NORWAY — Michael and Sonya Tardif have been promoting a vegan lifestyle for 10 years at their restaurant, Taste of Eden.

Now they’re looking to take their work farther, with a plan to start a “lifestyle sanctuary,” a working farm where people could stay and learn how to use a vegan diet to treat diabetes, heart disease and other ailments.

The program would be called the Eden Lifestyle Sanctuary. It would be similar to the former Poland Spring Health Institute that closed years ago. Sonya Tardif said she went there when she was a teenager. “It’s so simple,” she recalls thinking. “Why aren’t there more places like this?”

The sanctuary would be an extension of the “10 days to wellness” program they currently offer.

Each month, anyone interested can take a 10-day course that includes three meals a day, including a dinner served at Taste of Eden accompanied by a lecture. They go home with the next day’s breakfast and lunch.

Michael Tardif said it’s based on a passage from the Bible. In the Book of Daniel, chapter 1, Daniel is taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar wanted Daniel and other prisoners to eat the royal meat and drink the royal wine, but Daniel instead ate only vegetables and drank only water for 10 days.

After 10 days, he and other prisoners who followed his diet looked healthier and were more able than those who ate meat.

The Tardifs say 10 days on a diet of only plant foods can have similar effects on people today. Michael Tardif said he encourages people to have blood work done before the program. Recently, he said, a diabetic woman started the program with a blood sugar level over 400. After 10 days, Tardif said, her blood sugar was down to 200 and she no longer needed her medication.

Tardif said the program has been used to treat hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, obesity and asthma. When he tells people about the diet, they often look at him like he’s crazy, he said.

One man with rheumatoid arthritis was “eating OxyContin by the handful” to deal with the pain. Now he’s off his medication, Tardif said.

What’s working against the current program, however, is cheating. Grabbing a cheeseburger at McDonald’s or even a cup of coffee can throw off the program, Tardif said. At the sanctuary, people would be surrounded by only wholesome, plant-based food.

The Tardifs are Seventh Day Adventists, a denomination that adheres to a vegetarian or vegan diet. They have been running the cafe first in Bethel, now in Norway for about 10 years as a way to promote their vegan lifestyle. If the sanctuary opens, they might have to leave the cafe behind.

That’s OK with Tardif. Right now, the Tardifs are raising money for the effort and looking for land, ideally more than 50 acres. They incorporated as a nonprofit organization for the effort last November.

Like the current 10-day program, participants would be asked to pay what they felt 10 days of food was worth. Michael Tardif said he knows some people have taken advantage of the deal, but said it comes with the territory. “We want to help people to have a better life,” he said.

treaves@sunjournal.com

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