Borage oil holds a singular and unambiguous position in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework: it is not a legitimate food oil at all. It is, in his direct words, "nothing other than cottonseed oil with another name." It is not a distinct botanical oil that has been properly cold-pressed from the borage plant for human benefit. Rather, it is a product of deliberate commercial misrepresentation, a toxic base oil, cottonseed oil, that has been relabeled and remarketed under the more appealing name "borage oil" in order to sell a product that would otherwise be recognized as harmful.

Borage oil therefore occupies no beneficial role whatsoever in the Primal Diet. It is not a food, not a medicine, not a supplement, and not a topical agent in Aajonus's framework. It is a toxic substance that should be avoided entirely. Its only practical significance in Aajonus's teaching is as a warning, a specific, named example of how the food and supplement industry conceals the true nature of harmful ingredients behind appealing, botanically-suggestive brand names.

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The core property Aajonus assigns to borage oil is toxicity. He states it plainly and without qualification: "Borage oil is nothing other than cottonseed oil with another name, and it's very toxic."

The evidence he cites for this toxicity is not from human biochemical studies but from the observable physiological response of animals: "It makes animals very sick." This is consistent with Aajonus's broader methodology, which often uses animal responses as a reliable indicator of a substance's true biological effect, since animals do not have the capacity to override instinct with ideological or commercial motivation.

Cottonseed oil, which Aajonus identifies as the actual substance being sold as borage oil, falls into the broader category of pressed vegetable oils in his framework, all of which he considers problematic. However, cottonseed oil carries additional concerns because cotton itself is not classified as a food crop and therefore is not subject to the same pesticide and chemical restrictions as food crops. The oil extracted from cottonseed thus carries a high chemical burden from agricultural treatments that would not be permitted on food plants.

Within Aajonus's framework for all pressed oils, such substances are characterized as being approximately 90% solvent-reactive, meaning the body uses them almost entirely as cleansing agents, not for lubrication, structural repair, energy, or nervous system nourishment. They are caustic and extrinsic. They make the body acidic. They do not build tissue. They do not soothe the system. They detoxify, and detoxification in excess or without adequate protective fat buffering causes irritability, acidity, sleeplessness, and systemic distress.

But borage oil, in Aajonus's assessment, does not even rise to the level of a legitimate pressed oil with solvent-reactive utility. It is simply toxic, a mislabeled product that fails to meet even the minimal threshold of usefulness that some cold-pressed oils might have in strictly limited, medicinal quantities.

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There is no form or state of borage oil that Aajonus considers acceptable. Because the product is, in his assessment, fundamentally cottonseed oil, regardless of how it is labeled, packaged, cold-pressed, or marketed, no processing method or quality standard redeems it.

This distinguishes borage oil from other pressed oils in the Primal Diet framework. Olive oil and peanut oil, for instance, can be pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit and have some limited medicinal utility as cleansing solvents. Flax oil, pressed in the 82–86 degree range by companies like Barlean's, has a narrow application for people with certain conditions such as cancer or brown areas in the iris. But borage oil, being cottonseed oil renamed, has no state, raw, cold-pressed, or otherwise, that Aajonus endorses.

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Aajonus does not provide sourcing or preparation guidance for borage oil because he does not recommend obtaining it under any circumstances. The sourcing discussion he does provide is a warning: the product sold as borage oil is not what it claims to be. It is cottonseed oil. The label is false.

This fits into Aajonus's much broader documented concern about the oil industry's deceptive practices, which he applies across many commercial oils. He notes, for example, that approximately 90% of commercially available olive oil is not actually olive oil, it has been diluted with mineral oils or petroleum-derived oils, then clarified and sometimes hydrogenated. The point in the context of borage oil is that the deception goes even further: not merely dilution or adulteration of a real botanical oil, but complete substitution of a different, cheaper, more toxic oil under a false botanical name.

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No pairing protocol exists for borage oil because Aajonus does not recommend consuming it. The pairing requirement, consuming animal fat buffers such as raw butter, raw cream, or raw cheese alongside pressed oils in order to protect the body from the solvent-reactive, acidifying effects of those oils, applies to pressed oils that have some limited medicinal role (olive oil, flax oil, coconut oil, peanut oil). Borage oil is excluded from even that limited, carefully buffered category.

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The specific mention of borage oil appears in a broader discussion of which oils are genuinely cold-pressed at or below 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Aajonus is answering a question about vegetable and nut oils, which brands and which types he recommends. In that context, he identifies only two oils as genuinely pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit: peanut oil (Spectrum brand) and olive oil. He also acknowledges flax oil from Barlean's, pressed between 82 and 86 degrees.

His mention of borage oil comes immediately in that context, as a counterexample, a product that a person investigating oils might encounter and think is legitimate, but which is in fact fraudulent. The commercial strategy here, as Aajonus frames it, is the same one he documents across the oil industry broadly: take a substance that is cheap, widely available, and either difficult to sell on its own or known to be harmful, and repackage it with a name that implies botanical purity, natural origin, and health benefit.

Borage, the plant, is a real botanical with blue flowers known in herbal traditions. Its seeds do contain gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), and the supplement industry markets borage seed oil as a GLA source. The commercial appeal of the name "borage oil" therefore rests on this botanical legitimacy and the supplement industry's promotion of GLA. Aajonus's claim is that this appeal is being exploited, that what is being sold as borage oil is not a genuine extract of borage seeds but is instead cottonseed oil, and that the reformulation is both fraudulent and dangerous.

This kind of mislabeling, in Aajonus's broader framework, is not accidental. He documents repeatedly how the food and oil industries deliberately substitute harmful ingredients for the products they claim to sell, driven by profit motives and enabled by regulatory capture. He notes that olive oil is being diluted with petroleum-derived mineral oils. He notes that fish oils are processed with kerosene-derived solvents. He notes that oils claiming to be cold-pressed are being heated well beyond 96 degrees. Borage oil as relabeled cottonseed oil is, in his view, another instance of the same systemic pattern.

The specific toxicity evidence Aajonus cites, that borage oil makes animals very sick, reflects his consistent methodological principle that animal responses to food are more honest indicators of biological suitability than human epidemiological studies, which can be designed, funded, and interpreted in ways that serve industry interests.

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