All Raw Primal Diet

Interview with Aajonus Vonderplanitz

What does this example have to do with Natural Hygiene you may ask. - It is a test: how open are you to new challenging ideas? Will you give them a chance to be discussed? Why print this interview?

In 1997 I happened to see Aajonus Vonderplanitz mentioned in the M2M magazine. I then purchased and read his book (We Want To Live), and later that year I attended a seminar he was giving to doctors. He claimed having had success within 3 months time with 236 out of 240 cancer cases (cancer checked) he put on his unique diet.

Below is an interesting interview with Aajonus Vonderplanitz conducted by Charlie Donham for the Natural Health M2M magazine in 1999, that I am happy to be able to publish here, with permission from Aajonus and M2M.

The interview is presented here for people who are interested in the possibilities of superior health using a primitive paleolithic type diet, 100% raw.

Note: some of Aajonus' ideas are different from my viewpoints and Natural Hygiene, but are challenging and should be discussed and tested. I have now been testing his ideas and also different improvements, on my own body and with patients, for 5 plus years (2003). I have seen much good so far, but need some more time to make a final evaluation. You are always welcome to call me if you have tested this type of eating and want to share your experience.

The Interview
With Aajonus Vonderplanitz

I am delighted that you have agreed to do an interview with our little health journal. I think you will find the membership eager to listen to your views; however, better understanding will occur with as much verification of your points as this format will allow. If you would, start by telling us about yourself and your practice in the nutritional field, as well as something about your earlier Illnesses and the road to your present standard of health. If you could elaborate on that with some data, It would be helpful.

I was born very sickly into a violent household. I had a brother who was still in diapers when I was born. He went from having had mother's full attention to having none and he never forgave me for it. He tortured me nearly daily. My father's discipline put me in the hospital several times.

My dyslexia and autism, which no one understood at the time, embarrassed and frustrated my parents. My dyslexia was to the extent that the printed page would swirl and I got vertigo. If I tried to read I would vomit. I tried holding the page down with my finger but my parents and teachers would not let me. Because I was borderline autistic and sickly I rarely played with other children.

Near my 10th birthday I developed peritonitis which was a severe intestinal infection. Doctors misdiagnosed it as appendicitis. When they discovered that my appendix was fine, they took it out anyway "in case it causes you problems in the future".

My bones were brittle, and I regularly broke bones in my limbs. I was diagnosed as borderline diabetic at 13. I developed angina pectoris muscle spasms in and around the heart by age 15?. I was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at that age.

At 19 I developed an ulcer that turned tumorous after medical therapies. After surgery the incision turned tumorous from outer skin to stomach. It was large. Doctors ordered it irradiated. And that caused me to develop Multiple Myeloma (blood and bone cancers). Multiple Myeloma survivors are less than 0.01%. Doctors ordered chemotherapy, which is like napalming the body, destroying mostly healthy cells to try and eliminate a few cancer cells. For every cancer cell that is killed by chemotherapy, 1 billion healthy cells are killed. That is like killing everybody on the planet because you don't like 6 people.

The chemotherapy made me a semi-invalid, and gave me psoriasis and bursitis. I refused to continue chemo after 3 months. I chose to die rather than be completely crippled for the rest of my short life. At that point I had had 7 "incurable" diseases.

A volunteer for a hospice gave me a small booklet written by a woman who cured herself of cancer by drinking raw carrot juice. I thought that was pretty bizarre and unrealistic. But read the book anyway. I tried the carrot juice.

Within 10 days my dyslexia vanished. There I was at 22 years old never having read more than 20 pages of a book, finally able to read. I read voraciously about diets and nutrition. If I went 7-10 days without drinking the raw carrot juice dyslexia returned.

I experimented with diets, food-combining and sometimes supplements. The macrobiotic diet seemed to put my cancers in remission but exacerbated my diabetes and psoriasis.

I began experimenting with helping people who had health problems. I experienced some spectacular healing with raw foods, especially with enormous consumption of raw fat, like raw cream from cows, in combination with vegetable juices.

By my 25th birthday I was eating totally raw food vegan-fruitarian style. At 27 after 2 years eating completely raw, I had enough energy to go wild, even though I was regularly so hungry as a raw-food vegan/fruitarian that sometimes I overate until I vomited.

I mounted a bicycle and peddled for 2? years all over North America from coast to coast and from Alaska to Central America. I lived off the earth. Sleeping on the ground, or in trees when it rained. And picking fruit off plants. All of the physical stress that came from traveling and living in the elements helped burn up all of the sugar from fruitarianism.

Osteoporosis became apparent, but I did not then as I should have attribute it to the demineralization caused by large fruit consumption. I felt euphoric most of the time I did not realize that my extreme highs were mania created excessive fruit.

I searched for answers to complete healing. I wanted to reverse the damage done by medical therapies and not ever be bothered by any of my lingering diseases. I knew that I would not find answers in a society that postulated dictums based on theory. I wanted experience to be my teacher. I lived with somewhat primitive people learning their healing and dietary techniques. I observed healthy animals for weeks at a time.

After 2? years my cancers resurged. Rather than fight it. I chose to die. I selected an old Native American burial ground and began fasting myself to death. After several weeks fasting I had an unusual experience with coyotes. They gave me a freshly killed wild jackrabbit. I thought it would kill me if I ate it raw. (I had been told by all of my medically and scientifically minded relatives that wild rabbits contained bacteria or virus that would kill a human.) I knew that fasting to death could take at least 60 days. I wanted to end my life more quickly, so I ate the rabbit raw. I returned to my campsite and lay down to die expecting severe stomach cramps that I was told accompanied bacterially or virally contaminated food. I felt euphoric, calm and happy. I thought that I was leaving my diseased body because I felt so good.

But I woke the next morning having had the first completely restful sleep of my life. I was nearly age 30. I began hunting. I ate rattlesnakes and birds. I worked farms for raw milk, cream, eggs and chickens. Within a few months I felt robust and strong.

I returned to Los Angeles to spread the wonderful news. Everybody thought that I had lost my mind. Over the next year my health increased by leaps and bounds because of the addition of raw meat to my raw diet.

However because of misinformation about food-borne illness from bacteria and parasites I ate raw meat only two or three times a week usually fish or chicken. I always ate it with the fear that there would be a time when bacteria or parasites would sicken and kill me. I began to jog then run. I ran up to 13 miles, did 250 push-ups with my feet 2-3 feet off the ground, and 30 handstand push-ups every day for 1 year. Because I had been so weak throughout my life and at this point I could do so much I felt invincible. People commented on how extraordinarily healthy I looked.

I was hired by a health food store as the nutritionist. A few people listened and tried the raw meat, fish and chicken. Their increased health was always remarkable.

I experimented with supplements. The more supplements I consumed the weaker I got. I realized within 6 months that supplements were toxic on a raw diet. Over the 2-year period I observed that most people who took megavitamin therapy developed toxic livers and glands. It showed up in their irises as well as temperaments and physical condition. But because they experienced an increase in energy. They thought it beneficial. Their highs were from toxic emergencies - the liver sending out hormones calling forth glycogen to handle the toxicity.

Supplement-toxicity is similar to coffee or cigarettes, most often producing debilitating side effects. It destroyed my desire and ability to exercise. I never returned to exercise and yet I developed and redeveloped the physique that accompanies strenuous regular exercise.

I continued eating raw meat once or twice weekly, and my health gradually increased. Whenever I experienced detoxification, healing was always a progress toward better functionality. I did not deteriorate as most people do on cooked foods or meatless raw foods. I knew I was on the right track by eating raw meat, but I could not set aside the bacteria and parasite phobias. I was especially concerned because the vagus nerve to my stomach had been severed in surgery for stomach cancer. I had no hydrochloric acid to dissolve and annihilate bacteria and parasites upon entering my body. Science and medicine put me in the category of octogenarians who they say, are in danger of death from bacterial and parasitic invasion from lack of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. I continued to eat meat anyway.

In my 35 year I misidentified a poisonous mushroom and ate it. It was the deadliest amanita mushroom, the 'death cap'. I ate enough to kill people my size. My cancers returned twice as bad as they had ever been, and it destroyed 90% of my liver. Along with severe liver-pain, extreme weight loss and body cramps, my diabetes returned. Every book on the death cap mushroom said that death came within 10 days and it was welcomed. No one in written history had survived after eating 1/15 the amount I had. I was a semi-invalid again. I healed slowly by eating plenty of raw fat. Too slowly. After 1 1/2 years of healing I began eating meats almost daily, including beef, lamb, buffalo, seafood and organically grown fowl. Healing time doubled and diabetes vanished. But it took me 6 1/2 years to recover to a somewhat balanced state of being and my cancers to reenter remission for the third time. It took 11 years to recover to where I had been before I consumed the poisonous mushroom. But I recovered completely.

After 12 years eating raw meat and never having had any more than a little diarrhea that might have been associated with it, I learned to relax and not fear raw food-borne bacteria and parasites. It seemed to me - at that point - that all of that hullabaloo about raw food borne bacteria and parasites was superstitious like the witch hunt of old times. My research showed that the FDA's research on food-borne bacterial illness, 24-81 million cases a year, stated that over 96% were cooked and processed canned and bottled food related. Raw was getting the rap, but cooked and processed were the culprits.

I experimented and found that raw foods soured and/or spoiled with lots of bacterial activity but did not putrefy. Only cooked and processed food putrefied. Only cooked and processed foods contained lipid oxides and disease producing protein toxins. The worst that soured and spoiled raw food caused sometimes was nausea and diarrhea with occasional cramps and fever and, rarely, a little blood in the stool - whereas cooked and processed putrefied food often caused such severe poisoning that lives were lost or near death.

It seems to me that science and medicine are in total denial or that they are protecting the processed food industry and restaurants.

My nutritional career unofficially began in 1969. Since I hadn't died in 1961 when doctors said I would. I thought that I had had some answers to better health. In 1969 I began advising and suggesting healing methodologies for people, especially particulars about diet.

Now that I look back on my life, I wonder how I could have been so confident, even arrogant, to advise anyone with the little knowledge and experience that I had. I knew a lot about disease but little about health and healing. I seemed to have a fairly good intuition for it.

However, I adhered to certain idealistic concepts that interfered and sabotaged my intuition. I misled people into veganism and/or fruitarianism because I believed that all meat was poisonous and bad karma. I didn't realize that something had to be killed to sustain life whether animal, vegetable or fruit. That is a law of this planet. I did not realize that only cooked meats contained poisons (i.e. lipid oxides and protein toxins). In my early years as a nutritionist I helped many and hurt many. Because my help was always greater than my mishaps, I continued to counsel.

After I learned about the tremendous properties of raw fats my successes reached 60%. After I learned about the fantastic healing characteristics of eating raw meat, my successes with disease rose to 75%. After I learned the techniques for amounts and particulars that certain foods had, my successes reached 85% and better, depending upon the disease.

Occasionally there was relatively immediate healing. Most often though, healing requires time to build strength, detoxify and regenerate.

The fact of healing according to Dr. F. Pottenger's work is that it takes 5 generations to achieve optimal health. It takes approximately 10 days to replace every cell (one generation) in the blood, 2 1/2 years to replace one generation (every cell) of glands. Approximately 4 1/2 years to replace one generation of arteries, approximately 5 years to replace one generation of intestines and tendons, approximately 6 years to replace one generation of cartilage, and approximately 7 1/2 years to replace one generation of bone.
Therefore, to achieve one's optimal health in a particular body part, it takes 5 generations: that is 7 weeks for the blood, 2 years for glands, 22 1/2 years for the arteries, 25 years for intestines and tendons, 30 years for cartilage, and 37 1/2 years for bone. Usually, healing enough to stop disturbing pain can he achieved during the first generation of healing.

Many of our members are Natural Hygienists and have chosen to eat a vegetarian (vegan and raw primarily) diet. Many fast on occasion to allow their body to eliminate the toxic condition from daily stress. How do you view this practice of fasting and what experiences or data could you share with us on these views?

I have completed approximately 75 fasts from 1969-1981 of various lengths -- many 1-day-a-week fasts, several 5-day, 10-day and 15-day fasts. One 31-day fast and one 41-day fast. During 60% of them I drank water only with no cheating ever. During 40% I drank all or some of my urine and a little water.

During the 41-day fast I drank all of my urine and a little water. Each one, including 1-day fasts was difficult. The easier of the long-term fasts was the 41-day drinking urine because of the nutrients in the urine. Urine is the blood with most of the red blood cells removed and a little ammonium added by the kidneys. During the 41-day fast (I should call it a urine feast) I lost the least amount of weight and energy, had the fewest headaches and had better disposition but my breath was atrocious all of the time.

The 31-day fast on water only I did at age 27. It took me 2 1/2 years to regain my equilibrium. The last intellectually motivated fast I did at age 33 - the 41-day urine fast. It took me 1 1/2 years to regain my strength.

I found that fasting longer than 3 days was impossible without daily enemas to dilute the toxins in the bowels. Enemas destroyed the bacteria that is the major constituent of feces but so did the toxicity from fasting. I had constant headaches, depression, anxiety and nausea without enemas.

I stopped fasting when I realized that the side effects of forced-fasting were greater than the benefits. The benefit of ketosis, cellular cannibalism, which usually occurs within 12 hours of fasting is that it reduces the overpopulation of sluggish cells, leaving the stronger cells and those that overproduce prostaglandins. This is a process of mass genocide via cannibalism. The deleterious effects are that blood maintains a higher acid ratio weakening and damaging red blood cells and their ability to transport oxygen.

If fasting continues beyond 2 days severe blood-fat deficiency occurs. The body leeches fats from the lymph system and cells to maintain it. This fat- leeching weakens the immune system.

Another deleterious effect of fasting is that the necessary bacteria level in the intestines diminishes. Since 60-90% of fecal matter is born of bacteria, constipation results and severely diminishes bacterial synthesis of B vitamins and amino acids. This further weakens and diminishes the immune system.

Another side effect from fasts, resulting from blood-fat end lymph deficiencies is that many toxins from either industrial pollution or natural byproducts of metabolism are freed. They irritate, burn and often imbed in the stronger cells, therefore weakening them. Fat, especially in lymph, usually binds with toxins and either neutralizes or escorts them out of the body through the mucus membranes, skin or bowels. If great collections of these toxins occur during fasting, kidney damage results. These side-effects usually create edema, especially when eating is resumed. The body often tries to dilute the toxins when it does not have enough fat to chelate and remove them. Mutations sometimes result.

My conclusion after 13 years experience and research with intellectually motivated fasts is that fasts are often more deleterious than helpful. They may have their place, but I won t gamble with people's lives using fasts as therapy.

When certain situations are favorable and if an individual has no appetite, I may suggest that they fast until hungry. However, if the individual is anorexic, I do not suggest that they fast.

I have replaced fasts with a formula of raw vegetable juices (rarely fruit juices) and raw eggs. This supplies the nutrients to form solvents to remove toxicity and the fats necessary to eliminate them from the body. It is not as dramatic an experience, but it works well, and more people are able to do it and still function.

You say that fasting weakens the immune system, but Shelton and others noticed just the opposite - that colds/flus/infections in progress would cease within a few days of starting a fast, and that new ones would never occur.

Concluding that because colds and flus often cease during fasts does not mean that health is improved. It has been my experience that colds and flus and all other diseases are detoxification. I have experienced and observed that colds and flus often ceased during fasts because the body could no longer tolerate such major detoxification. Some detoxification continued to occur during fasts, however it was mainly the tremendous toxicity from the body cannibalism (acidosis). Weaker cells are consumed to feed healthier cells. Fasts force the survival-of-the-fittest reality as in most starved species. This in consequence creates a somewhat healthier body because it eliminates so many weaker and decaying cells.

In most circumstances, because the body usually requires much time and nutrients, especially fats and proteins, to detoxify and recover from fasts and because most people do not eat diets that provide proper nutrients, people lack the nutrients necessary to ideally enter regular major detoxification like colds and flus. Especially in our toxic environment bodies need major detoxification regularly.

It is also known that the starving prisoners of nazi death camps were less susceptible to typhoid than their "well-fed" guards. This, if anything, indicates a strengthened not weakened, immune system. How do you explain things like this?

I do not attribute increased immunity of typhoid to starving. The high consumption of alcohol and drugs among guards seems to have contributed to the greater susceptibility to typhoid. Starving prisoners died of typhoid.

Your book was very informative about the role of raw animal fats, meat, and eggs for the proper nutritional fuel for our bodies. Would you please tell us what you feel is a proper level of raw animal products in our diet, and how you reached this conclusion?

For each individual the proper ratio of raw animal products may vary. Experience has shown me that over time raw animal products produce the calmest, most balanced human nature with excellent mental clarity.

For the last few years my raw animal products consumption has been approximately 80% by volume of my diet. I restrict high fructose fruit to one a day and almost always eat it with a high fat food such as unsalted raw cheese, raw butter, raw cream, raw milk, raw egg(s), avocado and/or raw coconut.

As an example of the extreme, the Eskimo ate 99% raw animal products and lived free of degenerative disease before white men introduced cooking cauldrons, breads and refined sugar to them. By several accounts of world travelers and explorers they considered the Eskimo the happiest of all races.

Their first case of dental decay was 50 years after cauldrons, breads and refined sugar were introduced. The dental caries only existed among those who ate some or all of white man's food. Cancer never occurred among primitive Eskimo.

I resisted a predominantly animal products diet for fear I would feel dull and sluggish because of the low enzyme and mineral content of feed given to farm animals. When I finally attempted it I felt dull and sluggish.

As a vitamin, enzyme and mineral supplement I introduced 1 quart a day of raw vegetable juice divided into 5 or 6 portions, often adding 1 ounce raw cream, raw milk or raw coconut cream to each portion, or ate a small amount of unsalted raw cheese. The juice perfectly balanced me and prevented the craving for high fructose fruit that resulted from eating animal products.

I avoid the high fructose fruit consumption because it causes manic thought and lack of regular clarity. I eat from 3/4 - 3 lbs of meat almost daily (that is, red meat and/or seafood and/or fowl).

What objective test measurements have you made on yourself before and since starting this raw flesh diet? Do you monitor any bio-markers like pulse rate, blood pressure, body temperature, various blood parameters? If so, what are they? Have you had a bone scan for osteoporosis? If so, with what result?

While I was a raw-food fruitarian/vegan my pulse rate averaged 62, blood pressure averaged 107/70, and body temperature 96.8 deg. I was frequently manic, easily tired or exhausted and quick to be outraged. As a raw-flesh eater my pulse averages 70, blood pressure 127/80 and body temperature 97.7 deg F.

I rarely experience mania or lethargy, easily remain calm, and have at least five times more energy and clarity.

I have not had a bone scan. However, my bones do not easily break as they did when I was a child. I have had several situations where if I had had osteoporosis I would have broken bones but did not. In one situation where had a severe bicycle accident I broke seven bones in my foot. Six hours later after a 14-year old girl set the bones in my foot I walked 3 miles. The next day I bicycled 12 miles. I was completely painless in 2 weeks. My bones healed 3 times faster than the average person. Such skeletal healing does not occur if osteoporosis exists.

One of the effects of eating the raw animal products, I have noticed, is an increased sex drive (without Viagra). You don't mention this specifically in your book (if so, I missed it), however there are several references to the high level of sex that you and your clients enjoy. What are your findings in this area and do you regard sexual energy as a health indicator? While Hygiene does not frown on sex, they do caution that over activity in this area is very enervating and to be avoided. What are your views about what is over activity and its possible harmful effects?

I cherish all enjoyments of embodiment. My greatest pleasure is sexual sensuality. - It is the highest measure of bodily euphoria, the best feeling. - It is a balance for the routines of society that often lack pleasure. - When I was under stress, which is rare for my state of excellent health now, it released tension.

When I was a vegan/fruitarian, ejaculatory orgasm was pleasurable but draining. I got depressed, anxious and irritable if had regular ejaculations. I have always had a high level of sex hormones and have always since age 3 craved orgasm. My sexual appetite did not change on any diet that I tried. On a raw vegan/fruitarian diet I became more sexually frustrated.

Now that I consume so much raw protein and fat, I enjoy sex 1-6 hours, have up to 3 ejaculations, and maintain energy with only 5-6 hours sleep daily. I feel like I have finally achieved and chosen heaven on Earth.

Regarding sexual energy as a health indicator seems erroneous. Some people simply do not have active sex glands and have little sex hormones, resulting in low sex drive. However, they can be incredibly healthy.

In your book, you stated that you have not engaged in any form of physical exercise (excluding sex of course) for the last seven years and have been able to stay in excellent condition. How do you explain this apparent contradiction from the accepted present view that stressing the muscles is a requirement to maintaining good physical conditioning?

When people don't eat enough stable and/or digestible protein they lack proteins to maintain all tissue, including muscle. I have found that raw nuts, seeds and germinated grains and nuts do not provide most people with stable protein for properly building and maintaining well-formed tissue. When most people eat cooked protein they consume lipid oxides and protein toxins causing unstable nutrients for building or maintaining all tissues unless they exercise. When they stop exercising muscles most often dissipate readily and easily.

The seven-year statement was in the context of 1986. It has been 19 years as of April 1998 that I have not engaged in any form of physical exercise except roller-skating once a month and regular sex.

Because I consume raw proteins and fat in the form of 1-3 pounds of meat (seafood, red meat and fowl) daily, my body stays naturally muscular and fit. Most animals, if fed their fresh, raw natural diets maintain excellent tone without exercise.

You state in your book that it is best to eat fruit with raw fats, so the fruit sugar will not be so rapidly absorbed into our systems. What do you think about high fruit diets?

High fructose diets destabilize mineral levels causing osteoporosis, including tooth decay and periodontitis. The only way to counter this is with tremendous exercise or emotional stress that burns up the sugars as quickly as possible. As I mentioned above, high fructose diets as well as my high carbohydrate diet cause blood sugar problem's resulting in manic thinking and/or behavior, extreme fatigue or tiredness, irritability, impatience and in some people frequent or uninterrupted depression.

You recommend the use of stone pressed oils (heated below 96 deg F) in our diets. You state that they should not be eaten with vegetables, as in a salad. Please explain the benefits of the oils and why the mixture with vegetables is harmful?

Cold-pressed-below-96 deg F oils mainly provide solvents for detoxification. - They may also be made into any fats as fuel, lubrication and chelation, but not much. - These oils are chiefly cleansers.

The combination of vegetables (leaves, stalks and roots) and cold pressed oils is most often inadvisable. Vegetation in the human digestive tract is mainly undigested. It would take at least one more stomach, 2 1/2 times more length of digestive tract and 60,000 times more of the enzymes that disassemble cellulose to derive much protein and fat from vegetables. If you put cold-pressed oil, without being premixed with raw vinegar, on vegetables the oil coats the vegetables and further reduces the digestibility of the vegetables.

You describe enzyme mutations in your book. Could you explain this process our members and its relevance to health the SAD diet?

In order for the body to handle the altered chemicals and compounds in cooked food the body must create enzymes that will utilize them to the best of its ability. Because these enzymes are very different from those naturally made from and for the utilization of raw food, I call them enzyme mutations. If the body cannot make the enzyme mutations to utilize adulterated nutrients caused by cooking, allergies will develop as more of the non-utilizable chemicals and compounds collect in the body.

You stated that raw fats and meats taken from natural sources are essential to excellent health. You mention this as a new food group. What exactly are you including in this group, and what levels of daily consumption do you recommend?

Actually, the writer of the Forward to Volume 2 of my book called it another food group. He did this to stress that the healthy effects of eating raw fats and meats are so different from the poisonous effects of eating cooked fats and meats.

Meats and fats that are cooked produce extreme toxicity, whereas meats and fats that are raw produce no toxic effects. Everyone should completely disregard all knowledge of cooked fats and meats when considering them raw.

For example, science and medicine separate HDL and LDL cholesterol, calling one good and the other bad. When fats are raw, both HDL and LDL cholesterol are good, and a high cholesterol level is beneficial. It reveals that, along with the fresh raw fats that will lubricate, strengthen, fuel and cleanse, toxic cholesterol from cooked and stored fats is being removed from the body to be eliminated.

Do you include nuts and seeds, and what levels of these do you think are sufficient?

They are not easy to digest for most people. I suggest that people eat them only when they have a craving for them. Usually people who eat meat do not crave nuts and seeds. Also Dr. Strueyer of the Costner excavations determined that as Native Americans began eating nuts and seeds they developed osteoporosis.

You stated earlier that Eskimos were very healthy, and now you say nuts/seeds cause osteoporosis. Yet it is also known that meat and dairy products are big promoters of osteoporosis and that Eskimos lived rather short life-spans and had brittle bones. Could you comment on osteoporosis as regards to flesh and dairy consumption?

According to Vilhjalmur Stefansson in his book "Cancer: Disease Of Civilization? - Chapter 14, The Longevity Of Primitive Eskimos", there was only one community of Eskimo reported to have had a short lifespan. This report seems to have been used to propagandize that Eskimo lived short lives. In all other reports primitive Eskimo lived lives as long as we do, a few reached age 100 years. Eskimos who ate their normal animal diet enjoyed bones and teeth that were so strong they were able to chew on bones during evening congregations. Osteoporosis only occurred in Eskimo who ate white man's refined foods.

As I stated earlier, Native Americans developed osteoporosis when they consumed more nuts and grains according to Dr. Stuart Strueyer. It seems that Native Americans were not able to assimilate the starch in nuts and grains, forming Advanced Glycation End-products (AGE's), that is, glycotoxins.

Pasteurized dairy is known to cause osteoporosis. In Medical Doctor William Campbell Douglass' book "The Milk Book", he supplies many scientific reports that show raw milk causes strong bones free of osteoporosis. Dr. Francis Pottenger. M.D. demonstrated in his work with 900 cats over a decade that raw dairy and raw meat built strong bones without the consumption of bone.

My experience with others has repeatedly confirmed that osteoporosis reversed by eating raw meat and raw milk. According to Vilhjalmur Stefansson in his book "Not By Bread Alone - Chapter 4: "The Laboratory Check," no osteoporosis can he associated with eating an exclusively animal and water diet, even when some meat was cooked.

After I received irradiation and chemo therapies, my cases of periodontal and carries degeneration became extreme. My teeth moved loosely, and my gums bled from the slightest touch even while eating. I was advised to have all my teeth removed. I refused, and instead I began consuming large quantities of raw milk. Within months my conditions improved considerably and continued to improve for almost two years.

But then I became a raw fruitarian/vegan. And within two years after becoming a fruitarian/vegan my teeth again began to decay. I thought it was a passing detoxification but it lasted 4 years. When I began eating raw dairy again and raw meat, decay subsided.
After I ate the poisonous mushroom, periodontal and carries degeneration resumed. Abscesses were near constant. Pain was chronic, lasting for sometimes a month at a time. Three wisdom teeth and one molar rotted and self-extracted in my mouth within 1 1/2 years.

That is when I began to eat raw meat on a daily basis. This controlled the pain to a large degree.

Now, 17 years later, I have many opened cavities which have sealed themselves. I have no false teeth in my mouth and am missing only one molar. Four of seven crowns remain in my mouth from 1978. My teeth are so firmly connected to the strong jaw bones that I have only experienced pain during detoxes once every 2-3 years, lasting no more than 3 days. Even though my teeth are in poor appearance, they are strong.

Eating such high levels of raw animal foods will elevate the body's cholesterol numbers compared to a vegetarian diet. How do you explain this contradiction to prevailing views on the need to keep cholesterol numbers low? Also, what level of cholesterol do you look for in your clients?

I have experienced that cholesterol levels should be ignored. I have found that it doesn't matter what the cholesterol level is if the cholesterol is taken or made from raw fats. Cooked fats are the problem because they are cauterized and can no longer exchange ions properly if at all. Therefore they eventually, in 20-50 years, dry and crack. If the fat were a part of an artery the artery would dry and crack. Raw fats continue to exchange ions no matter how long they are in the body, remaining much more fluid.

You speak of cholesterol values not being significant for raw fooders. Are you aware that Paavo Airola died of a stroke in his 60's, presumably from all the raw dairy in his diet? How do you explain this?

Although I have read some of his books, I know nothing about Paavo Airola's personal diet. I don't know his heart condition before he became a predominantly raw fooder. I do not know the extent of his cooked fat intake.

According to the immense research of W C Douglass MD, a high raw fat diet does not cause any heart conditions especially regarding the consumption of raw milk.

I was confused by all of the same assumptive theories - that is why I rejected most and found my own results.

Relating to my personal experience I point out that I had angina from age 15. I have not suffered angina since I added flesh to my diet. More than 90% of my clients who had high cholesterol levels for years on cooked diets lowered their cholesterol levels to normal within 6 months on a raw diet, that included tremendous amounts of raw fat and meat.

Evidence has shown me that the presumption that raw dairy was responsible for Airola's death is likely to be false.

Do you think any raw meat is ok, including supermarket quality? If not, where do you get high quality meat? What about the concentration of environmental pesticides in animal flesh and fats?

From laboratory analysis that I arranged with a technician on feces from raw meat eaters who ate supermarket quality red meat, tests showed that the same concentrations of toxins that were found in the fat of the meat passed out in the feces with the fat molecules relatively unchanged. These tests were done 9 years ago. I do not know if these same results could occur with present-day concentrations of chemicals and processed animal meals being fed to animals. I eat antibiotic-free and hormone-free red meat whenever I can, usually Coleman meat that I purchase at health food stores. When traveling to some locations I eat supermarket red meat. I have not had any ill reaction to supermarket red meat. I eat tremendous amounts of raw fat to bind with toxins and eliminate them from the body: that is one of the major functions of fats in our polluted society. I only eat poultry that is raised antibiotic free and free range. I do not eat farmed fish.

Are avocados a good source of fat? If nut/seed fat is inferior to animal fat, why is this so? The only thing you cite is osteoporosis, but that applies equally well, if not more so, to meat and dairy.

Avocados are an excellent source of fat: however, when I tried using avocado to stabilize dental conditions, I rarely received the beneficial results that I do with animal fat. I experienced that in most people avocado is utilized for hormonal fluids and functions, and for detoxification.

I have not done any laboratory testing on why nut and seed fats rarely lubricate and stabilize the human body. I concluded from others research that the main problem was the result of improper starch utilization forming glycotoxins. I have experienced that nut and seed fats are mainly utilized for detoxification such as in the making of body solvents.

Animal fat stabilizes or soothes the tissues readily and easily in most cases. Again, I have only seen evidence that raw meat and raw dairy reverse osteoporosis, not cause it.

You state that parasites are a myth ...

The parasite myth is that they are pathogenic always. It has been my experience that parasites are able to eat and digest tremendous quantities of decaying tissue in short periods: that is a detoxification process. When an individual has parasites. s/he is afforded the quickest process of detoxification. However, unless s/he eats enough and assimilates enough protein to regenerate cells and replace the tissue, s/he is more likely to have ulcers that may fester and kill her/him. I have found that with the consumption of raw meats that provide the nutrients necessary for quick regeneration parasites are beneficial. By the use of antibiotics, strains of bacteria and viruses have developed that are immune to all known antibiotics. Medical science has discovered that bacteria and viruses can mutate, becoming immune to existing antibiotics. This is creating a very weak race. Basically, medical science creates a weak human race that will be highly susceptible to advanced bacteria and viruses. This could likely result in a plague that would make any previous plague look minor, resulting in an extinction level event.

... yet one of our former raw food M2M 'ers who eats meat, Zephyr, did in fact poison himself with trichinosis parasites from eating wild raw mongoose. How do you explain this?

I do not know Zephyr. I do not have knowledge of his situation, however, I heard of this and investigated the likely occurrence of trichinosis from mongoose. I could not find research or facts linking trichinosis to mongoose.

I found one individual who said that mongoose have one or more sacs their necks that contain fluid that can be poisonous to most animals, including humans. It is possible that Zephyr ate one or more of these sacs, poisoned some of his intestinal walls and developed his own case of trichinosis to detoxify the decaying tissue that resulted from the poisoning. Trichinosis usually takes at least several days to gestate before any ill symptoms are detectable. Zephyr could have had an existent ill condition that required trichinosis for quick detoxification, and his trichinosis had nothing to do with eating the mongoose. If Zephyr had maintained a raw meat diet, his trichinosis would probably have passed without any severe scarring. If he had I serious allergy to the mongoose's sacular fluid, his chances of recovery may have been impaired.

These are all hypotheses: I do not have direct knowledge of Zephyr and his condition.

I hear that other Instinctos in Hawaii have experienced parasitic infections too.

Again, I experienced that parasites are beneficial when an individual consumes a raw diet that includes raw animal products, especially raw meats. An analogy is the present-day use of young maggots to clean and heal festered wounds in a matter of 3 to 5 days. That impresses me.

Under your food-as-remedy section of your book, you mention that mineral deficiency is improved by using a little sun dried clay mixed in mineral water. Other authorities state that using inorganic minerals will not aid in the body's healing process. Please explain your point of view and how you came to these conclusions?

Clay is like a food, especially when moist, and therefore the minerals are not inorganic. The body can utilize the minerals fairly well. However, as I state in my book, fresh raw vegetable juices provide the best, although in some cases incomplete, mineral concentrations. Cheese is also a concentrated source of organic minerals. My conclusions are always based on consistent good results and research.

You list many illnesses in your book, along with diets to supply needed nutrient: to allow the body to heal itself. NH recommends only that a healthy diet be followed, nothing specific to the illness. Would you please share your views with us on the use of specific foods for specific illnesses?

When I was a raw food vegan/fruitarian eating mainly mono-meals. I often observed certain effects from particular foods. I simply logged the effects and experimented with certain diseases and particular foods.

You also state in your book that distilled water is not to be used because it will rob the body of minerals. What do you base this conclusion upon, actual experiments or other sources that you could share with us?

I don't remember any negative literature on the subject. I drank distilled water for nearly two years, 1969-70. My skin became edemic, thinner, and psoriasis increased.

In the 80's I experimented feeding distilled water to animals. Over the equivalent 2-year period of their lives, they developed slight osteoporosis, fragile tissue and general edema. After placing one suffering group on raw milk and another on regular mineral water, both groups reversed the osteoporosis, thinning skin and edema. The raw milk group reversed it in 1/3 the time that the other group experienced.

That sounds like an interesting experiment. Have you written up the results and published the raw data anywhere?

I tried to publish many of my experiments over the years. Continually, I was refused for lack of appropriate academic credentials, proper laboratory environments, and because my findings and conclusions were too contradictory.

People everywhere, especially in the press, are literally afraid to risk health. Recently, I was asked to write an article entitled "Health or Disease: Do We have a Choice?" for Hispanos magazine by an editor whom I have known for many years. After 3 days' work I submitted it. The editor-in-chief refused to publish it because of its controversial content.

You are a big proponent of unheated honey and unheated bee pollen. Can you tell us how you came to believe so strongly in these two foods?

I first learned about it from a military medical doctor in Central America who observed that wounds healed 3-5 times faster if unheated honey was applied to wounds. I experimented, both topically and internally with human and non-human animals and proved the same results. I noticed that the health of the digestive tract and generally all tissues improved considerably in most eases when considerable amounts of unheated honey were consumed.

Food combining is a hot issue within the Natural Hygiene organization. What are your views on proper food combinations?

I have observed that people on vegan or fruitarian diets lack proteins. As this condition persists, the intestinal tract's ability to develop and produce enzymes diminishes. Over a period of years, especially after childhood, fewer food combinations are tolerated because of the lack of certain enzymes. On a raw diet that is high in meat enzymes are easily produced and most any combination is digestible, except combining vegetation and meats, including vegetable juice, because they neutralize the acid fluid and bacteria that digest meat.

You tell the story of the feeding and recovery of your son Jeff in the first part of the book. This is an effective vehicle for introducing us to you and your views, as well as to the opposing medical power that we all have to face. How is your son doing, and is he still following the diet you used while he was healing from the accident?

His auto accident occurred in September 1986. The book takes the story to only April 1987. Jeff recovered from that accident completely by August 1987 against every prognosis by a team of neuro-specialists. He continues to live in Cincinnati where he experiences much criticism from eating raw meat. Consequently, he falls under pressure and eats a raw diet only when he gets fatigued or depressed. When he visits me he voluntarily eats 99% raw and always feels better.

Can you cite any scientific documentation to back up any of your nonstandard dietary claims?

The works of Dr. Max Gerson, Dr. Lars Erick Essen of Sweden's Vita Nova Clinic, Dr. Carl Otto Aly, Dr. Gordon Latto, Dr. Phillip Kusby, Professor Hans Eppinger from Vienna, H. Glatzel of Germany, Dr. Bircher Brenner of Zurich, Dr. William C. Douglass and Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

Have you been satisfied with the public reception to your book?

I am impressed. My publisher basically had an advertising budget of $5,000 that was spent in a matter of weeks. The book is selling well simply by word of mouth. Another publisher has asked to publish a paperback edition but nothing has been negotiated.

Do you have any plans to write another?

I am presently working on a recipe book and a pedagogue for my nutritional courses. The recipe book was scheduled for completion December 31,1998, but I have been involved in politics surrounding the ban of fresh raw dairy in California and Los Angeles. I formed the organization Right to Choose Healthy Food that will combat any legislation banning people's right to chose raw food. The legal research and letters campaign is time consuming. Right now the process involves gathering signatures for petitions and letters to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, the Governor and the Los Angeles Medical Milk Commission, and donations. We are researching and developing a class action law suit against the state and county governments and possibly the federal government for banning interstate transportation of raw dairy. If you would give your readers our petition and letter we would appreciate it. This is not simply about banning raw dairy, it is about the banning of raw juices such as Odwalla's apple juice that is always pasteurized now. Also, there's the probability that all fresh foods will be required to be irradiated with toxic radioactive material. The M.D.'s who control health departments on federal, state, county and city levels are so germ phobic that they are systematically trying to ban all raw food. We could use your help to stop them.

What sorts of projects or plans do you have for the future?

Several individuals are interested in clinical tests using my Native diet, and others are simply interested in clinics using my Native diet. Those are viable possibilities.

Another project is utilizing fresh raw herbs and their juices with my diet to speed and facilitate. I am working on a book with more info on my nutritional research to aid the classes that I give to therapists, such as the one Stanley Bass attended. And I have ceased these classes until my pedagogue is finished.

Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

Providing that society survives the Y2K problems, I see myself writing and directing movie's with plots based on alternative therapies. Allopathic medicine has dominated the media: I would like to see more than a modicum toward alternatives.

May we include your address and phone number in case our members have any questions for you?

I require that people read my book before I speak with them - most questions are answered in the book.  If your question(s) are not answered in the book, contact me at:

Aajonus Vonderplanitz
Website: http://www.primaldiet.com

Primal Diet Testimony

I decided on the spot to change my diet. No more cooked food. No beer or alcohol, no coffee, no sugar, no salt, none of all the other inappropriate foods I had been eating and drinking. The results were immediate and dramatic:

1. Chronic indigestion disappears after one meal (no medication, no need for antacids since then);
2. Chest pains, dizzy spells, and heart palpitations disappear after a week;
3. My energy level increases appreciably after two weeks;
4. After three weeks people start telling me how healthy I look;
5. After a month my heart rate at rest is down to 60-65; when I wake up in the morning it's around 55. Blood pressure normal.
6. During week five I eliminate the "malaria-toxin-complex" from my system - no recurring attacks since;
7. I effortlessly lose 35 lb. in six weeks (no "dieting" - I eat as much as is pleasurable at every meal - usually two substantial meals a day);
8. After seven weeks I start playing indoor soccer again - no stiffening of knees - other players remark how much faster I am and are amazed by my reaction speed;
9. After two months I feel 20 years younger - boundless energy - I literally jump with joy!;
10. Six months later, at the onset of winter, I discover I can handle cold weather with ease;
11. After one year I notice that my liver spots have faded appreciably;
12. After two years I take up running for the first time - initially it takes me an hour and twenty minutes to run five miles - after two months I run two miles in 12 minutes and five miles in 36 minutes - considerable stamina;
13. Now, seven years later, my health seems perfect.

The book mentioned is:
Aajonus Vonderplanitz: WE WANT TO LIVE - Out of the grips of disease and death -
"A few months after Aajonus Vonderplanitz' 21st birthday he was diagnosed with terminal blood and bone cancer... and given less than 1 year to live. Now 29 years later, Aajonus takes us on his fascinating personal journey ..."
Read quotes from the book at http://www.primaldiet.com

Aajonus' newest book "The Recipe For Living Without Disease" contains unique diet information and recipes with foods "you thought you should never eat because we were told they are bad for us but, actually, make us healthier ...". Dr. Bass recommends reading the book.

Also see mail-archive.com about bacteria: New theory of disease? -- click here.

Aajonus Vonderplanitz is the founder and executive director of the consumer organization Right To Choose Healthy Food which wants to preserve our right to buy fresh food that is un-irradiated, unpasteurized and undestroyed.

The interview was made by:
The M2M magazine
You can now subscribe without cost to the monthly publication known as The Natural Health Many-To-Many (M2M) - in its new emailed version. There is one requirement: that you participate (=send a letter to each issue). Excellent for those looking for a support group.

"M2M participants email contributions/letters which are collated into an issue by the M2M coordinator, a copy of which is then emailed to each subscriber. The earlier printed issues were running in the neighborhood of 160-190 pages long. Most participants are natural hygienists. The subjects discussed have been wide-ranging -- anything radical related to veg/raw health and/or "paleolithic" nutrition (including animal foods), organic farming, ecological and ethical issues related to society's heavy dependence on flesh-eating, plus what's going on in our personal lives, et. al..."
Website: http://www.rawtimes.com/m2m