Canning

Aajonus returned to the history of canned food repeatedly across workshops and newsletters, treating it as a case study in how industrial and political interests shaped population-level disease. His account runs as follows: the Windsor family, as the dominant force in global food manufacturing, wanted to introduce processed and canned food at scale because it offered enormous commercial advantages, including reduced spoilage and indefinite shelf life. The mechanism for normalizing this new food was World War II.

He described how rationing during the war was, in his view, artificial. American farmers were not producing less food, and the country was not actually deprived. The rationing narrative was constructed to make people feel that eating canned food was an act of patriotism equivalent to supporting soldiers at the front. Advertising across newspapers and radio worldwide ran variations of the message: support the troops and eat canned food. Aajonus called this logic an "inanity" because it had no coherent basis, but it worked. Pre-war marketing tests had shown that most consumers with developed taste buds disliked canned food flavors and intended to keep buying fresh food. The patriotic marketing frame overrode that preference.

Once the war ended and rationing lifted, the habit was already embedded. His mother, whom he cited in nearly every telling of this history, is the embodiment of how a generation converted permanently to canned food. She did not have to shop for different fresh foods, wash them, peel them, or chop them. She opened a can, poured it into a pot, and heated it. Cooking time was reduced. The convenience was genuine. And the harm was invisible, slow, and accumulating.

The Rockefellers and Rothschilds, already invested in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, understood according to Aajonus that the metal and chemical poisoning from canned food would generate chronic disease, which would then generate medical revenue. The introduction of canned food was therefore profitable on both ends: in food manufacturing and in the medical treatment of the resulting illness.

The specific metals Aajonus identified in canned food include tin, mercury, thallium, and lead. He ranked the toxicity order as mercury, then thallium, then tin, then lead. Tin was described as highly poisonous in two distinct ways: as a contaminant to the overall physical makeup of cells, and as an antiseptic and antimicrobial agent. It is this second property that made tin desirable to the canning industry, since its antimicrobial nature prevented botulism inside sealed containers. But that same property made it damaging inside the human body.

He was specific about the mechanism: when acidic processed food with preservatives sits inside a metal can, the acidity deletes metal from the can, transferring it into the food at the cellular level. By the time the food is consumed, the metal is no longer merely a surface contaminant but is integrated into the food itself. Every bite then delivers a low-grade, gradual toxic mineral and metal burden to the body.

Tin and associated metals from canned food went, in Aajonus's framework, directly to the tonsils upon consumption. The tonsils acted as a first-line barrier, absorbing the poisons to prevent them from reaching the brain. Under the sustained assault of daily canned food consumption across a generation, the tonsils deteriorated and became chronically infected, producing the epidemic of tonsillitis that appeared in children raised on postwar canned food. He noted that children on farms who did not eat canned food did not experience tonsil problems during the same period.

Beyond the tonsils, he described metal from canned food traveling downward into the spinal cord, where it began deteriorating spinal tissue. He connected this specifically to the polio epidemic of the 1950s. In his framework, poliomyelitis is a viral process of the spinal cord that breaks down damaged spinal tissue, and the damage in question was caused by the metal contamination from canned foods. The timing aligned: polio prevalence was greatest in the 1950s, precisely when canned food consumption was at its peak in American households.

He also connected canned food metal poisoning to autism and learning disorders, to tonsillitis in children, and to a broad deterioration of population health in the six decades following World War II. In one passage he stated directly: "The health has tremendously deteriorated in the last 60 years, phenomenally. What caused that? World War II."

In a separate but related discussion, Aajonus noted that berries have a particular affinity for drawing toxic metals out of the body, and he used this same property as evidence of metal contamination from canned lids. He observed that if berry juice with pulp gets onto a canning jar lid, it will turn the metal black and pull the lining right off. He described this as ruining the lid entirely, after which it should be discarded and replaced. This reaction in the body is what makes berries useful for pulling out metallic contamination from vaccines, antibiotics, and accumulated environmental metal toxicity.

Beyond the metal toxicity, Aajonus identified canned food as cooked food in every case, making it categorically nutrient-deficient. The cooking involved in canning destroys enzymes, alters proteins, and eliminates the biological activity that makes raw food useful to the body. Any moisture inside a can is, in his view, a contamination vector, since moisture actively leaches metals from the can's interior surface.

He described many canned and bottled products, specifically fruit and tomato purees and sauces, as having started from already-rotten source material, which was then subjected to extreme processing and chemical treatment to mask the taste of the decay. Preservatives including formaldehyde, referred to under different industry names, were used in this process. The combination of decomposed base material, chemical preservatives, heat processing, and metal leaching produced food that was, in Aajonus's terms, not food at all but a delivery mechanism for multiple converging toxins.

Despite Aajonus's comprehensive critique of canned commercial food, the glass canning jar is one of the most important practical tools in the Primal Diet. He used Ball canning jars extensively for food storage, blending, juice preservation, meat storage, and warming milk. The critical distinction he made is between the industrial metal can with its acidic processed contents and the glass canning jar used as an inert, sealed container for raw food.

His strong preference was for Ball brand jars specifically, because Ball jars have enameled lids with a true rubber seal. He explained the difference in detail: Kerr jars have a metal plating on the inside of the lid that is not enameled, and this plating comes off into the food. Additionally, the Kerr lid uses a gray material he described as polyurethane that melts into the food. Ball lids, by contrast, are enameled on the interior and use actual rubber as a sealer. He recommended Ball jars and Ball lids throughout his work, and when someone used Kerr jars he advised them to discard the Kerr lids and replace them with Ball lids, which are sold separately.

He noted that even the fancy decorative lids now sold at Target and similar retailers are completely enameled inside and out, making them acceptable for use.

Aajonus addressed the concern about BPA in Ball canning lids directly when asked. His response describes a physical test he performed: he scraped the interior of both Kerr and Ball lids. On the Kerr lid, a plastic coating was apparent. On the Ball lid, there was no plastic that came off during scraping. He concluded that the distributors who claimed both brands used plastic sealers were not accurately describing the Ball product. However, he added the qualification that he could not verify this held true more than two years after his most recent purchase and scraping, since he was not in the USA at the time of the question.

He identified the Tattler brand of BPA-free lids as an alternative but did not endorse them, because Tattler lids contain a small amount of formaldehyde, which the company itself states will not leach out unless heated above 250 degrees. Aajonus found this equally unacceptable. He mentioned that Ball plastic storage caps made of number 1 or number 5 plastic might be an option, though his investigation into which specific plastic was used in those caps was inconclusive at the time of writing. His practical recommendation remained: scrape the lid interior yourself to determine whether plastic is present.

Aajonus used canning jars in a full range of sizes and had specific applications for each. He recommended collecting an assortment of 4-ounce, 8-ounce, 12-ounce, 16-ounce, and 32-ounce regular-sized-mouth glass jars. The 4-ounce jar is appropriate for making a sauce for one to two people. The 8-ounce jar is used extensively for blending individual portions, mixing honey with juice, making sodas, and storing the lime-honey preparations he described for personal use. Twelve- and 16-ounce jars serve medium quantities. The 32-ounce quart jar is used for storing a week's worth of cut meat, for high meat preparation, and for large-volume juice storage.

He recommended having one dozen each of the 12- and 16-ounce jars, two dozen each of the 4- and 8-ounce jars, and more of the 8-ounce if more than one person lives in the household. Extra enameled lids should be kept on hand to replace any that rust.

The wide-mouth jars, as distinct from the regular-mouth jars, serve a different function. He used wide-mouth quart jars specifically for storing cut meat for the week, since the wider opening makes it easier to pack and retrieve chunks. Regular-mouth jars are used for the Osterizer blender setup, as the blade assembly screws directly onto the regular mouth of the jar.

For storing meat in olive oil, he described stuffing strips of meat approximately one to one-and-a-half inches thick and two-and-a-half inches wide into half-gallon glass canning jars, pouring approximately half a cup of olive oil in first so that the oil rises with the meat and seals it off from the air as the jar fills.

One of the most detailed protocols Aajonus described involving canning jars concerns the preservation of vegetable juice. Because blending or storing juice exposes nutrients to oxidation, he developed a method to make three days' worth of juice at once while retaining 90 to 93 percent of nutrient value over a 78-hour period, as measured by his own tests.

He juiced 92 ounces of green vegetable juice at a time into a gallon container, separating the foam. He then placed 3 ounces of juice and 4 ounces of honey into an 8-ounce canning jar, screwed the Osterizer blender blade assembly onto the jar, placed it upside down on the blender, and blended for 5 to 10 seconds to thin the honey. This honey-juice mixture was then poured into the remaining 89 ounces of juice and gently stirred. The honey functioned as a preservative. He then poured the full 96 ounces into twelve 8-ounce glass canning jars, filling each jar completely to the top so that there was no more than one tablespoon of airspace in each. He sealed them with Ball jar lids and stored them in the refrigerator.

He described a foam management technique during the filling: as juice is poured, bubbles rise to the top and foam forms. He curled his tongue to lick the foam off, ensuring the jar was filled completely before sealing. He noted that for those not as meticulous, the juice can reliably be kept for three days. His own method, which involved spending an extra 20 minutes bottling perfectly, extended this to up to five days.

For high meat preparation, Aajonus used quart canning jars with a specific approach. He took three quart jars and filled one with diced fowl, one with diced red meat, and one with diced seafood or fish. Each jar was filled to approximately half airspace and half meat, meaning the pieces were bite-sized and not packed tightly. He sealed them with Ball jar lids with enamel coating, specifying that the enamel holds up well enough even around acidic substances, while the Kerr steel-plated lids would rust, with the rust falling down into the meat and potentially poisoning the contents.

Every three or four days, the jar was opened to air the meat and optionally a small amount eaten. This cycling continued over a period of weeks, building up the fermentation process. He described a test in which he placed a steak in a sealed glass jar with approximately one-fifth more airspace than meat, sealed it, and left it in the refrigerator for exactly one year. When he opened it, the meat did not stink. His interpretation was that once the available oxygen inside the jar was consumed by the fermentation process, it stopped and held at that point in glass. In plastic containers, by contrast, the porous material allows air and gases back in, causing the process to continue toward simple decay rather than controlled high meat development.

He also addressed what happens when sealed high meat jars are left very long without opening: the process is interrupted and simply stops. Once the jar is opened again, the process resumes, and he noted it would likely resume even more quickly than the initial progression. His advice was that if someone had sealed jars they had forgotten about and not opened for a long time, they should simply open them and start from wherever the meat was, which would likely already be ready or close to it.

He clarified that he did not find sterilizing jars before putting meat in them made any difference to the outcome, having run tests both ways in the early stages of his experimentation.

Aajonus described placing milk in a canning jar appropriate to the quantity desired, then immersing the sealed jar in a bowl of hot water that was not hot enough to burn the hand, and letting it warm for 10 to 15 minutes. This method allowed milk to be warmed to a relaxing temperature without cooking it or exposing it to direct heat. He recommended this particularly before sleep, describing the effect as producing deep relaxation comparable to what an infant experiences after warm milk.

The practical synergy between the Osterizer blender and standard regular-mouth canning jars is a central equipment recommendation throughout Aajonus's work. The blade assembly of the Osterizer, consisting of the rubber sealing washer, the stainless steel blades, and the threaded plastic base, screws directly onto the mouth of a regular small-mouthed canning jar with a 2.5-inch diameter mouth. This creates a hermetically sealed blending environment with minimal air space, preventing the oxidation of nutrients that occurs when blending in an open bowl. He stated that blending in a standard open blender bowl sucks oxygen down into the food and destroys approximately 20 to 30 percent of nutrients during the blending process alone.

The washer that comes with the Osterizer is frequently too thin and too small, causing food to leak from the jar during blending. His solution was to go to a hardware store or small appliance store and ask for a washer for a Cuisinart blender, which is larger and thicker, without mentioning that it was being used on an Osterizer, since selling a part intended for one machine for use on another was technically illegal. The Cuisinart washer should be at least 3/16 of an inch thick and slightly larger in diameter than the blade plate, so that it visibly extends beyond the metal ring when the assembly is screwed on, making it easy to confirm the washer has not dropped inside the jar.

He specified placing the washer on the rim of the jar first, then placing the blades inside and on top so that the metal base of the blades rests on the rubber washer, then screwing the threaded plastic base onto the jar mouth. The jar is then turned upside down onto the blender base and operated normally. The result is a closed environment with very little air space and very little oxygen, which he stated preserves approximately 99 percent of nutrients in the blended food.

He recommended selecting the jar size to match the quantity of food being blended. For a sauce for one to two people, the 4-ounce jar is used. For larger preparations, 8-ounce, 12-ounce, or 16-ounce jars are used. He noted that one blade sometimes strikes the glass on 4-ounce-sized jars, and the solution is to bend the offending blade upward so it no longer contacts the glass. He also cautioned against blending in plastic, since plastic is full of dioxins and any acidic ingredient such as pineapple or other fruit will break down some of the plastic during blending, contaminating the food.

Where to find Ball canning jars: Aajonus directed people to local grocery stores as the first source, specifying 4-ounce, 8-ounce, 16-ounce, and 32-ounce sizes, and always Ball brand lids. He also provided an online source: candlesandsupplies.net with phone numbers 800-819-6118 and 215-538-8552.