cattle rancher, I say. “Yeah, that’s right, that’s another inconvenient truth for him.”

So how does Erik think that humans got to this pathetic state of total addiction to meat and dairy? How did it happen, and so quickly? He sips his tea and considers. “I think there’re a number of factors. I’m interested in consciousness, and the consciousness of greed, of self-interest, is very much tied to materialism and the concept that material goods or possessions will make us happy or fulfil us. And also there is this culture of individualism, whereby we are all trying to be great egos, living for the pursuit of fame and profit. That’s the core issue as far as I am concerned. That is the key to our downfall.”
Erik’s on a roll now. “It’s only been since the advent of the industrial age and materialistic values that we’ve had incredible overpopulation, overconsumption of resources, total disregard for nature and the feminine aspect, for other animals, and just a lack of care in general. There’s this absolute disconnection from nature brought about by increased urbanisation; a disconnection from the whole food production cycle – of course, if everyone had to kill their own meat there’d be far less meat consumed.
“We need to regain a deep understanding that true happiness is not brought about by what you possess or what you gain, but unfortunately the marketing industry is so strong, it’s such a virus of the mind, that it’s brainwashing us and polluting our global mental space into more and more consumerism.” He gazes out over the treetops, seemingly searching for an answer.
“Of course there’re a lot of people waking up to the fact that it’s wrong, but there’s such a vested interest in keeping the machine going and it gets to the point where it has its own momentum and people are so caught up that it becomes a cycle of addiction: I need to feel whole, I need to feel good so I need to buy something or eat something or have sex with someone, or whatever. And that’ll momentarily make me feel whole and then the whole thing starts again. The media creates need that we didn’t even have before or want – desires, when we could feel just as good walking in the forest.”
What does he think the next couple of years might bring? Does he feel that the tipping point has come? “Definitely. Everything is getting worse and worse and better and better simultaneously, but I see that as a good thing because it’s forcing people to wake up and really deeply question this whole paradigm and the way we have constructed reality.
“I think we have to stop relying on politicians or big business to be leaders or to do anything profoundly inspirational. We have to do it ourselves and organise ourselves. But unfortunately there’s so much apathy now; everyone feels so negative because they’re completely fed with negativity all the time by the media. For me this is just as much nutrition as food is, because what we consume with our senses – the media and movies and the negative news that we’re always getting – it’s malnourishing us, spiritually and emotionally.”
How does he deal with all this personally? Is that where meditation comes in? Erik admits that he suffers from occasional depression. Buddhism, he tells me, as well as other traditions, has helped him overcome it. “My mother’s a manic-depressive; she’s bipolar and suffers incredibly. For people who do think about the world, depression is a big issue. If you’re vegan and you’re becoming more sensitive through your lifestyle, you start to take on stuff more easily. Meditation has helped me a hell of a lot, and singing and dancing, also. I guess the main thing is trying to remain loving in the face of adversity as much as possible, and being forgiving and having compassion for yourself and for other people.
“I have absolute trust in the universe and in nature, that it knows what it’s doing. And it might be that we become extinct. And that’s okay, in a way. You know, we think that it’s a disaster or a tragedy but in the grand scheme of things I believe there’s no real right or wrong as far as the universe is concerned. Many species have come and gone; whole epochs have come and gone.”
While it’s good that Buddhism has helped him, I ask whether he doesn’t think it’s a pity the Dalai Lama isn’t vegetarian. Imagine the influence he might have if he spoke about vegetarianism wherever he went.
“Yeah, well, I think a famous anthropologist said that it’s harder to change a man’s diet than his religion. Conditioning is a huge thing. Everyone is fallible; everyone has their addictions. It’s disappointed me a lot that many of my spiritual teachers haven’t been vegetarian or vegan. But they’ve touched a lot of people and helped a lot of people.”
It’s like a mental block, I say, where people see nonhuman animals as being different to us …
“My main inspiration is Thich Nhat Hahn; he’s a strict vegetarian and has that as a really strong part of his practice. He talks about interbeing, in that everything we do affects everything else. We are not individuals, we are one big organism and we’re continually affecting each other.”
With that, it’s almost time to wrap it up. Daisy stretches and gets to her feet, reminding us there are other things to be getting on with. So what final utterances would Erik like to make about his life here at Funkey Forest?
“I feel like I’m an instrument for this mountain, this forest,” he says. “I feel they’ve been teaching me what to do. It’s about reconnecting with nature and with yourself, and about coming back to simplicity.
“I started running fasting retreats because fasting was one thing that was common to all traditions. It has a profoundly simple yet incredibly effective impact on all states of your being. It also teaches you a valuable lesson about consumerism, in that when you stop consuming – that is, fasting – and shut up, because we have silent retreats as well, you reach an amazingly high state of wellbeing. Which goes against our whole philosophy, which is to consume more.”
He goes on, passionately: “What I love about fasting is that when you stop and sit in nature and in silence like all the great sages did, that’s when you receive your greatest inspiration for teaching. And then also, biophysically, it’s a great rejuvenation technique – you feel clear, you feel open, and … transformed.”
Any final words for our readers?
“I’d like to emphasise the importance of balance, that to achieve an optimal ethical, healthy and simple way of living, we need to not only get the food right. That’s just one part of it, like one leg of a table. You need to be doing exercise, meditation, yoga – keeping the physical body alive. And there’s also the emotional side, especially with raw food because a lot of your emotional blockages come up. Then you reach for food to push them down. It’s important to keep it all happening, in balance.
“Lastly, I think service work is really important to keep you humble and to keep energy flowing. And be joyful as much as possible. You know, laugh.”
You can take a look at Funkey Forest by going to www.funkeyforest.com.
Email erik@funkeyforest.com or phone for more information on
(02) 6684 5279.