Acetone

Acetone arises when the body metabolizes carbohydrates and is forced to convert them into fat for energy use. When someone eats meat without accompanying raw fat, the body does not have the fat it needs to fuel cellular activity, so instead it converts the meat itself into either an acetate (a fat) or a pyruvate (a sugar). When a carbohydrate, such as a chip or a french fry or any high-carbohydrate food, undergoes this conversion and the body attempts to use it as an acetone, that acetone is operating at 50 times the normal molecular size of a fat molecule that would have come directly from eating animal fat. Aajonus described this as a very swollen fat, using the word "swollen" to characterize what happens to fats that come from carbohydrate conversion rather than from direct fat consumption.

The same process applies when pasteurized fats are involved. Aajonus noted that pasteurized fat, such as the oil used to fry potato chips, will swell to approximately four or five times its normal size, compounding the problem further when that pasteurized fat interacts with carbohydrate-derived acetones in the body.

Aajonus was explicit about the energy inefficiency of acetone as a fuel. A fat made from an acetone, which originates from a carbohydrate, burns at one-half the energy output of a good raw fat made from actual animal fat. By contrast, raw fat from an animal source burns two and a half times more energy than the equivalent amount of protein or carbohydrate. This means the energy difference between burning a proper raw animal fat and burning an acetone derived from carbohydrate is dramatic: the raw fat produces two and a half times more energy, while the acetone produces only half the energy of a comparable raw fat.

Aajonus applied this reasoning directly to the question of athletic performance. He noted that when athletes consume high-carbohydrate diets and rely on acetone-derived fats for fuel, it is actually adrenaline rather than good nutritional fuel that drives their performance. The nutrients themselves, the acetone-derived fats, are too inefficient to power athletic output in the way that raw animal fat can.

Aajonus framed the conversion of carbohydrates into acetones as an exhaustive and unnecessary process that the liver must carry out when dietary fat is absent. His argument was straightforward: if the body needs fat for energy, and if eating meat without fat forces the liver to convert that meat into either acetate or pyruvate and then into an acetone, the logical solution is to supply fat directly from the diet. He described this liver conversion as a waste of energy and a burden on the body, and used it as the principal justification for always eating raw fat alongside meat.

The prescription he repeated across multiple contexts was simple: eat a raw fat with your meat every time. The options he named for this purpose included butter, cream, and eggs. Without that accompanying fat, the body enters the conversion cycle, the liver does extra work, the resulting acetone is massively oversized and energy-poor, and the meat is not used to rebuild the body as it should be. Instead it is diverted into fuel production through an inefficient pathway.

Aajonus used potato chips and french fries as the clearest examples of how dietary carbohydrates generate problematic acetones in the body. He explained that when any high-carbohydrate food is boiled in oil, the carbohydrate component is converted by the body into an acetone that is 50 times the normal size of a fat molecule. This applies regardless of the type of chip or the type of oil used. The fact that these foods are also fried in hydrogenated oils, which Aajonus described as liquid plastic, adds an additional layer of harm on top of the acetone problem, but the acetone formation itself is independent of whether the oil is hydrogenated or not.

Aajonus was also direct that the pasteurization of the oils used in frying adds a further compounding effect. Pasteurized oils will swell four or five times their normal molecular size in the body, which is layered on top of the 50-times swelling already produced by the carbohydrate-to-acetone conversion. He acknowledged that pasteurized butter is better than cooking in hydrogenated vegetable oils, but still maintained that none of these options produces the kind of efficient, clean-burning fuel that raw animal fat does.

The instruction to always eat raw fat with meat is directly tied, in Aajonus's explanation, to the acetone problem. Meat eaten without fat does not go toward rebuilding the body. Instead, the body turns the meat into either an acetate or a pyruvate, and from there the body must burn it through the acetone pathway, which is wasteful, exhausting to the liver, and energy-poor. The fat must be present so that the body can use the meat for its intended purpose, which is cellular repair and tissue building, while using the fat for energy.

He framed this as a matter of biochemical priority. The body needs fat for energy. If fat is not present, the body will cannibalize the meat to make fat through conversion, producing an inferior fuel in the process. Supplying the fat directly from the diet eliminates the conversion burden, allows the meat to fulfill its structural role, and produces a fuel that burns at two and a half times the energy output of anything derived from carbohydrate.