Naturopathy
Cataloged formally under the naturopathic label, the framework nonetheless treats naturopathy as a near-equal to allopathic medicine in its core error: targeting microorganisms, parasites, and yeasts as enemies rather than as the body's own functional cleaning agents.
Aajonus Vonderplanitz is identified in the Library of Congress cataloging of his own book as a naturopath, and *We Want to Live* is categorized under naturopathy. That biographical and bibliographic fact is the extent to which he claimed or inhabited the professional label. In practice, his relationship to naturopathy as a movement and discipline was one of fundamental criticism rather than allegiance. He did not build his framework inside naturopathic theory. He built it in opposition to the underlying assumptions shared by both conventional medicine and its alternatives, and naturopathy, in his view, shared the most dangerous of those assumptions.
The core problem Aajonus identified was that naturopaths, like allopathic physicians, operated from a search-and-destroy orientation. They defined health in terms of eliminating enemies, whether those enemies were pathogens, parasites, yeasts, or other microorganisms. He regarded this orientation as a fundamental category error, one that made naturopathic practitioners nearly as harmful as the medical profession they positioned themselves against, because they targeted the very biological agents the body uses to clean, heal, and detoxify itself.
Aajonus Rejects Search-and-Destroy Framework
Aajonus stated directly that naturopaths are "just like the medical profession" in the most important structural sense: they identify bad guys and attempt to destroy them. In his view, the organisms naturopaths target, including Candida and various parasites, are not enemies of the body but cooperative biological agents working alongside the body to process and eliminate accumulated toxins. When a naturopath attempts to destroy Candida, or treats parasites as invaders to be eradicated, they are attacking the body's own cleaning crew.
His phrasing was pointed: "Your naturopaths are just like the medical profession. They have the bad guys. And the bad guys aren't the chemicals. They're the natural things in nature." This inversion is the foundation of his entire critique. Conventional medicine and naturopathy alike trained their practitioners to see naturally occurring microorganisms as the cause of disease. Aajonus's framework reversed this entirely: industrial chemicals, heavy metals, pharmaceutical residues, and cooked food byproducts are the actual causes of pathological states, and microorganisms are the body's response to those causes, not the cause themselves.
He extended this to yeast. Candida and what he called "Tandida" were subjects naturopaths treated as diseases requiring eradication. In his reading, these organisms are discharged from the body naturally, passing out through the pores, through vaginal mucus, or through the rectal area when rectal itching occurs. The discomfort accompanying yeast activity is the body processing and neutralizing something. The naturopathic response of attempting to kill the yeast interferes with that process.
Alternative Therapists' Limited Effectiveness
Aajonus grouped naturopaths with what he called "alternative therapists" generally, and his assessment was that they are "not much help" precisely because they share the medical paradigm's hostility to natural biological processes. A practitioner who attempts to destroy parasites, eliminate Candida, or eradicate bacteria that the body has deliberately recruited is working against the body rather than with it.
The implication is that switching from an allopathic physician to a naturopath does not necessarily move a person toward genuine healing if the naturopath continues to operate within the search-and-destroy model. The frame of the practitioner matters more than the label they carry, and in Aajonus's view, most naturopaths carried the wrong frame.
Physical Therapies In Naturopathic Practice
Aajonus addressed several manual and physical therapies that commonly appear within naturopathic practice, including various forms of massage and acupuncture, and his positions on these were largely negative.
He described most forms of massage as damaging. His reasoning was specific: when tissue is dry, hardened, cracked, and brittle from toxin accumulation and poor nutrition, working it with pressure breaks that tissue, causes bruising, and increases local toxicity. He named reflexology and Swiss massage explicitly as examples of therapies that "cause damage" when applied with any significant pressure to compromised tissue. His alternative was a feather-light touch that barely contacts the surface hairs of the skin, stimulating the nervous system through gentle excitation rather than mechanical manipulation.
On acupuncture he was equally critical, stating that it "causes neurological damage." While he acknowledged that acupuncture is theoretically supposed to stimulate the nervous system, he regarded actual acupuncture practice as failing that goal and causing harm to nerves at the insertion sites. His recommended alternative, the barely-there skin touch, accomplishes what acupuncture attempts without the damage.
These positions are relevant to naturopathy because bodywork, acupuncture, and related physical therapies are standard tools in naturopathic clinical practice. Aajonus's framework did not endorse their use under the Primal Diet, regardless of which professional tradition administers them.
What Aajonus Used Instead
Aajonus's alternative to naturopathic intervention was nutritional, specifically the raw animal food protocols he developed. Where a naturopath might use herbal antimicrobials, supplements, or detoxification protocols aimed at eliminating organisms and toxins through force, Aajonus used raw fats, raw meats, raw dairy, and raw eggs to nourish the body so that it could conduct its own detoxification and regeneration on its own biological schedule.
He was also specific about herbs, which appear in many naturopathic protocols. He stated that herbs are medicinal and should constitute no more than five percent of a juice blend, and no more than two ounces per day, unless someone is suffering from severe illness. This is a sharp departure from the naturopathic tradition of using botanical medicine as a primary therapeutic tool.