Acetates

Aajonus explained that the body is capable of converting nearly any macronutrient into a fat. Both protein and carbohydrate can be transformed by the body into acetates, which then serve as fats used for energy. He described this as a function the liver performs under conditions of fat deficit. When someone consumes meat without accompanying raw fat, the body takes that protein and manufactures it into an acetate rather than using it for its primary biological purpose, which is rebuilding and regenerating tissue.

He described the same process occurring with carbohydrates. When carbohydrates are converted, the resulting acetone or acetate is a fat of sorts, but one derived from a non-fat starting material. Aajonus treated this conversion as physiologically exhausting and energetically wasteful, requiring the body to perform a complicated liver process that could have been avoided simply by eating fat directly.

He stated explicitly: "Your body can turn anything into a fat. It can take a carbohydrate, turn it into a fat, not a well utilizing one for energy, but it can turn it into an acetate, an acetone, a fat that would be used for energy." He further noted that "lots of acetates and acetones" can be produced from protein, and that none of them will be high energy-producing fats.

The central claim Aajonus made about acetates concerns their energy output compared to fats that come directly from animal sources. He stated repeatedly and with consistent specificity that acetates made from carbohydrates or proteins produce substantially less energy than animal fats consumed and used directly.

His formulation was that animal fat, consumed raw and used as fuel without conversion, produces two and a half times more energy than the equivalent amount of an acetate made from carbohydrate or protein. He expressed this in multiple ways across different sessions. In one passage he stated that "an acetone made from carbohydrate or protein only has a small amount of energy ability to produce fat that is from fats that the animals have made and animal fat is two and a half times more energy per calorie than an acetone and acetates that are made from carbohydrates or protein." In another passage he described the citric acid cycle as running on approximately 80 percent fat, 15 percent pyruvate derived from protein, and 5 percent citric acid or carbohydrate, and that this fat-dominant ratio is what produces the greatest energy output.

He used bodybuilders and weightlifters to illustrate the point. Bodybuilders who minimize fat and rely on carbohydrate or protein for fuel have relatively little usable strength despite their muscle mass. Weightlifters, by contrast, carry significant fat and demonstrate superior strength. He framed this as a visible demonstration of the energy inferiority of acetates compared to animal fat consumed directly.

He also described acetates made from carbohydrates as fast-burning and short-lived, using the analogy of a firecracker: "those burn very quickly and are short lived but they give you a burst it's like a firecracker going off but there's no long term energy produced by it so you have to burn a lot of them." Animal fat used directly, by contrast, burns at two and a half times the energy output, providing sustained fuel rather than a spike followed by depletion.

Aajonus drew a distinction between acetates and acetones without always maintaining a rigid separation between the two terms. In his usage, acetone is the fat form produced when the body is drawing on fat as its primary fuel source, while acetates are produced from non-fat substrates such as carbohydrate or protein. He stated: "Acetone is usually always fat. Source and fat utilized. So those that are created from carbohydrate or protein, fats that are created from those two sources have a very low energy production."

This framing places acetones on the more efficient end of internally generated fats, while acetates derived from carbohydrate or protein are positioned as inferior fuel. Both, however, are less efficient than simply consuming raw animal fat directly, because any conversion process requires the liver to perform additional biochemical work and introduces energetic losses in the transformation.

He also connected the concept of fat-derived versus carbohydrate-derived fuel to the metabolic state observed in athletes. He noted that when carbohydrate is converted into an acetone, "it's a very poor burning one. It will burn one-half the energy of a good raw fat that's made from fat, pure fat from an animal." And again: "Even if it's coconut, it will still burn two-and-a-half times the energy created by the same amount of protein or carbohydrate."

A core practical implication of Aajonus's understanding of acetates is his consistent instruction to always eat raw fat with protein. He explained that when protein is consumed without fat, the body defaults to converting that protein into an acetate to serve as fuel, which defeats the purpose of eating protein. The protein that should be used for tissue repair, cellular regeneration, and structural rebuilding gets diverted into the energy production pathway because no dietary fat is available to perform that function.

He stated this plainly: "To digest meats properly, you always need a raw fat. Otherwise, you're going to turn all of that fat, all of that meat, into either an acetate, a fat, or a pyruvate, a sugar, instead of using it to rebuild the body." The phrase "all of that meat" indicates the scale of diversion he described. Without raw fat at the meal, the protein is largely consumed as a low-quality fuel rather than used for its primary structural purpose.

His solution was straightforward: eat butter, cream, or eggs with meat. He listed these as the appropriate accompanying fats that allow the protein to be directed toward tissue building while the fat handles energy production. He framed this not as a rule of food combining for digestive reasons alone, but as a metabolic reality about how the body allocates macronutrients in the presence or absence of fat.

He also addressed the question of efficiency rhetorically: "Why not just eat fat instead of going through all that exhaustive conversion in the liver? Eat fat with your meat." This framing treats the liver conversion of protein into acetate as an unnecessary metabolic burden that proper dietary fat eliminates entirely.

Aajonus situated acetates within his broader account of the citric acid cycle, which he described as the body's primary energy-generating process. He outlined the proportions as approximately 80 percent fat, 15 percent pyruvate from protein, and 5 percent citric acid from carbohydrate, and stated that this ratio produces the greatest energy. When dietary fat is insufficient and the body must produce acetates from carbohydrate or protein, these proportions shift, and the efficiency of the cycle drops accordingly.

He explained that citric acid and pyruvate serve as ignitors or catalysts within the cycle, helping to combust fat as fuel. When fat is absent and carbohydrate or protein must be converted into acetates to fill that role, the substances that should be catalysts become the primary fuel, which is a less efficient arrangement. He described pyruvate, for instance, as functioning best when fat is present, so that it can ignite fat combustion rather than serving as the fuel itself.

This framework helps explain why Aajonus viewed high-carbohydrate eating as energetically wasteful. The body can produce acetates from carbohydrate, but those acetates burn quickly, produce less energy per unit than animal fat, and require significant liver work to manufacture. The result is what he described as an energy system dependent on constant intake and short bursts rather than sustained high-output fuel.

Aajonus noted that athletes and physically active people who rely on carbohydrate-derived acetates and acetones for fuel often experience what appears to be high energy and performance, but he attributed this to adrenaline rather than to the quality of the fuel itself. He described cooked carbohydrate-based fuel as generating an adrenaline response that creates a sense of energy and drive, but that this adrenaline is not the same as genuine nutritional energy derived from raw animal fat.

He stated: "It's the adrenaline that runs them. It's not the nutrients, the good fat. Because when you make a fat from an acetone, you make an acetone from a carbohydrate, it's a very poor burning one." The implication is that the perception of high energy in carbohydrate-fed athletes is largely adrenal stimulation masking an underlying inefficiency in fuel quality. He applied this same logic to supplement use, where he argued that the high people feel from supplements is also adrenaline-driven, but that observation sits in a different domain from acetates specifically.

The understanding of acetates in Aajonus's framework generates several concrete dietary positions. First, raw animal fat should always accompany protein meals to prevent protein from being diverted into acetate production. Second, high-carbohydrate eating, even from raw fruit, produces acetates that are energetically inferior to the fats in a properly constituted raw animal food meal. Third, the liver should not be burdened with constant fat conversion from non-fat substrates, because this is an exhaustive and inefficient process.

He also used the acetate concept to explain why bodybuilders who minimize fat appear muscular but lack proportional strength. Without the energy density of animal fat used directly, they rely on carbohydrate-derived acetates and adrenaline, which build a certain type of muscular appearance without delivering the force output that fat-based energy supports. His counterexample was the weightlifter, who carries visible fat and demonstrates superior strength as a result of superior fuel quality.

Aajonus's repeated practical recommendation was butter, cream, and eggs as the fat sources to accompany meat, with these providing the raw animal fat that allows the citric acid cycle to operate at its 80 percent fat efficiency and frees protein to perform its tissue-building function rather than being diverted into acetate production.

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