Metabolism

Aajonus returned repeatedly to the proportions of the citric acid cycle as the foundation of optimal metabolic function. The body produces its greatest amount of energy when fuel composition is approximately 80 percent fat, 15 percent pyruvate (a protein sugar derived from protein), and 5 percent carbohydrate or vitamin C. This is not a dietary ratio in the sense of what one eats, but rather the ratio in which the body constructs its fuel internally in order to run the energy conversion process.

The citric acid cycle requires a small amount of carbohydrate or vitamin C to combine with pyruvate. That combination then allows fat to be utilized as the primary energy source. Without the pyruvate and the small carbohydrate fraction, fat cannot be converted into usable energy through this cycle. Pyruvate acts as something like an ignitor or catalyst, though Aajonus was careful to note that even this language imperfectly describes what is a chemical change, not a combustion event. He credited scientists of the early 1970s with mapping this cycle and demonstrating that pyruvate, derived from protein, combined with citric acid to allow fat utilization as energy.

The 5 percent carbohydrate component can be satisfied by a small amount of fruit, particularly fruits containing vitamin C such as orange, pineapple, or similar. Aajonus said one fruit per day is generally sufficient for a sedentary or lightly active person. For athletes or highly active people, more may be needed because greater fat conversion requires proportionally more of the citric acid cycle catalyst. He also noted that the body can ferment a small amount of fruit to produce the alcohol fraction that serves this function, and suggested that fruit eaten alongside fat allows time-released carbohydrate contribution to the cycle.

The practical dietary implication is that someone eating meat without fat forces the body to convert that protein into either acetate (a fat-like substance) or pyruvate (a sugar), rather than using the protein for cellular regeneration. He stated that when fat accompanies meat at a minimum ratio of 3 ounces of fat to half a pound of meat, approximately 85 percent of the protein goes toward rebuilding and regenerating cells, with only about 15 percent being converted into pyruvate for energy use. Without fat present at the meal, the body converts the majority of the protein into fuel, wasting the structural and regenerative potential of that expensive protein.

Aajonus was emphatic that fat is the dominant fuel for the human body and that most people in modern society are running on the wrong substrate. Most people live on carbohydrates. When the body makes fats from carbohydrates, it produces acetates. These acetates burn very quickly, give a short burst of energy comparable to a firecracker going off, and provide no sustained or long-term energy. They are metabolically inefficient fats.

True animal fat, taken directly from animal sources, produces two and a half times more energy than any acetate made from carbohydrate or protein. The same calorie of animal fat produces two and a half times more energy than a calorie from carbohydrate or protein. This is why weightlifters, wrestlers, and sumo wrestlers are not thin. Their physical power depends on fat as fuel. Aajonus described a specific case from North Carolina in which a weightlifter ate enormous quantities of fat and protein together during his training phase, lifting 437 to 470 pounds. In the weeks before competition, the man stopped eating fat and ate only protein with small amounts of milk. Within three weeks his lifting capacity dropped from 437 pounds to 237 pounds, losing nearly half his strength. The fat loss from his muscles was directly responsible for this collapse in power. This example illustrated that fat is not stored weight to be burned off but is active fuel embedded in tissue that directly governs physical capacity.

Vegetable fats can also serve as fuel but not as effectively as animal fats. The hierarchy is clear in his framework: animal fat converted directly from animal sources is the highest quality metabolic fuel, followed at a significant distance by vegetable fat, followed at a further distance by fats made from carbohydrates or proteins through internal conversion.

Acetones and acetates derived from carbohydrates or proteins are fats in a chemical sense, but they oxidize poorly and produce only a fraction of the energy of true animal fat. The body can make a fat from almost any substrate, turning protein into acetate or turning carbohydrate into acetone, but the energy yield from these converted fats is low, and the conversion itself consumes metabolic resources.

Pyruvate is a protein sugar the body derives from dietary protein, specifically animal protein such as eggs and meat. In the citric acid cycle, pyruvate occupies 15 percent of the fuel formula and functions as the catalyst that, combined with citric acid or vitamin C, allows fat to be converted into energy. The protein itself is not the fuel. The pyruvate made from it is what interacts with the carbohydrate fraction to enable fat utilization.

When fat is not present in a meal, the body is forced to make much more pyruvate than usual because the pyruvate itself becomes the fuel rather than merely the ignitor. The "actual ignitor becomes the fuel," as Aajonus put it, which is metabolically expensive and produces inferior energy.

Pyruvate also has a significant advantage over glycogen in terms of metabolic byproducts. The advanced glycation end product from pyruvate is only 7 to 8 percent, compared to 70 to 90 percent from glycogen produced through carbohydrate metabolism. The body can handle approximately 12 percent advanced glycation end product per day without becoming overwhelmed. Eating up to three pounds of meat per day will never generate enough pyruvate to exceed this threshold or create the systemic stickiness associated with carbohydrate-based sugar metabolism. This means protein-derived energy production is metabolically clean relative to carbohydrate-derived energy, and animal proteins are the preferred source for establishing this clean metabolic tone.

He also said that the body can convert protein directly into glucagon via pyruvate, and that glucagon is a clean-utilizing substance, with only 7 to 8 percent byproduct, unlike glycogen which produces massive glycation byproducts. Running on meat protein for energy, while not as efficient as fat, is far cleaner than running on carbohydrate sugar.

Carbohydrates are needed only in very small amounts for optimal metabolic function. Their role in the citric acid cycle is limited to that 5 percent fraction that combines with pyruvate to allow fat oxidation. The body does not require large amounts of dietary carbohydrate. Aajonus stated flatly that eating a high-carbohydrate diet leads to short-lived bursts of energy, metabolic instability, premature aging, and in the case of athletes, burnout in the late thirties. He cited athletes from tribes in the Andes who still followed fat-dominant diets as a counterpoint to modern sports nutrition.

When carbohydrates are eaten in excess, the body converts them into acetates and acetones, which are metabolically weak fats. These fats produce inferior energy and contribute to sticky, glycated metabolic conditions. The advanced glycation end product from carbohydrate-based sugar metabolism is 70 to 90 percent, meaning the vast majority of that metabolic activity generates waste that the body must process and eliminate.

The morning meal is particularly important in setting the metabolic tone for the entire day. If the first meal contains high-sugar foods such as fruit smoothies, milk with fruit, or any carbohydrate-dominant combination, the body extracts the sugars immediately, converts them to glycogen, and runs the nervous system, lymph system, and blood on that glycogen for the rest of the day. This creates stickiness throughout these fluid systems. If instead the first solid meal is meat, the body establishes a pyruvate-based metabolic pattern that runs cleaner, produces less glycation byproduct, and provides more fluid, focused, sustained function throughout the day.

The carbohydrate fraction the body needs can come from fruit, from vitamin C in food, or from fermented carbohydrate. Only one fruit per day is adequate for this purpose under normal conditions.

The role of the bloodstream in metabolism is specifically to deliver oxygen to cells so that fat can be converted into energy. The red blood cells carry oxygen to the cells; the cells then mix that oxygen with fat to produce chemical and electromagnetic energy. The white blood cells eat dead red blood cells and discard the carbon dioxide through the skin and lungs. That is the complete job of the bloodstream as Aajonus described its ideal function.

No burning takes place. No carbon monoxide is produced. Carbon dioxide is produced, just as it is produced by normal breathing, and this is the metabolic waste product of fat conversion, not of combustion.

The critical implication is that any additional work imposed on the bloodstream beyond oxygen delivery reduces the energy available to the organism. In the modern toxic body, the blood has taken on additional jobs, particularly filtering toxicity because the lymphatic system is overloaded and can no longer handle its full detoxification workload. When the blood is also doing filtration and nutrient transport that were never its biological role, the energy available to cells drops dramatically. Aajonus estimated that this shift reduces available energy by at least 60 percent, meaning the modern person operates on roughly 40 percent of the energy a clean-blooded person would have.

The lymphatic system's job is to feed every cell in the body and remove waste. When the lymphatic system is congested, which became epidemic with the introduction of hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids into the food supply from the 1950s onward, the blood compensates by delivering nutrients. This compromise imposes a compound additional burden on the blood and further reduces metabolic energy output.

Hormones are metabolic substances composed of 60 to 80 percent fat, 15 to 35 percent protein, and only 5 percent carbohydrate. This ratio holds regardless of what dietary substrate the body used to manufacture those hormones. Even if the fat fraction of a hormone was derived from a carbohydrate or a protein rather than from dietary fat, it is still classified chemically as a ketone, acetone, or acetate. It is still fat.

Because hormones are predominantly fat, and because the body stores toxins in fat, hormone-rich tissues and glands accumulate significant toxin loads in a toxic body. The body uses hormones in emergency detoxification responses. When someone ingests supplements made from industrial solvents, for instance, the adrenaline response climbs sharply as the body attempts to use those fat-based hormones to detoxify the incoming poisons. This creates a false sense of energy that is actually an adrenaline-driven stress response, not true metabolic fuel production. The crash follows when the emergency response subsides.

Taking thyroxin to produce energy is, in his framework, a false way of generating metabolic energy. The thyroid and thymus are supposed to maintain lung and heart function and support the conditions under which fat can be converted to energy. Supplementing with thyroid hormones bypasses the actual metabolic requirement, which is eating the proper fats in proper combination with protein and carbohydrates so the oxidation process can produce genuine, sustainable fuel. True energy comes from the fat-pyruvate-carbohydrate ratio in the citric acid cycle, not from hormonal stimulation.

The liver's sole healthy function, in Aajonus's framework, is to produce bile. It produces 60 varieties of bile, which in turn allow the body to form 60 varieties of cholesterol. One third of those cholesterols lubricate the body, one third cleanse and protect the body, and one third provide the foundational material for the greatest ratio of energy the body can produce. The liver does not function as a general metabolic filter in its healthy state. It does not process nutrients beyond producing bile for fat digestion.

In a toxic body, the liver has been co-opted as a blood filter because the lymphatic system can no longer manage the detoxification load. This imposes enormous additional burden on the liver, consuming resources that should be dedicated to bile production and thus to fat digestion and energy metabolism. The less energy the liver has to dedicate to bile production, the less fat can be properly digested and converted, and the weaker the entire energy system becomes.

The gallbladder stores bile so that large amounts of fat eaten at one time can be properly digested. The liver can produce enough bile to digest approximately one pound of fat per day on its own. The gallbladder holds excess bile so that if a large meal contains much more than one pound of fat, the stored bile can be released to handle the additional fat. Without the gallbladder, which is increasingly removed as a medical intervention, the body loses this surge capacity for fat digestion and thus for peak metabolic function during large fat-rich meals.

The body's actual metabolic capacity has been dramatically reduced in the modern era by two interconnected factors: the accumulation of industrial toxins that force extra metabolic work, and the consumption of hydrogenated and trans fats that cannot be properly utilized for energy.

Hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids harden in the body. They do not oxidize well. They block metabolic pathways. They congest the lymphatic system to the point where the lymph can no longer feed cells. Aajonus estimated that lymphatic congestion from trans fatty acids reduces available energy to approximately two thirds of what it would otherwise be. Combined with the blood taking over nutrient delivery from the lymph, this results in only 40 percent of possible metabolic energy being available.

The broader accumulation of industrial toxins forces the body to use metabolic resources for detoxification that would otherwise go toward energy production, cellular regeneration, and maintenance. The blood is filtering instead of delivering oxygen. The liver is detoxifying instead of making bile. The endocrine glands are secreting emergency hormones instead of maintaining baseline function. Every one of these diversions represents a direct reduction in metabolic efficiency and available energy.

The bone marrow and brain, which are the body's two naturally high-fat regions (bone marrow at 60 percent or better fat content, brain at 60 to 80 percent fat), accumulate the greatest concentrations of toxins precisely because the body stores toxins in fat. When toxins accumulate in bone marrow, red and white blood cell production is compromised, which directly reduces the oxygen delivery capacity of the blood, which in turn reduces the body's ability to convert fat to energy. This is a cascading metabolic collapse: toxin accumulation leads to bone marrow damage, which leads to reduced oxygen transport, which leads to reduced fat-to-energy conversion.

Every time cooked food is eaten, the body must leach enzymes, vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates from its own cells to process that food. The pancreas produces hormones to distribute these leached nutrients throughout the body, essentially sending metabolic resources from every cell to deal with the absence of active nutrients in cooked food. This spending of the cellular savings account is cumulative. Over years and decades, it produces gradual but marked decreases in the strength and ability of every cell, with increasing toxicity from the heterocyclic amines, lipid peroxides, and acrylamides produced by cooking.

The energy cost of processing cooked food is immediate as well as long-term. After eating cooked food, the body deploys enzymes leached from its own tissues to compensate for the absence of food enzymes. This depletes cellular reserves and reduces energy available for other metabolic processes. The person may feel tired afterward not because food was eaten but because the body is now running a metabolic deficit to handle the food that was eaten.

Cooked and processed foods also produce nutrients that cannot remain coupled for particular cellular activities. In raw food, nutrients are coupled in specific combinations that translate directly into cellular energy. Cooking breaks those couplings, and the nutrients, even if some survive the heat, can no longer perform their metabolic roles with the same efficiency. Bio-electromagnetic energies within raw food are conveyed cellularly; in cooked food, those energies are lost rather than transferred.

When the body does not receive adequate food, particularly fat, it does not simply wait in a suspended state. It begins consuming itself. Aajonus addressed a specific situation in which someone who ate nothing until midday remained heavy despite what seemed like a caloric deficit. His explanation was that the body, in its fasting or starved state, is making fats from its own tissues, creating toxic byproducts, causing water retention from over-acidity, and recycling rather than eliminating its existing toxin load. There are no incoming nutrients to escort the toxins out of the body, so they remain, recirculate, and continue to accumulate.

If fat is absent from the diet, the body begins pulling fat from glands, bones, and ultimately from cellular interiors. When fat is pulled from cells, minerals come with it, then proteins, and the structural integrity of the body begins to deteriorate. Pulling fat from bones removes the minerals embedded with that fat, weakening bone. Pulling fat from the brain and nervous system is especially damaging because these tissues require fat for their function and cannot easily recover it once depleted.

In thin people, because there is limited extracellular fat available for toxin storage, the body stores toxins intracellularly. Intracellular toxin accumulation damages RNA and DNA directly, leading to mutation, degeneration, and the foundational conditions for cancer and degenerative disease. This is why Aajonus consistently pushed people toward gaining fat stores rather than losing them, because adequate extracellular fat allows the body to store toxins safely outside of cells while metabolic and detoxification processes work to eventually eliminate them.

Every metabolic process in the body is mediated by bacteria. For every human DNA, there are 100 bacterial DNA active in the body. Excluding water, Aajonus described the body as 99 percent bacteria in terms of active biological agency. Bacteria construct cells, destruct dead or non-functional cells, and cause all physiological functions to occur. They make the thyroid function, they ensure hormones are produced, and they participate in every step of nutrient conversion and energy production. The citric acid cycle and fat-to-energy conversion are not purely chemical events in an isolated biochemical sense but are bacterially mediated processes dependent on the activity of these organisms throughout the body.

This understanding means that any factor that damages or disrupts bacterial populations in the body, including antibiotics, industrial chemicals, cooked food, and heavy metals, has direct metabolic consequences. Disrupting the bacterial ecology of the body disrupts the very processes by which food is converted into energy, cells are built and maintained, and metabolic waste is cleared.

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