Irritability

Excessive acidity in the body was the explanation Aajonus returned to most often when discussing irritability. He linked high acid content directly to a short fuse, anxiousness, and overactive emotional reactivity. When a person who is overweight and irritable comes in, he described it as a combination of red and white meat needs, and he said clearly: "The irritability comes from high acid content in the body." The approach was to reduce that acidity through dietary adjustment before making any further recommendations about meat type.

For persons who were white, pale, pallid, who should by body type be red meat eaters, but who were also very anxious and irritable, he would not immediately place them on red meat. Instead, he would start them on fish for a period of time specifically to get the system alkaline again before transitioning to red meat. This was not a permanent prescription but a transitional protocol designed to bring the body's pH into a more appropriate range before introducing the foods that would most strongly support red blood cell production.

He also applied this principle to himself. During a period when he was very thin, he described being very irritable and noted that thinness itself correlated with irritability in his experience. He said, "I've been very irritable because I'm so thin right now. So I have a tendency to get irritable." This connects irritability not only to acidity but to the absence of sufficient fat reserves, which he described as stabilizing and insulating for the nervous system.

Aajonus used meat type as a primary tool for managing irritability. He divided people into general body types and assigned meat categories accordingly, with irritability being one of the key indicators of which direction to lean.

Irritable people, or those who are overanxious, were directed toward white meats, specifically fish and poultry. He said that if a person is irritable and thin, they should be given mainly vegetable juices, because their system could not handle the cleansing intensity of fruit sugars. Type A personalities, described as always rushing, always taking on too much, with a short fuse and high energy, were placed in the white meat category. Red meat, by contrast, was reserved for people who are sallow or pale in complexion, overweight, lethargic, depressed, with no energy, but specifically noted that this applied only if they are not irritable.

For combination types, he would normally have the person eat both red and white meat, but with a modifier: if the person is very anxious or irritable, the emphasis shifts toward more fish and poultry. Only once the system alkalinizes and the irritability resolves does red meat become fully appropriate for those who require it by type.

He also noted the case of a normally hyperactive white meat eater who had become lethargic and needed red meat to rebuild weak, alkaline red blood cells. This illustrates that the relationship between meat type and irritability is not static but responsive to the current state of the body.

Fat plays a complex dual role in Aajonus's framework around irritability. Sufficient fat, particularly animal fat, was described as stabilizing, calming, and protective for the nervous system. He recounted that when he first ate raw meat and cream, the cream "took my anxiety away. It just like went through my body. Whoa! This is living." The stabilizing effect of raw fat on the nervous system was central to reducing anxiety and irritability.

However, he drew a sharp distinction between whole animal fats and pressed oils such as olive oil, flax oil, and coconut cream. He stated that eating large quantities of pressed oils with everything you consume will promote dissolution and breakdown in the body rather than stabilization and strengthening. He said explicitly: "That can make you irritable. That can also make meat repulsive to you." One attendee at a workshop confirmed that she had become noticeably more irritable while doing a weight loss protocol that involved heavy use of olive oil and pesto rather than raw meat, and Aajonus linked her increased irritability directly to the excess of pressed oils.

The distinction, then, is between fats that stabilize and build tissue versus oils that thin and dissolve it. When the body is in a dissolving, weight-loss phase driven primarily by pressed oils, the lack of stable building material for the nervous system produces irritability.

Aajonus consistently identified certain fruits and high-sugar foods as triggers for irritability and over-emotionality. He explained that fruit sugars can create a burning quality in the system, stimulate the adrenals, and produce emotional volatility that a person may not recognize as diet-related.

For irritable and thin people specifically, he recommended vegetable juices rather than fruit juices because fruit juice has much more sugar, which "has a tendency to burn." He noted that "the vegetable juices have soothing tonality to them," while fruit juices, especially citric ones, will irritate the nerves of someone who is already in an irritable, high-strung state. Apples were singled out as particularly problematic for irritable individuals because they also stimulate the adrenals, an already overactive system in anxious and irritable people.

Pineapple was described as the single most over-emotional fruit there is. He said that clients as thin as a particular workshop attendee who eat a whole pineapple a day usually "become so emotional and so irritable, they are unbearable." He recommended that most people avoid excessive fruit and that thin people stay away from pineapple almost entirely, eating it only occasionally. Watermelon was also mentioned as producing an undesirable combination of states, with Aajonus noting that the sweet heart of the watermelon makes him "horny and irritable," describing it as "a terrible combination."

He also warned about bananas for people with a natural disposition to irritability. Because the banana passes through the liver once in conversion, it is not an ideal choice for someone already prone to irritability, and he suggested green papaya as an alternative.

For people who are irritable, he recommended fruits with high vitamin A content consumed with fat, such as cream or avocado. Calming fruits like melons and mangoes were specifically preferred for high-strung, nervous individuals over citrus and acidic fruits, which would further irritate already stressed nerves.

Aajonus described a particular pattern with alcohol consumption in which people become irritable without understanding the cause. He explained that alcohol combined with high concentrations of sugar produces nerve damage over the course of a few days, and then people get irritable and do not know why. He said: "And then people get irritable and they don't know why they're irritable. And you don't know why they're irritable. They're just getting irritable." He connected this specifically to wine consumption and to the nerve-damaging interaction of sugar and alcohol. Even raw wine will still cause this problem, though distilled spirits are described as considerably worse.

He also identified constipation and intestinal toxicity as a source of irritability that can come on suddenly and feel disconnected from any obvious cause. He described a situation where a person can "all of a sudden just be so irritable, feel irritable because you're constipated," and noted that introducing kefir enemas could produce rapid relief even without a bowel movement, because the kefir absorbs and neutralizes acids in the intestine that bacteria are not able to feed on.

In individual readings, Aajonus identified metal toxicity concentrated in specific glands as a source of chronic irritability. In one case he described ovarian and adrenal gland contamination with metals, saying that concentration of metals in those glands tends to make a person irritable and very unsatisfied. He also connected toxic adrenaline and excess hormonal buildup more generally to irritability, noting that "excessive hormones and toxic adrenaline can make you irritable."

He addressed the situation of overactive sex glands specifically, noting that when hormones build up without release they can "create a hormone that makes you irritable and anxious," and that orgasm converts those hormones into endorphins, producing relaxation and relief. He credited research from the 1960s with having established the chemical basis for this.

Aajonus described a protocol using a nut formula for people who had experienced emotional trauma and were dealing with residual irritability from the hormones produced during those events. He explained that every trauma produces specific hormones, and those hormones remain in the body as stored toxicity that can make a person irritable. The nut formula, which involves raw nuts with fat and eggs and honey to neutralize phytic acid, was described as a vehicle for helping the body bind and eliminate these hormone compounds. He noted: "You also have other hormones that were created during trauma. So you got a nut set."

He also referenced the research of Elnora Van Winkle, who spent nearly fifty years studying neurological compounds and wrote a paper called "The Biology of Emotions," which documented how stored neurological compounds can cause emotional outbreaks disconnected from any present-moment incident. Aajonus connected this research to the Primal Diet's use of cooked starch with large amounts of raw fat to bind with toxic compounds coming out of the nervous system. He said: "You need starches to bind with that kind of a compound." The protocol he described was to eat cooked starch such as a baked potato with an equal or large amount of raw fat, such as a whole stick of butter mixed in, so that the fat binds with the toxicity coming out of the nervous system during detoxification.

He stated that cooking meat forms heterocyclic amines and lipid peroxides that irritate nerves in many people and can produce or worsen irritability and anger. For people with anger and irritability issues, he recommended eating raw white meats specifically to avoid this outcome, as the nerve-irritating compounds formed by cooking are bypassed when meat is consumed raw.

Aajonus acknowledged that irritability can arise as a temporary detox symptom, particularly when toxic neurological compounds are being released from stored tissue. Nerve damage caused by overexposure to something, drinking too much of a detoxifying substance, or an improper protocol can leave a person irritable or down for several days. He noted this as an edge case and said: "You can cause nerve damage and cause yourself to be down for a few days or irritable or cause some scar tissue."

During weight loss phases in particular, when stored toxins are being released from fat tissue, emotional volatility including irritability is a common feature. He observed this in himself and in clients, and his general approach was to slow the release by adding more fat to the diet to cushion the nervous system during elimination.

Aajonus described Paul Cohen, McEnroe's tennis coach for ten years and an Olympic contender, who had been on the Primal Diet for fourteen years at age seventy-two. He described Cohen as "still kind of irritable, the coach type," but noted that every year he gets better on the diet and that the irritability reduces as he puts on more weight and fat. He explicitly said: "The fatter I can get him, the better he gets. When he gets skinny, when he doesn't like being fat for a while, he gets irritable again." This is a direct illustration of the relationship between fat reserves, thinness, and irritability. The thinner the person, the more irritable; the more fat they carry, the calmer and more stable they become.

In his early training materials, Aajonus described using iridology to identify people with nerve wave patterns in the eyes, which signaled nerve sensitivity. For those individuals, he would avoid citric acid foods entirely because they would irritate the nerves. He extended this to vitamin C supplementation, which he refused to use with anyone, saying it "irritates everything. The glandular tissue, the intestinal walls." For these sensitive, high-strung, irritable individuals, the dietary prescription was calming fruits like melons and mangoes with high vitamin A fat content, and the complete removal of citrus and acidic foods.

Aajonus placed individual irritability within a broader societal context, describing how processed foods and industrial chemicals contribute to "deranged thinking, deranged moods and attitudes" at a population level. He compared his own family, which had access to the first microwaves, the first televisions, and every chemical convenience available, with being "the unhappiest," while large families growing up on whole foods often got along well. He said these chemical exposures produce conditions that look like evil or bad character but are actually illness, stating: "It's all sickness because of manufacturing and processing things and the chemicals that get into people."

He also described his own childhood experience of blood sugar instability producing alternating depression and manic states, noting that "blood sugar would drop while adrenaline soared, causing irritability and sour disposition." This describes irritability as the specific outcome of the combination of low blood sugar and high adrenaline, a state he later managed through diet.

In his book he identified the general rule that "if you are feeling hyperactive, anxious, impatient, or irritable, it indicates" a particular physiological state requiring dietary correction, completing the framework in which all these states are understood as biochemical rather than psychological or characterological.