Aajonus Vonderplanitz

Before developing the Primal Diet, Aajonus went through a period of intense dietary experimentation, including a six-year period as a vegetarian during which he consumed very little animal product. He mentioned having some cheese and, when he went through a difficult period during summer in the desert, obtaining some raw goat milk. He also spent approximately one and a half years on a macrobiotic diet, which he described as a period when he had to eat very simply because of prior stomach surgery, preventing him from eating the spicy variations that others in his circle were eating. He said that these dietary phases, while nutritionally deficient, still demonstrated to him that raw foods heal and improve how one feels.

His transition from vegetarianism to eating raw animal foods was described as a decisive turning point. He compared the craving for raw meat, once the body recognizes it, to an almost overwhelming drive, describing it in visceral and even spiritual terms. He recalled the experience of watching animals consume freshly killed prey and said their eyes glaze over in what he described as an actual spiritual experience as well as a visceral one. He recounted the case of a woman named Owanza, who had a similar background to his own, who when she finally began eating raw meat consumed seven and a half pounds of filet mignon in twenty-four hours.

Aajonus devoted the greater part of his life to researching in the field of health. From his research he developed what he called the Primal Diet. He gave thousands of consultations to clients and taught workshops around the world. He also devoted a significant portion of his time to answering questions, both by telephone and by email. His followers would contact him with health problems and he would respond in detail. After his death on August 28, 2013, from an accidental fall, it was discovered that his computer and backup drives contained thousands of email responses covering almost every conceivable health question. Most of the backup drives were damaged and could not be accessed, but one of the top data recovery companies in the field was employed and recovered the data from all but one of his hard drives.

He stated his goal explicitly in a Los Angeles talk given on April 4, 2011: "I will have all the information in books. They won't need me when I have all the information; that's what I'm working on. Everybody will be able to take care of themselves if I give everybody enough information."

He never stopped gathering data. When he found a better way to accomplish something, such as a more effective remedy or a faster road to recovery, he would incorporate it and mention the update in Q&A sessions, Primal Diet workshops, or private consultations. People who knew him well described him as an extremely caring and competent person, and noted that he did not make a large point of the years he spent researching before his books came out, though he occasionally mentioned details in Q&A sessions in private homes among people he knew.

Those who knew Aajonus well described him as honest and forthright. One collaborator who worked with him for ten years noted that he could be sharp when needed but that this always passed quickly. That same collaborator described Aajonus as a believer in the public relations strategy that any attention was good attention if it got people to look at his work. The collaborator personally disagreed with some of the ways Aajonus allowed himself to be presented, citing specifically the Ripley's Believe It or Not footage, which gave the impression that his dietary recommendations all revolved around eating rotten meat. Aajonus's own position was that aged or high meat was only a remedy for certain conditions, not a general dietary recommendation, and his broader framework covered a much wider range of raw foods and protocols.

He appeared on both mainstream television and alternative platforms. People described the real Aajonus, visible in his books, Primal Diet newsletters, Q&A sessions, Primal Diet workshops, interviews, and consultations, as someone quite different from the sensationalized image that some public appearances created. He was described as letting the diet speak for itself, and as not given to pride or greed.

One of Aajonus's two major practical strengths, as described by those who worked with him, was his precision and accuracy in doing nutritional consultations. A mini-consultation was done in front of a group, usually while observing a person's hands and body. A full consultation was done using iridology, from which he said he could see with great clarity what was happening inside the body. He described his iridology approach as different from what was commonly taught, and in the 1996 three-day training, he laid out details about his method that do not appear in his books, Q&As, Primal Diet workshops, or later interviews.

His iridology framework divided the iris into concentric zones radiating outward from the pupil: the innermost ring corresponded to the digestive tract, followed by blood, then muscle, then bone, then lymph, and then skin at the outermost edge. He said the muscle zone takes up most of the iris if the person has any muscle, and that the blood zone is relatively thin. He did not follow standard iridology charts or zone patterns, and he explicitly stated he did not divide the iris into the same patterns as conventional iridology. He read the iris for fiber density, lesions, coloration, and structural patterns.

He explained that the more spokes and density of fibers visible in an eye, the more cellular life exists in the corresponding tissue. When a body is consuming itself due to inadequate raw nutrition, particularly from cooked food and the resulting ketosis, the lines in the iris become indefinite and foggy. He said that cirrhosed tissue shows up as brown or yellow throughout the affected zone. Acidic conditions appear as a brown film radiating from the pupil outward through the corresponding sector. Dark areas where no fiber structure is visible he classified as third-degree lesions, meaning effectively dead tissue. Second-degree lesions showed some disruption but retained some fiber visibility. White areas or filaments adjacent to dark zones indicated active infection, meaning the body was attempting to clean out and restore the area.

In a documented case, he read one woman's iris and identified a very acidic film throughout the entire right thyroid zone, running from approximately 2:00 to 3:00 in the right eye, with the acid affecting not just the thyroid but the vocal cords, trachea, and surrounding structures. He identified a third-degree lesion at approximately 3:20. He assessed that on the right side of her body, from the brain all the way to the liver, she had pervasive second and third-degree lesions affecting muscle, skin, bone, and lymph. He estimated she was approximately thirty-five percent alive on that side. He said the tissue that was alive was very robust, approximately seventy-five to eighty percent healthy at the cellular level, meaning the surviving cells were healthy but there were very few of them. He estimated that with her rate of healing, she could add approximately two percent cellular recovery per year, and that as clean as she was, she could live another thirty-five to forty years and get healthier as she aged, moving upward rather than continuing to decline.

He also identified overactive and then exhausted adrenal glands in this same case, noting that the left adrenal gland was almost completely exhausted while the right one was still functional. He prescribed a minimum of three to four ounces of raw meat three times a day as the foundational recovery protocol, with the explicit statement that she should eat more if she craved more, noting that twelve ounces per day was less than a pound and was a minimum, not a ceiling.

Aajonus spoke openly in his workshops and training sessions about his own eating habits. He described enjoying raw spaghetti with a raw tomato-based sauce incorporating butter, with diced red onion and grated raw cheese on top. He said this was his favorite recipe. He enjoyed raw ground beef, filet mignon, and sushi-style fish interchangeably and encouraged those who craved large amounts of red meat to eat as much as they wanted, noting that cooked beef produces uric acid and other byproducts but that raw beef does not carry these concerns.

He described occasionally eating germinated wild rice or sweet rice, soaked for at least twelve hours overnight, mixed with raw egg and honey and sometimes cream. He said he loved the crunchy texture, which reminded him of crackers. He acknowledged this was rough on the digestive tract but said he still craved it once or twice a year because he believed certain enzymes present in germinated grains are not available from any other food source. He clarified that unfortified, unbleached, off-white pasta was acceptable, not white pasta which is bleached, and not pasta made with spinach, carrot, artichoke, or other additions, only plain grain or potato-based pasta.

He described loving avocado, corn, and raw egg together, mashing the avocado and mixing the egg into it and taking bites alongside corn. He recalled that earlier in his practice he also made raw cottage cheese by simply letting milk sit in the refrigerator until it separated, and would combine it with avocado, raw egg, and corn, which he described as "heaven." He stopped making raw cottage cheese because of the effort involved.

He mentioned that iceberg lettuce was the only variety he could eat, noting it is the only lettuce that contains a natural opium-like compound that functions as an endorphin stimulator. He said he could tolerate a little Boston or butter lettuce but none of the others. He juiced bitter greens like kale and mustard greens rather than eating them directly. He was emphatic that even light steaming destroys food, and he expressed strong negative reactions to suggestions that mild cooking preserves nutritional value.

Aajonus died on August 28, 2013, from an accidental fall. Those who preserved his work described his sudden death as leaving a void. In the years following his death, efforts were made by a small group of dedicated people to preserve his written and spoken words using modern audio preservation technology and data recovery services. These efforts resulted in the recovery of thousands of his email responses, the compilation of Q&A transcripts, and the publication of supplementary reference books drawing on his spoken and written material.

His work continues to be distributed through the Optimal Ways of Living trust and the WeWant2Live.com platform. The stated intention of those preserving his work is to make his findings and remedies available to people all over the world, in keeping with his own stated goal that everyone should have enough information to take care of themselves.