Multivitamins

Every vitamin supplement, regardless of whether it is sold individually or as part of a multivitamin formula, must be extracted from some source material in order to be concentrated and packaged. Aajonus identified only two fundamental methods by which laboratories accomplish this extraction: heat, and solvent dissolution. He described both as inherently destructive.

The solvents used in extraction are, in his telling, almost universally kerosene or kerosene derivatives, or hexane, which is a gasoline derivative. He posed this question repeatedly across workshops: "How many of you would soak your food in kerosene for 72 hours until it became a liquid, rinse it for two minutes, and eat it?" He used this image to make tangible what he argued actually happens to every supplement ingredient before it reaches a capsule or tablet. The kerosene dissolves the food material, the target molecule is separated from the solution, and the remaining material is dried and pressed. The kerosene residue, even after rinsing, he considered a permanent contaminant of the final product.

He also addressed what happens structurally to the nutrients during this process. Under microscopy, he said, natural vitamins extracted directly from food without chemical processing appear as small, soft, round, spongy, fluffy balls, flexible and easily absorbed. After the kerosene extraction and drying process used to make supplements, those same molecules become hardened, angular structures that he compared to granite rocks or broken mirror glass. They are no longer soft and utilizable; they are rigid, sharp-edged fragments that cannot be properly absorbed and that irritate tissues they contact. He showed photographs of this transformation during workshops, displaying natural vitamin B1 and processed vitamin B1 side by side at the same magnification, noting that the natural forms are small and spongy while the supplemental forms are enormous, hardened structures.

For vitamin B specifically, he described the only non-damaging extraction method as requiring an ultrasonic airgun to blow individual molecules away from one another one at a time under an electronic power microscope. He calculated that producing one bottle of vitamin B this way would take a single person working ten hours a day approximately two months. No commercial manufacturer performs this process. Instead they use kerosene derivatives to fractionate the B vitamins, and if a product contains multiple B vitamins, multiple different kerosene derivatives are required to separate them from one another. Then when the extracted material is pressed into a pill or tablet, the drying further hardens the molecules from small soft balls into dense rock-like particles.

Based on laboratory research he funded, Aajonus stated that supplements, including the components found in multivitamin products, are only 2 to 12 percent utilizable by the human body. The remaining 88 to 98 percent of what is consumed represents chemical waste that must be isolated and eliminated by the body, in the process leaching and usurping the body's own stored vital nutrients. He stated this figure across multiple workshops and in his written work: "Pill, powder and liquid supplements are only 2-12% utilizable, and are 88-98% waste that will be isolated and eliminated, leeching and usurping our bodies' innate vital nutrients."

He paid a laboratory in the San Fernando Valley what he described as a significant sum to conduct these utilization tests, and he stood behind the 2 to 12 percent figure as the ceiling of what even the best supplements can offer. He noted that for someone eating predominantly cooked food, some minimal benefit might be obtained from supplements that are less processed than what high-heat cooking produces, but that for someone eating 50 percent or more raw food, supplements are mostly damaging rather than helpful.

Aajonus conducted what he described as a two-year observation study while working as the nutritionist at a health food store, where he had access to approximately 1,200 supplement products. He evaluated all of them and found that only nine produced any significant benefits. The shared characteristic of those nine products was that they had all been prepared at temperatures below 82 degrees Fahrenheit and had not been chemically treated or extracted. Every other supplement, all 1,191 remaining products, he observed to create toxicity throughout the bodies of the people consuming them, with particularly notable damage to glandular systems.

Over the course of his research, six of the original nine beneficial supplements were reformulated or changed by their manufacturers in ways that eliminated their value. The products that were destroyed included wheat germ oil, two brands of cod liver oil, shark oil, and two brands of primary yeast powders. By the end of his research period, only three of the original nine remained viable, and even those were reduced over time to what he described as only three products being made by the relevant companies.

He observed specific patterns of harm from specific supplement categories. People who regularly consumed iron supplements accumulated iron deposits visibly detectable through iridology, appearing as rust spots. Mega-dose vitamin C users almost uniformly suffered irritability, psychological disturbances, and compulsive hunger for ice cream, chocolate, and other rich foods. He explained this as the result of supplemental vitamin C being structurally spiky, like glass, which irritates blood and nerve cells, depletes fat from the blood, and makes the blood highly acidic.

Aajonus returned to vitamin E more consistently than any other supplement when discussing the fraudulent nature of the supplement industry, and it serves in his framework as the clearest illustration of what multivitamin products actually contain.

Natural vitamin E is d-alpha-tocopherol. The substance sold as vitamin E in 99 percent of products on the market is, in his account, a byproduct of the photographic film development industry, specifically the developing fluid produced and stored in quantity by Fuji and Kodak. This chemical waste has a molecular structure that is approximately 70 to 72 percent similar to natural vitamin E's alpha-tocopherol structure, which was enough for scientists to propose calling it vitamin E and enough for the FDA to approve it as such.

The backstory Aajonus told repeatedly was that Fuji and Kodak spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with more than $200 million per year paid to scientists, trying to find a way to neutralize this toxic waste so they would not have to store it. Storage required 12-inch-thick concrete walls, stainless steel drums that would not rust, and complete isolation from moisture. One scientist eventually noted the structural similarity to vitamin E and proposed selling it rather than burying it. That proposal became the foundation of the vitamin E supplement market. Aajonus said Fuji and Kodak had enough developing fluid in storage to supply the vitamin E market for 30 to 80 years while earning approximately $2 billion per year from its sale.

Because the substance is so structurally foreign to true vitamin E and so chemically toxic, it was originally stored under extreme hazardous material containment protocols. When dispersed in small doses across millions of consumers, each individual dose is low enough that it does not produce an immediately obvious lethal reaction, though Aajonus argued the cumulative damage is severe.

He described a direct observation of severe harm from vitamin E supplementation in Diane Cannon, a woman who worked at a health food store where Aajonus was experimenting with supplement research. She was consuming approximately two large bottles of vitamin E per week. He observed and described her developing paper-thin, translucent skin that could be peeled away, progressive neurological deterioration, and severe psychological disintegration. He said he warned her in 1979 that she could not continue taking this substance, and she refused to believe the product could be harmful.

Even the products labeled "natural vitamin E" are not what they appear to be. If a product is labeled as natural vitamin E derived from soy or corn, Aajonus stated that five units out of every hundred are genuinely from the plant source, and the remaining 95 units are still the Fuji and Kodak developing fluid. Extracting sufficient true vitamin E from corn or soy to fill even one capsule would, by his calculation, require five years' worth of corn production to obtain 100 units. No commercial company performs this process, so the "natural" label functions as marketing cover for a product that is overwhelmingly composed of photographic chemical waste. And even the five units that do originate from soy or corn must still be extracted with kerosene, so they too carry solvent contamination.

He specifically directed people to look at the label terminology: d-alpha-tocopherol indicates the food-derived form, while dl-alpha-tocopherol indicates the fully synthetic laboratory-made form. However, even the products using d-alpha-tocopherol contain, in his account, the developing fluid as 95 of every 100 units.

Vitamin D as manufactured for supplementation and food fortification was described by Aajonus as among the most dangerous of supplemental forms. The process as he described it involves taking vegetable oil, often hydrogenated vegetable oil with the same molecular structure as plastic, and exposing it to radioactive material, which might be radium, uranium, or charged barium, some form of nuclear waste. The resulting substance is chemically nothing like the vitamin D produced in human skin through sun exposure, does not even faintly resemble it molecularly, and does not function in the way true vitamin D functions.

In some descriptions he noted they use mineral oil rather than vegetable oil before hydrogenating it and irradiating it. He cited FDA-released test results showing that this form of vitamin D contains dangerous substances capable of causing death. He described animal experiments in which fortified pasteurized homogenized milk, supplemented with this manufactured vitamin D, produced exactly the same diseases as unfortified pasteurized homogenized milk, demonstrating that the supplemental vitamin D provided no protective benefit whatsoever.

He contrasted this with sources of genuine vitamin D: sunlight, even on cloudy days, raw milk, meat, eggs, fish, and fermented shark meat. For those specifically seeking a supplement-form source he recommended Green Pastures cod liver oil, which he said he helped manufacture for two years without accepting any compensation, wanting only to ensure a product was available that was not processed with chemical solvents. He described it as non-flavored, foul-smelling, and burning the throat, but identified it as the only supplement-format source of genuine vitamin D he was aware of.

Supplemental vitamin C was described by Aajonus as structurally incompatible with biological use. Natural vitamin C in food exists as a complex involving four varieties of vitamin C along with five varieties of bioflavonoids, all in a single carrier. Isolating vitamin C from this complex and processing it into a supplement produces something structurally spiky, like glass, that goes into the blood and cuts and irritates blood and nerve cells. He described this as depleting fat from the blood and producing high acidity in the blood.

He showed microscopy images during workshops of true vitamin C from food, which appears as round, fluffy, hairy, soft balls, contrasted with supplemental vitamin C, which appears as sharp, angular, crystalline structures. He stated that the difference is so stark that no competent observer looking at the two structures would call them the same substance, and that the industry's ability to market them as equivalent represents a fundamental scientific fraud.

He noted that vitamin C cannot be properly used in the body unless accompanied by all five varieties of bioflavonoids, meaning that any isolated vitamin C supplement is not only structurally damaged but also lacks the co-factors required for its utilization, causing the body to leach those co-factors from its own stores.

There are, in Aajonus's account, no natural vitamin B supplements. All vitamin B products, regardless of how they are labeled, are either chemically synthesized or extracted using kerosene derivatives, and the kerosene contamination renders them fundamentally non-food. He was explicit: "There is no natural vitamin B12. If, let's say, like Mercola produced one, it's being produced with kerosene. So it's not really a natural product."

The microscopy comparison he described for vitamin B1 follows the same pattern as the other vitamins: natural B1 appears as small, soft, spongy fragments, some slightly mixed with B6 molecules, all soft and easy to assimilate. After kerosene extraction and pressing into tablet form, the same molecules become hardened, angular, rock-like structures, nothing like the original vitamin.

When multiple B vitamins are combined, as in a B-complex product or in the B-vitamin component of a multivitamin, each B vitamin requires its own distinct kerosene derivative to be fractionated and separated, meaning the product accumulates multiple solvent contaminations layered on top of one another.

Multivitamin manufacturers, in Aajonus's account, do not grow food for the purpose of extracting nutrients. This would be economically impossible: producing 100 units of vitamin E from corn would require five years of corn production per tablet, at a cost he estimated at approximately $1,000 per tablet. Instead, supplement companies go to industrial food manufacturers, specifically companies like Purina, General Mills, and Kellogg's, and purchase their processing waste, material that has already been chemically processed in dozens or hundreds of ways during food manufacturing. This waste is then treated with natural solvents (kerosene) to extract whatever nutrient molecules can be isolated from the already-degraded material, packaged, and sold.

He described a specific structure to this arrangement. A well-intentioned person wanting to create a natural multivitamin approaches a laboratory and asks whether the lab can produce a truly all-natural product. The lab, wanting the work and the revenue, confirms that it can. The lab does not disclose that it will use kerosene, because kerosene qualifies as a "natural solvent" under the terms of their agreement. The lab then purchases food industry waste already contaminated by industrial processing, applies kerosene extraction, and delivers a product the original company genuinely believes to be all-natural. The deception runs from the chemical company to the lab to the manufacturer to the consumer. He noted that for most supplement companies, the people involved are not consciously lying, only the chemical industry suppliers fully understand what is being sold and what it contains.

He further noted that even a company attempting to grow its own food from which to derive supplement ingredients, of which he knew one example, in practice only grew about five percent of its own supply; the remaining 95 percent still came from Purina or equivalent industrial food processors.

Beyond solvent contamination, Aajonus identified a second independent reason why multivitamins cannot function as nutrition: the isolation of individual nutrients from their biological context destroys the functional relationships between them. In living food, millions of nutrients, including many that have never been identified or named by science, interact with one another in varying ratios to produce biological function. Each nutrient requires all the others to be present in varying amounts to be properly utilized. A multivitamin, by combining isolated fragments of named nutrients, lacks virtually all of the balancing co-factors, especially bioactive enzymes, and creates what he called a "balance/depletion see-saw effect" in which the body must leach from its own stored nutrients to process what the supplement is unable to bring with it.

He was particularly pointed about the way the supplement industry's naming and categorization of vitamins creates the illusion of scientific completeness while actually representing extreme fragmentation. The progression from "B vitamin" to B1, B2, B3, and through the various numbered B vitamins and their subgroups represents the pharmaceutical and food industries' way of making consumers believe that nutritional science is comprehensive and that their products address real biological needs. In his reading, this classification system "bamboozles you into thinking that they've got the nutritional thing down."

The improvement in energy and wellbeing that many people report when taking multivitamins was described by Aajonus as a predictable toxic response rather than genuine nutritional benefit. The body recognizes incoming chemical compounds as foreign and potentially dangerous. In response, it triggers a hormonal cascade, including adrenal hormones, that produces the subjective experience of increased energy, clarity, or wellbeing. He compared this directly to the physiological response to caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, and other stimulants, none of which he considered as generating true health.

The adrenal hormones released in response to supplemental toxins are, in his framework, normally reserved for managing genuine biological threats. Diverting them to respond to supplement toxicity means they are unavailable for their natural functions. Over time, as the chemical deposits from supplements accumulate in the body, the body develops an allergy or sensitivity to those accumulated compounds, and even trace amounts then produce adverse reactions. He observed this in supplement users who eventually found themselves reacting poorly to products they had previously tolerated, without being able to identify which supplement or which ingredient was responsible.

He described well-known supplement advocates in the public health space as visibly deteriorated by their supplement habits, noting gray, dry, sucked-out skin and overall depleted appearance, attributing this to the metals and chemical accumulations from years of heavy supplement consumption.

Aajonus situated the entire supplement industry, including multivitamins, within a broader historical account of pharmaceutical and industrial interests capturing the framework of public health. He noted that 40 years prior to his speaking, the medical and pharmaceutical professions explicitly stated that vitamins and supplements had nothing to do with health. Once those industries moved into the supplement business themselves, the position reversed entirely and supplements became promoted as essential. He characterized this as a straightforward commercial racket with no basis in changed scientific understanding.

He traced the pharmaceutical industry's control of medical education to Carnegie and Rockefeller's capture of medical schools in the early 1900s, and linked the FDA's willingness to approve substances like photographic chemical waste as vitamin E to the revolving door between FDA leadership positions and pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies like Monsanto and Dow.

Aajonus's repeated recommendation as an alternative to multivitamins was fresh raw green vegetable juice, specifically low-carbohydrate vegetable juices. He described vegetable juice as providing all the enzymes, vitamins, and minerals from food in a form that is genuinely utilizable by the human body, without the solvent contamination, structural damage, or co-factor isolation that affects all manufactured supplements. He stated that vegetable juices provide "a thousand times the juice that you would ever get even from a dog" in terms of concentrated bioavailable nutrition. He specified that the juice should be strained to remove alkaline pulp, which if consumed in excess neutralizes the acidity of the intestines and stomach and prevents proper digestion.

He also emphasized raw unripe fruits, unheated honey, and raw animal foods including meat, eggs, and raw milk as the appropriate sources of bioactive vitamins. He noted that the amount of vitamin C available and assimilable from a slice of meat or an egg, given the protein and fat present to facilitate absorption, is far greater than anything obtainable from an orange or a vitamin C supplement. He stated directly: "Our vitamin, enzyme and mineral supplementation should be fresh raw green vegetable juices."

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