Depression, in Aajonus's framework, is not a psychological condition, not a mental illness, not a character flaw, not a spiritual failing, and not a problem that originates in the mind or in one's life circumstances. It is a physiological, chemical, biological deficiency state. The body is literally not being fed at the level of the brain and nervous system. The subjective experience of depression, the hopelessness, the lack of motivation, the inability to feel connected, the flatness of mood, the inability to engage with life, is the direct expression of a malnourished brain and nervous system. When the brain is not receiving the finite fat and protein molecules it needs to function, the experience of that starvation registers in consciousness as depression.

Aajonus was emphatic and repetitive on this point: depression is not something that can be talked away, thought away, medicated away in any lasting sense, or resolved through psychological intervention alone. He said, "It's a physiological, chemical activity. Problem. Imbalance." He told audiences that no matter how many positive things you said to a depressed person, it would not work, not because they were not trying, not because they were resistant, but because the problem was not originating in their thoughts. Their brain was not being fed. You cannot change what is chemically absent simply by applying positive thinking to it.

He described it as cellular depression, a depression that begins at the cellular level and is then experienced throughout the body and mind, expressed emotionally. The body is overloaded with organic waste and toxins when bacterial levels are too low, and this overload creates the condition that registers as depression. When the body has to rely on the solvent process to dissolve and eliminate toxicity, rather than the bacterial process, the body becomes depressed. The bacteria are the janitors of the body. When the janitors are absent, waste accumulates, the environment becomes toxic, and the organism, at every level from the cellular to the psychological, experiences that as depression.

He also noted that depression is connected to disconnection, that people get depressed because they don't feel connected, and that this disconnection operates not just on the social or emotional level but on a cellular, bacterial, and viral level. When the internal microbial community is present and functioning, the organism feels connected and alive. When it is absent, the organism feels alone and depressed.

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Aajonus identified the primary and overwhelmingly dominant cause of depression as a low E. coli count in the colon, or E. coli that is not operating properly. He gave this as the cause in 90% to 95% of all depression, with some variation across his talks:

• "90% of depression is caused by a low E. coli environment."
• "95% of all depression is caused by low bacterias in the colon. Or, bacteria that is not operating properly."
• "Depression in the average person who's not taking medication, 95% of that depression comes from a low E. coli environment."

The colon is the final stage of digestion. When food passes through the small intestine, almost everything is absorbed there to feed the organs and glands. What remains, what reaches the large intestine and the bowel, is where E. coli and related coliform bacteria do their specific work. Their job is to break down the remaining fat and protein molecules into the absolutely smallest, most finite particles that can feed the brain and nervous system. This is the primary, almost exclusive route by which the brain and nervous system receive their nutritional sustenance.

Aajonus was very specific: "E. coli break down the fats and the protein molecules into the smallest particles to feed the brain and the nervous system." The brain and nervous system are not primarily fed by what is absorbed in the small intestine, they are fed by what E. coli produce in the colon. This is why colonic health is so intimately connected to mental and neurological health.

He also described E. coli as responsible for releasing 90% of the B vitamins from all food eaten. B vitamins are essential for nervous system function, and their deficiency contributes further to the depressive state. So the mechanism of E. coli deficiency producing depression operates through at least two channels: (1) the failure to produce finite fat and protein molecules for the brain and nervous system, and (2) the failure to release B vitamins from food.

He stated plainly: "So your brain and nervous system rely on those E. coli for their good health."

Aajonus consistently identified pharmaceutical drugs, particularly psychotropic drugs, antibiotics, and other medications, as a major cause of bacterial destruction and therefore depression. He noted that drugs and chemicals can cause 10% to 12% of depression in the average population, but that for people taking those medications on a daily basis, drugs could account for 90% of their depression.

He described antibiotics as particularly devastating: "You destroy the bacteria, you destroy the virus, you're going to have depression." He specifically mentioned that a man who had valve replacement surgery was put on antibiotics to prevent rejection, and that man subsequently had depression. He noted: "Who do you know that takes antibiotics on a regular basis that's a happy person? I don't know anyone. Everyone I've ever known during the course of all the while they are taking it and sometimes for very long periods, for years after taking lots of antibiotics get depressed, clinical depression."

He also mentioned children who had had "massive reactions to things like drug therapy as a child, maybe polio treatments, or asthmatic treatments" as being particularly prone to depression from this cause.

Aajonus elaborated on a key distinction in how the body handles toxicity. When bacterial levels are high, the body uses bacteria as "janitors" to consume organic cellular waste and keep the body clean. This is an efficient, organized process that keeps the body's internal environment vital and ordered. When bacterial levels are low, the body must rely on the solvent process, essentially using body fluids to try to dissolve and eliminate toxins. This solvent process is inefficient, distributes toxins throughout the body (he compared it to washing a floor with soapy water, you're not reducing the contamination, you're spreading it), and creates a state of cellular depression throughout the body and mind.

He stated: "When the body has to rely upon the solvent process to dissolve and eliminate toxicity, the body gets depressed. When the body has bacterial, viral, mold and/or parasitical help, the body and mind get more organized, vital and happy."

Aajonus referenced the work of a researcher (referred to in his talks as John Monroe or John Moore) who found that in the absence of bacteria and viruses in the body, clinical depression arises. When you get rid of colds and flus, when you suppress the body's microbial life, you eliminate the symptoms of infection, but you create clinical depression. When bacteria and viruses are reintroduced, the colds and flus return, but the depression goes away.

He had actually utilized this information clinically. He stated: "I've been utilizing high bacteria to take people out of depression, clinical depression for a long time, about four or five years. I waited until...almost five years to utilize this to make sure that it worked in all circumstances."

He connected this to a deeper philosophical point about connection: "When you destroy virus and the depression that's created. And when you reintroduce the virus the happiness is created. So it's all part of you keeping in connection with everything because people mainly get depressed because they don't feel connected. And it goes on a cellular, bacterial, viral level."

Because the brain and nervous system are composed of 60-80% fat at the cellular level, fat deficiency is a root contributor to depression. Aajonus stated: "About 92-95% of all depression comes from the brain and nervous system not being fed the proper fat." He reminded audiences: "Somebody calls you a fat head, you say thank you." The nervous system is fat, every cell. Without adequate fat, the brain literally does not have the structural and functional material it needs.

He also noted: "For a few, adding only raw fats to their diet is the simple answer because without proper fat, proteins cannot be assimilated for many purposes."

Aajonus connected a particular form of depression, including the manic-depressive fluctuation, to blood sugar dysregulation. When the liver and pancreas are damaged (he often cited diabetes and processed food consumption as causes), they over-dump sugar into the blood and over-produce insulin. This creates wild swings in blood sugar that register as depression during the low phases and as manic behavior during the high phases.

He noted from his own experience: "Being a diabetic, your sugar level up and down all the time. It creates over-emotionality." He had experienced sadness and intense emotionality when eating fruit frequently, and found that cutting fruit to once every two to three or three to four days eliminated much of that emotionality.

He also described his own history: "Blood sugar would drop while adrenaline soared, causing irritability and sour disposition," and "causing depression, or my adrenaline would soar and I couldn't control my excess energy, causing manic behavior."

He described a specific mechanism: pyruvate. "The body's use of pyruvate results, favorably, in low sugar byproducts allowing clean body serums, including in the nerves." Eating raw meat with raw fat, and reducing fruit intake to once daily in the afternoon only, "feeds the liver and pancreas, regenerates and rebuilds them and, over a period of many years, repairs them to where they cease to automatically over-dump sugar into the blood and over-produce insulin."

Aajonus cited the work of Elnora Van Winkle, a scientist who cataloged all chemicals within the nervous system at the Columbia University Medical Center and authored a paper called "The Biology of Emotions", to explain a related mechanism. During trauma, the body produces hormones and neurological compounds. These do not simply disappear after the event. They are stored in the body just like any other toxin. When the body later detoxifies these stored compounds, the same emotional experience that was present during the original trauma is re-experienced, with no present-day emotional, physical, or circumstantial cause.

Aajonus stated: "There are toxins presented during depression, during trauma, during all those times and that when the body detoxifies those, you have the same occurrence of emotion that you did at the time. So there may be no emotional reason, no physical reason, no circumstantial reason for you to feel badly, but the depression comes up with those chemicals."

This explained why people could suddenly feel depressed with nothing apparently wrong in their lives, they were simply detoxifying stored trauma chemistry.

Aajonus further specified that people who have very dry bowel movements are fat deficient, and that this fat deficiency in the bowel means the brain and nervous system are also fat deficient. The E. coli need adequate fat present in the bowel to do their work. Without fat, even healthy E. coli colonies cannot produce the finite molecules the brain needs. "Those people who get very dry in their bowel movements are because they are fat deficient, and the bowel and the brain and nervous systems are fat deficient."

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Depression fits primarily in the Root Cause / Terrain Theory of Aajonus's framework. It is a direct expression of a compromised internal terrain, specifically, a depleted or dysfunctional microbial environment in the colon. It also has significant overlap with:

• Microbes: The entire resolution of depression depends on understanding the role of E. coli, bacteria, and viruses as life-sustaining organisms rather than pathogens. Aajonus's defense of E. coli as never being pathogenic within the human body is central to understanding why depression arises when E. coli are destroyed.
• Cooked Food: The destruction of the bacterial environment is accelerated by toxic, processed, and cooked food, which damages the intestinal terrain.
• Raw Food: The resolution of depression depends entirely on raw food, specifically raw meat, raw eggs, and raw fat, because these are the foods that either carry pre-digested nutrients directly to the brain or support E. coli in doing so.
• Detoxification: The detoxification of stored trauma chemicals and the role of bacterial vs. solvent detoxification processes are directly relevant.
• How to Live: The sovereignty dimension is relevant insofar as Aajonus repeatedly emphasized that depression is not a life sentence, not something requiring pharmaceutical intervention, and not something the individual is helpless about.

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What conventional psychology calls hopelessness, meaninglessness, or existential despair, Aajonus reframed as the direct experience of a brain that is not receiving adequate fat and protein molecules. The feeling of disconnection from life, from others, from purpose, these are not philosophical states but physiological states. The brain, starved of its nutritional substrate, cannot generate the neurochemical basis for feeling connected, motivated, or purposeful.

Aajonus described his own experience with drug-induced chemical depletion as producing a state identical to depression from food causes: "I had no motivation to do anything. I never did homework. I never did anything. Just getting out of bed was too much effort, was too painful." He described being 1,200 emails behind, unable to write newsletters, unable to think clearly or get things precise. This state of non-motivation and cognitive fog is the direct result of the brain not being fed.

Aajonus distinguished depression from anxiety very carefully, but noted that in cases of chronic fatigue, depression could coexist. He described a patient with cancer of the hip and right breast who had been in chronic fatigue from age 20 to 27: "She still was irritable to an extent and she still had depression. The healthier she got, the more depression she got because the more energy she got, the more frustrated she was because there was still that certain amount of inertia that was built up for so long. All of a sudden she wanted to do something and didn't know what to do and depression resulted from that."

This is a nuanced observation: depression can arise from improving health when the organism begins to have energy but does not yet know how to use it, creating frustration that manifests as depression.

Aajonus reframed antisocial behavior, explosive temper, and difficulty relating to people as symptoms downstream from the same root, an inadequately fed brain and nervous system. He described one patient, a "bear of a man" landscape artist who became a landscape artist specifically to avoid people, who had manic-depressive and schizophrenic labels, all of which resolved when his bacterial environment and diet were corrected.

He also stated broadly: "How many people are codependent? How many people are unsatisfied? Two people come together, they've got a great chemistry together, everything is wonderful, and all of a sudden what goes wrong? Dissatisfaction in the body, always. The body doesn't feel stable. The body doesn't feel happy. It's wanting. So what happens, that gets transferred into psychology. People are trying to take from outside the wrong things to make them happy and settled. When it all comes down to food."

Aajonus linked paranoia to the same low E. coli environment that produces depression: "If you are depressed, if you're paranoid, it's because of a poor intestinal environment." He noted you can "head into depression pretty quickly. Also head into heavy paranoia."

He linked long-term enema and colonic use, which destroy E. coli populations, to extreme chemical sensitivity, multiple other health problems, and psychological instability. People who had done colonics for a long time became "very chemically sensitive individuals" with "a lot of other problems."

Aajonus was emphatic that depression and anxiety are not the same condition and must not be treated the same way. He found psychiatrists and psychologists always treating them the same with drugs, and considered this a fundamental error. He stated the distinction with great consistency across all talks:

• Depression = low bacteria in the colon; brain and nervous system not being fed; need for pre-digested food.
• Anxiety = not exercising enough; overproduction of hormones for physical activity (estrogen, adrenaline, testosterone) with nowhere for that energy to go; need for physical exercise.

He gave the image of two doors every morning: "One of them says anxiety and the other says exercise. It's your choice what day you want this to be, in the room of anxiety or the room of exercise." He repeatedly stated: "If you've got depression, eat rotten eggs, rotten meat... Anxiety is you need to exercise, period. That is it."

He noted that sometimes anxiety could still persist even with significant exercise (8-10 hours of physical activity daily), in which case nut formula or cooked starch with raw butter would be needed to bind and neutralize excess hormones.

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This is the centerpiece of Aajonus's depression protocol. High meat is raw meat that has been allowed to decompose, to be broken down by its natural bacteria, until it smells powerfully putrid. The bacteria in the meat have already done the work that E. coli would do in a healthy colon. They have pre-digested the fat and protein molecules down into the finite particles that feed the brain and nervous system. When consumed, these pre-digested molecules bypass the digestive process and go directly to feeding the brain and nervous system, producing rapid and dramatic relief.

Onset of effect: 10-20 minutes. Aajonus was consistent about this timeline across all sources.

Duration of effect: Effects can last for weeks. "Eating an ounce of high meat usually relieves depression in 10-20 minutes and may last for weeks."

Dose: "A large marble-sized amount once or twice a week." For severe depression: twice a week.

How to prepare high meat: - Take raw meat and place in a glass jar. - Every three and a half days, or every third and fourth day, take the jar outside. - Do NOT open it inside the house, because the smell will linger in curtains and furnishings. - Outside, open the jar and waft fresh air in with a single motion "like the sign of infinity", one figure-eight wafting motion is sufficient to introduce enough fresh air. - Close the jar and return it to the refrigerator. - Continue this process for four weeks. - The refrigerator is necessary for pacing the decomposition, doing it outside at room temperature makes the process go too fast, moving through stages too rapidly without benefit.

What it smells like: Aajonus described it consistently and vividly, the smell is powerful enough to want to vomit. One preparation he described, rotten brain and rotten spine tissue, he called "the worst stench of all." Despite this, the Eskimo children he observed would jump up and down for joy when it was available.

Clinical trial: Aajonus stated he waited approximately five years of consistent clinical use before publicly presenting this approach. He reported approximately 17 people over those five years who used high meat whenever they experienced clinical depression or any depression at all. All who consumed it got relief. Some cases he could not include because those individuals would not eat the rotten meat. Of nearly 300 people who subsequently reported back to him, only one did not become giddy and silly and happy within 10-20 minutes, but that individual was not depressed to begin with; he had eaten the high meat wanting to "get high" as he had seen others become giddy.

Forms of high meat: Aajonus mentioned rotten meat, rotten eggs, and decomposed dairy as all functioning similarly. The principle is any raw animal product that has been bacterially pre-digested.

Rotten eggs function the same way as high meat. "If you've got depression, eat rotten eggs, rotten meat, and you'll be out of your depression in 10, 20 minutes that quickly."

Even fresh raw meat and raw eggs provide significant benefit, though not as immediate as high meat because the digestive process is still required. The bacteria in the digestive tract can work on them, and eating raw pre-digested food is far superior to cooked food for this purpose.

On eating high eggs and meat together: "That is why you can eat high meat and high eggs and be giggling in 10-20 minutes; the bacteria are already broken down into those finite molecules. So you eat it and it goes right into the nervous system."

"Eating at least 1 pound of raw meat and ½ cup raw cream daily helps ease chronic depression. To completely resolve it, I suggest eating 'high' meat."

This combination of raw meat and raw cream provides both the protein and the fat that E. coli need to produce brain-feeding molecules, and the cream provides fat directly usable by the nervous system.

When asked whether red or white meat was required, Aajonus replied: "Meat, any flesh food. I don't care if you're eating insects. And there are many people in Asia, they raise scorpions, big old wood cockroaches. You know, they eat everything there, even bats. I got fresh bats in China..."

For people whose small intestines absorb almost everything before it reaches the colon, leaving too little for the E. coli to work with, Aajonus developed a suppository approach. This delivers fat and nutrients directly to the colon where E. coli can immediately access them, bypassing the entire upper digestive process.

Formula: Three tablespoons each of butter, cream, and coconut cream, plus a quarter teaspoon of honey (about the size of a bean). Shake the mixture together.

Method: Insert as a suppository before going to sleep at night. Lie on the left side first, roll the stomach like a belly dancer for three to four minutes to move it up. Then lie on the right side, lift the left leg, and roll the stomach again like a belly dancer for three to four minutes to move it across and down.

Timing: Before sleep.

Frequency: "Some people need to do that every other day. Some people need to do it once a week. Some once a month. Depends on how much fat good wholesome fat gets into your colon."

Onset: "If you suffer depression, you'll be out of that depression within six to ten hours" using this method.

He also described a simpler suppository: just raw fats or egg in the colon, "squeeze it up in there before they go to sleep at night", and reported: "Guess what, their brains and nervous systems begin functioning very quickly, very well, depression disappears."

He even referenced giving a baby a suppository of milk in the colon: "If you were to put a suppository of milk into a baby's colon, that baby would become smart much faster, but then get into more trouble. A lot more trouble. Because they'd be making decisions very early in life that parents don't want them to make."

Aajonus mentioned eating fecal matter as a source of E. coli in cases of severe depression. He noted that if somebody has depression, "it would be a good time to eat fecal matter or it would be a good time to eat kefir and yogurts and eggs, anything that's going to break down easily and the E. coli has plenty of time to work on it because it's already dispersed in such fractionated [form]."

He gave doses of fecal matter suppositories "two days a week for a week and then after that once a week for a month and after that only if they needed it."

He cited a female Arab doctor at the University of Toronto who had been using the byproduct of E. coli (called "veratoxin" by the medical establishment, though Aajonus rejected the "toxin" label) to treat cancer, and referenced how E. coli's byproducts were so powerful that they were even being used in cancer therapies.

These are identified as valuable because they contain active bacterial cultures that are already working on food. The E. coli in the intestine has an easier time processing them: "anything that's going to break down easily and the E. coli has plenty of time to work on it because it's already dispersed in such fractionated form."

Raw fats are essential both as substrate for E. coli to work with and as direct nutrition for the brain and nervous system. Aajonus stated: "About 92-95% of all depression comes from the brain and nervous system not being fed the proper fat." The specific fats mentioned as beneficial:

• Raw cream: ½ cup daily as part of the chronic depression protocol
• Butter: Used in the suppository formula; also eaten directly
• Coconut cream: Used in the suppository formula
• Raw cheese (no-salt-added): "A fat that is high in concentrated minerals, will also help this symptom but not as effectively" as raw meat for feeling shaky (related to protein deficiency states)

Aajonus encouraged eating large quantities of eggs for those who were underweight or depleted: "I have people eating anywhere up to 33 eggs a day. You just eat. You eat and eat. If you're not vomiting, you're eating." He also mentioned eggs specifically in the context of glandular dryness and hormonal depletion contributing to depression, combined with raw fats and meat.

For depression connected to low blood sugar, Aajonus gave a specific formula: "Fresh fruit (such as orange, or pineapple, or whatever fruit appeals to you) and ½ cup unheated honey usually brings immediate relief. Drinking a little and then sipping the rest over a 1-to-2-hour period often creates better results."

If hypoglycemia or diabetes is involved: Add 1-3 ounces raw cream, or ½-1 avocado, or other raw fat (raw coconut cream, unsalted raw cheese) blended in or eaten with the fruit and honey mixture.

He also mentioned from his own early experience: "I experimented and learned that a little cooked starches in combination with raw fat and fresh fruit could control my depression and rage." This was during a particularly severe period of his own illness, and he presented it as a pragmatic measure that helped him survive that phase.

For the 5% of depression cases where bacteria is not the primary cause, where psychological byproduct hormones are the issue, Aajonus prescribed the nut formula. "If it doesn't [respond to high meat], that means you've got too many psychological byproduct hormones that don't react with bacteria. Bacteria has nothing to do with those. It doesn't break those compounds down. So then you need the starches and the nuts to bind with it." He stated that if used once a week, "you're not going to have a problem with that ever."

He also mentioned cooked starch with raw butter as a way to bind excess hormones that create anxiety, and this same principle extended to the overlap zone between anxiety and depression.

While not a food protocol per se, Aajonus consistently offered singing, dancing, and creative activity as supportive approaches for depression, not as replacements for the dietary intervention but as complementary tools. He described them as ways to transform the emotional energy rather than suppress it: "It will change the memory patterns. It will even change the way the body reacts the next time it has that experience." He said: "If you start listening to the beat, you know, I felt depressed. You put on a record that's got a nice beat that you really liked at a particular time and it starts moving you in the other direction as long as you're not fighting it. You can revert that. You can change it."

He also gave specific practical advice for singing when others were bothered by it: go in the closet and sing, go in the car and sing, give family members earplugs.

He stated: "You can help transport hormones just by getting rid of those hormones and singing a happy tune. Because your mind is always thinking and if you're thinking happy thoughts you can't help but to think about the happy thoughts."

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High meat or rotten eggs produce giddiness, silliness, and happiness within 10-20 minutes of consumption in virtually all cases. This was documented across nearly 300 reports. The effect comes because the pre-digested fat and protein molecules bypass the entire digestive process and go directly to feeding the brain and nervous system.

The effect of a single dose of high meat "may last for weeks." Aajonus attested to this personally.

High meat should be consumed "once or twice a week" on a maintenance basis. For severe depression, twice a week. For people in chronic states, ongoing consumption is necessary until the underlying E. coli environment is restored.

Using the butter-cream-coconut cream suppository before sleep, improvement in depression occurs within 6-10 hours, faster than dietary approaches that go through the upper digestive tract.

Aajonus described several cases where full resolution took considerably longer:

The yoga instructor (37 years old, 27 psychotropic drugs daily for 27 years since age 10): She was on and off the primal diet for a year and a half before Aajonus was able to persuade her to try high meat. After a year and a half of the diet (without high meat), she still had persistent depression. Once she consumed high meat, the transformation was dramatic and documented on Ripley's Believe It or Not. The full recovery from her most severe states came after the high meat, but she had been working on the dietary foundation for a year and a half first.

The chronic fatigue/cancer patient (onset at age 20): "A year and nine months it took her to break [the chronic fatigue] on the diet." Even after that, "she still was irritable to an extent and she still had depression." "Finally, after two and a half years, I persuaded her to try high meat." So the full timeline from starting the diet to being persuaded to try high meat and achieving resolution was approximately two and a half years, though the chronic fatigue predated the diet use by seven years.

The landscape artist (manic, depressive, schizophrenic labels): He went on and off the diet, then "kept the high meat." The improvement was documented but the timeline was not precisely specified.

The surgery patient (valve replacement, antibiotics causing depression): "Probably about 80% of his depression left him" on the diet within approximately a year and two months. He still was "slightly depressed", his remaining depression was attributed to the ongoing physical condition (extreme structural damage requiring morphine) that prevented full dietary compliance.

People with existing depression on the diet generally: Aajonus stated broadly, "Most depression will go away with eating the meat. Yeah. Is that for everybody? Well, most people. That is for most people, yeah." He also noted that "anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of your depression will go away as long as you are eating meat."

When people come off depression medications entirely, Aajonus acknowledged that transition is difficult because "the usual psychological problems, your mental problems, are protein deficiencies", and while the diet addresses those, the body needs time to rebuild. He recommended going off all medications at once rather than tapering, but this was in the context of someone who was already on the primal diet.

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