Fat Cells

The distinction between raw and cooked fat cell size is foundational to understanding almost everything else Aajonus said about fat in the body. He stated in multiple seminars that cooking causes fat molecules to swell 5 to 50 times their normal size, with some passages specifying 10 to 50 times and others 10 to 15 times. The variation in his stated range likely reflects different cooking methods and temperatures. Boiling produces a different degree of swelling than frying, and both differ from the extreme transformation that hydrogenation produces.

Raw fat cells are, in his description, "condensed" and "tiny" and "infinitesimally small." Because they are small, a person eating raw fats can carry a large percentage of body fat without appearing fat. He said that after women had been on the raw diet for twelve to twenty-five years, even those who had been significantly overweight and had recovered from cancer could no longer get fat in appearance even if they ate butter and cream all day. Their body fat percentage remained at 22 to 24%, but the molecular size was so small that the fat was essentially invisible from outside.

Cooked fat cells, by contrast, are enormously inflated. They cannot be utilized properly within the cellular machinery of the body. When the lymphatic system is not functioning well, these swollen cooked fat molecules accumulate in the tissues and the person simply grows larger and larger. The only way to change this is to stop consuming cooked fats, replace them with small-molecule raw fats, and use hot baths to assist in mobilizing and eliminating the old swollen molecules.

The central role of fat cells in Aajonus's framework is toxin containment. He stated repeatedly that every scientific paper he reviewed confirmed that the highest concentrations of poisons in any animal's body are found in its fat. The body automatically directs toxins toward fat because fat is chemically suited to bind with and neutralize them. A toxin that enters fat tissue does essentially no damage there. A toxin that enters a living, functioning cell can damage the RNA, alter the DNA, cause the cell to reproduce as a mutant, and initiate the cascade leading to cancer.

He described fat cells as essentially passive reservoirs: "Fat cell just slovenly lays there and doesn't do anything but accept fat, I mean toxins. Easy." This passivity is precisely what makes fat cells so useful for toxin management. They do not perform complex enzymatic functions, do not replicate, and are not disrupted by the presence of even intensely poisonous material in the way that liver cells, nerve cells, or bone marrow cells would be.

He extended this logic to white blood cells, which he described as 60 to 80% fat and sometimes as 80% fat. White blood cells are phagocytes, cells that eat decayed organic matter and toxins, and their capacity to do this is directly related to their fat content. That fat content is also why they appear white. Pus, which he described as 95 to 98% white blood cells with only 2 to 5% toxic chemical content, illustrates the principle at scale: vast quantities of fatty cells are deployed to arrest a relatively small amount of poison, because it takes that many fat-laden cells to safely contain the toxicity.

The lymphatic system operates on the same principle. He described the lymph as approximately 80% fat, 15% protein, and 5% carbohydrate, and said that 60 to 80% of lymphatic function depends on fat. The lymph system is the primary route by which dead cells are dissolved, toxins are escorted to the bowels or skin, and cellular waste is neutralized and removed. Without adequate fat in the lymph, this process fails, dead cells accumulate, and the body begins forming fibroids and eventually tumors.

Aajonus was explicit that in a toxic industrial civilization, having excess body fat is not a cosmetic problem but a survival strategy. His position, stated directly in multiple seminars, was "be fat, be healthy" and "I'd rather be fat than have a disease." The reasoning is mechanistic: if the body has abundant peripheral fat stores, incoming toxins from car exhaust, industrial chemicals, heavy metals, agricultural contaminants, and vaccine residues have somewhere to go that is not the brain, the bone marrow, or the interior of living cells.

He described the scenario for very thin people in detail. When a thin person is exposed to toxins, those toxins cannot be directed to peripheral fat because there is none. The body instead pulls fat from wherever it can find it. The two locations naturally richest in fat are the brain, which he described as 60 to 80% fat, and the bone marrow, which he also described as 60 to 80% fat. Both are critical structures that cannot tolerate the same kind of passive toxin storage that peripheral fat can. Toxins in the brain damage neural tissue and alter the prostaglandins within cells. Toxins in the bone marrow contaminate the environment where red and white blood cells are bred and matured, producing weak, damaged blood cells that carry less oxygen and are less capable of performing their immune functions.

He cited a specific observation: 80% of his cancer patients were thin. He noted that 50% of those were long-term vegetarians. He contrasted this with the protective function of fat, describing how a well-fatted person exposed to the same environmental toxin load will have those poisons directed into peripheral fat tissue rather than into cells, preventing the cellular damage that accumulates into cancer.

He also described his own experience of feeling more protected when he carried more weight: "I felt protected. I never felt tinged with poisons unless I went to a heavy detoxification." He referenced a period when he was the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger and described it as a time of great physical confidence and resilience.

Aajonus used his own body across many years of seminars as a living demonstration of the principle that raw fat cells are small and cooked fat cells are large. He reported his body fat at various times as 16%, 18%, 19%, 20%, 22%, 25.6%, 26%, 27%, and 30%, and consistently noted that observers estimated him at 7% to 10%. The gap between how much fat he was carrying and how much he appeared to be carrying was entirely explained, in his account, by the molecular size difference between raw and cooked fat.

He described his own trajectory: he had eaten no cooked fat since 1972, but before that transition, when he carried similar percentages of body fat, he was visibly much larger. He said he used to go up to a thirty-inch waist on his thigh at his largest, later modifying this to say the highest he reached was a thirty-six inch measurement at some point. After decades of raw fat consumption, those old swollen fat molecules were gradually replaced by small raw molecules, and the visible size shrank even as the fat percentage remained high or even increased.

He was careful to note that this transformation is slow. He described it taking the full period from the early 1970s to the time of the seminars, meaning more than thirty years, to substantially replace the old cooked fat cells throughout the body, including within the bones. He mentioned that in the last few years before a given seminar, his bones had become denser, tighter, and stronger as old fats were cleared even from the bone marrow and replaced.

When cooked fat molecules are incorporated into the body's tissues, they are not inert. Aajonus described several pathways by which they cause ongoing harm. The most fundamental is that cooked fat molecules, having been swollen and altered by heat, undergo a process analogous to firing clay: before cooking, a fat molecule is malleable and capable of ion exchange, meaning it can participate actively in the body's biochemical processes. Once cooked beyond 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the fat molecule behaves like fired clay, brittle and incapable of further shaping. It can no longer participate in ion exchange. Over the following decades inside the body, it hardens progressively, eventually forming crystalline structures.

He stated that vegetable oils, including pressed oils like olive, flax, safflower, and seed oils, if they remain in the body for more than three years, begin to crystallize. They dehydrate and become crystal-like deposits in cells. The arterial wall takes about six years to fully replace itself, meaning that if vegetable oils form part of the structural fat of arterial wall cells, those cells will contain crystallized fat within their lifespan, contributing to arterial hardening. He attributed arteriosclerosis and congestive heart failure primarily to this mechanism, not to animal fats.

He distinguished animal fats sharply from vegetable fats in this context. The human body, he argued, is at the correct temperature to keep animal fats fluid. Animal fats stay supple, fluid, and metabolically active at normal body temperature. Vegetable oils, and especially hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids, are at the wrong temperature for human physiology. They harden in the lymphatic system, block lymphatic flow, and accumulate as waxy, immovable deposits that cannot be cleared without raising the body temperature to 103 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which is why he recommended hot baths.

Hydrogenated fats he described as chemically equivalent to plastic. He said that hydrogenating an oil, whether it begins as a vegetable oil or a mineral oil, produces a trans fatty acid that is essentially a plastic substance. People, he said, are "full of plastic fats in their lymphatic system and they don't move."

Cellulite was explained by Aajonus as a specific outcome of the interaction between bad fats and toxins. When fats bind with toxins in the body but do not have the right nutritional support to escort those toxins through the bowels, the body stores them temporarily in less active tissues, typically in the buttocks, waist, or areas near the intestines. Once stored, these fat-toxin complexes dehydrate and harden into what he called "cellulite crustaceans," progressively dry, hard balls of fat-bound toxin under the skin.

He made the point that even very thin people can have cellulite, and he used Twiggy as a specific example, saying he had dated her and that she had cellulite despite extreme thinness. Thin models on television also have cellulite. The explanation is that they have cooked and toxic fats hardening in their systems, not that they have excess fat overall.

He traced the modern epidemic of cellulite to the 1960s shift from animal fats and butter to margarine and vegetable oils. Before that shift, cellulite was not common. After it, it became widespread because the industrial vegetable fats and trans fatty acids that replaced animal fats are precisely the kind of fat that hardens, binds toxins, and forms cellulite deposits.

He noted that during detoxification, when the body begins breaking down old cellulite deposits, the area can temporarily swell dramatically, a small ball of cellulite becoming a large, inflamed mass before the toxins are successfully cleared. This is a natural part of the process, not a sign that something is going wrong.

After twelve years on the raw diet, he said, women who had previously had significant cellulite no longer had any at all, even those who had been substantially overweight during their cancer recovery.

The brain and the bone marrow are the two locations Aajonus identified as naturally and necessarily high in fat. The brain is 60 to 80% fat. The bone marrow is 60 to 80% fat depending on what the person eats. These two organs are therefore the primary destinations for toxins when peripheral fat is insufficient, which is why being thin is, in his framework, particularly dangerous.

Toxins in the brain alter the prostaglandins within brain cells, which means the activity within those cells is disrupted at the most fundamental level. He noted that the human brain has become larger over evolutionary time precisely because cooking increased the toxic load that had to be managed within it. The more toxins the brain collects, the larger it has to grow to store and contain them.

Toxins in the bone marrow are particularly dangerous because the bone marrow is where red and white blood cells are bred, mature, and enter the bloodstream. If the marrow environment is contaminated with heavy metals or chemical poisons, the blood cells produced there are weakened. They carry less oxygen, are less capable of phagocytic immune function, and produce less energy for the rest of the body. He described the contamination of bone marrow as a 45 to 60 day upstream problem, because the effects on blood cell quality are not immediate but emerge as the contaminated cells mature and enter circulation.

He also described the heart as having a substantial protective fat deposit on top of it, estimating it at roughly 10% of the heart's mass, with some hearts carrying up to 20 to 23% fat. He said he had observed two children without sufficient fat pressure in the heart who lived only to age thirteen. The protective fat around the heart is not incidental; it is specifically positioned to protect the organ from toxins that might otherwise damage it directly.

Although toxin containment is the primary function Aajonus emphasized for fat in a toxic world, he was equally detailed about fat's role as the body's primary energy source. He stated consistently that fat provides two and a half times more energy per unit volume than either protein or carbohydrate. The body uses oxygen, delivered by red blood cells, to oxidize fat into energy. This process is not combustion, he was insistent on this point: it is a chemical transformation with no burning, no carbon monoxide, and no high-temperature reaction. He described the popular expression "burning fat for energy" as a deliberate misdirection designed to make cooking seem analogous to the body's own metabolic processes.

The body can also make fats from carbohydrates or proteins by converting them into acetates or acetone bodies, but fats manufactured from these secondary sources have very low energy yield. Only fats that enter the body as fats from the beginning, particularly from animal sources, produce the full two and a half times energy advantage. Acetates made from carbohydrates or proteins provide minimal energy and no endurance.

He observed that the strongest, most enduring athletes are fat athletes, not lean ones. Weightlifters and wrestlers are typically fat. He described a specific observation about bodybuilders who had stripped themselves of all body fat to achieve maximum muscular visibility: those individuals could lift less than they could when they carried fat, because without fat in the muscle tissue there was no fuel for the muscle to work with. He described this in terms of fat being marbled throughout muscle tissue as the fuel source for every contraction.

He used McEnroe and Billie Jean King as illustrations: during their lean competitive years both had poor temperaments and poor long-term health, and both became more pleasant and healthy after gaining weight later in life. He attributed the temperament problems of fat-deficient athletes to the lack of fuel reaching the nervous system.

White blood cells are essentially mobile fat cells operating in the circulatory system. He described them as 60 to 80% fat, and sometimes as 80% fat, and stated that this fat content is the direct reason they appear white and the reason they can absorb and neutralize toxins without being destroyed by them. They are phagocytes, meaning they engulf and digest dead red blood cells, dead white blood cells, bacteria, and toxic chemicals. Their large fat content allows them to absorb quantities of toxic material that would destroy a cell with a lower fat composition.

Pus, in his account, is 95 to 98% white blood cells, with only 2 to 5% actual toxic chemicals. The ratio illustrates the scale of fat resources the body deploys to manage relatively small quantities of toxicity: it takes an enormous number of fat-laden cells to safely contain even a small amount of poison.

He described the thymus gland as almost completely fat, appearing as a white glob with no visible structure, because its entire function operates through prostaglandin effects within cells rather than through gross muscular or structural activity. The lymphatic system as a whole is approximately 80% fat by his description, and the majority of its work, 60 to 80%, depends on fat availability.

Aajonus described specific behavioral differences in how fat cells function depending on whether the fat they contain is raw animal fat, cooked animal fat, vegetable oil, or hydrogenated fat.

Raw animal fat cells are small, dense, and metabolically active. They participate in ion exchange, meaning they can release stored toxins when the body is ready to process them, shift resources to wherever they are needed, and remain fluid at body temperature. They protect cell membranes without rupturing them, coat the walls of blood vessels and cells, and maintain the structural integrity of every tissue they inhabit.

Cooked animal fat cells are swollen and have lost their capacity for ion exchange. They are still somewhat protective in a passive way, he said, but it takes many more of them to provide the same level of toxin management as a smaller quantity of raw fat. He said explicitly: "It just takes many more bad fats to take care of you than raw fats."

Vegetable oil fat cells, whether raw or cooked, behave differently from animal fat cells in the body. He said that all pressed oils are 90% solvent-reactive, meaning the body converts them into solvents to dissolve organic and non-organic material rather than using them for lubrication or protection. This includes flax oil, olive oil, and coconut oil. He consistently advised against relying on these as primary fats. Cooked vegetable oils, particularly those that remain in the body for more than three years, crystallize and harden, contributing to arterial plaque and tissue hardening throughout the body.

Hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids are the most damaging category. He described them as plastic-like substances that accumulate in the lymphatic system, cannot be moved at normal body temperature, and can only be cleared by raising the body's temperature to 103 to 110 degrees through hot baths. He recommended 40-minute baths daily, with 90-minute baths twice weekly, and for retired individuals, 90-minute baths every day of the week, as the primary mechanical method for clearing these hardened plastic fats.

Aajonus's position on body fat percentage was direct and consistent: more fat is better in the current toxic environment, and fear of fatness is, in his view, a major driver of cancer incidence. He described standing before an audience and telling everyone present to look around, because one of every two men and one of every three women in the room would die of cancer, and his prescription was: "Get fat. Get prepared."

He said that during his own serious illness he deliberately gained substantial weight, going up to 30 to 32% body fat. He described consuming a quart of raw cream and large quantities of butter to build that reserve. The fat was not cosmetic but functional: it provided the toxin-binding capacity his body needed to manage the heavy detoxification he was undergoing.

He noted that 60% of terminal cancer patients reversed on a high-fat diet without raw protein. When raw meat was added alongside raw fat, 96 to 98% reversed. He interpreted the high-fat-alone reversal rate as evidence that in cancer, the ability to contain and dissolve the accumulating dead cells is the primary need, and fat provides the solvent and binding capacity for that. The addition of raw protein pushed the reversal rate much higher because protein allows the body to actually regenerate healthy new cells, not just manage the toxic load.

His recommendation for anyone with a serious disease was to abandon concerns about appearance and allow themselves to become as fat as possible on raw animal fats. He said explicitly: "If you want to get well fast, the fatter the better."

Among animal fats, he made distinctions about which tissues different fats serve most effectively. Butter he described as the best lubricant for every tissue in the body except the brain, and even for the brain it provides some benefit. Every other tissue is lubricated and protected most effectively by butter.

Chicken fat, in his observation, feeds the bursas and joints faster than any other fat, because the chicken cell is structurally similar to human skin and connective tissue cells, allowing the fat to be absorbed and used without extensive conversion. Beef fat, by contrast, more closely resembles human muscle and glandular tissue, making it more appropriate for those structures, but it does not act as quickly as chicken fat for joints.

Bone marrow provides stem cells and is one of only three animal sources of actual stem cells, the others being sperm and ovum. He recommended applying bone marrow directly to the skin as a topical fat, because the skin digests and absorbs it.

He described a Moisturizing Lubrication Formula and a Primal Facial Body Care Cream as external applications combining different kinds of fat rather than any single fat, because the body should not be overwhelmed with one type of fat and cells benefit from variety. The Primal Facial Body Care Cream is referenced as appearing on page 146 of his recipe book.

Aajonus described three fundamental uses the body has for fat, and he returned to this tripartite division consistently across seminars. One-third of dietary fat is used to cleanse the body by binding with and escorting toxins. One-third is used to lubricate and protect cells, coating membranes and maintaining the structural integrity of tissues. One-third is used as fuel, providing energy through oxidization with oxygen delivered by red blood cells.

He specified that in modern toxic conditions, these proportions shift dramatically. Instead of the balanced third-third-third division, he said 50 to 80% of all fat consumed goes immediately to detoxification. Only 20 to 25% at best goes to lubrication and fuel. This means that unless a person is consuming extremely large amounts of raw fat, the body will consume all available fat just in basic metabolism and detoxification, leaving nothing for deep cleaning, cellular protection, or sustained energy.

This is the basis for his recommendation that people with serious illness eat fat in very large quantities. Without surplus fat beyond what the detoxification processes consume, there is nothing left over to rebuild, protect, and fuel the healthy cells the body needs to recover.

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