Oxygen

Red blood cells transport oxygen from the lungs to every other cell in the body. That oxygen is then used at the cellular level to oxidize fats and acetates, producing energy. White blood cells perform the complementary function: they collect and remove carbon dioxide, the gaseous byproduct of fat metabolism, excreting it through the lungs and through the skin. White blood cells are, by Aajonus's description, 60 to 80 percent fat, which is why they appear white. Beyond handling carbon dioxide, white blood cells also eat dead red blood cells and dead white blood cells, functioning as internal scavengers to keep the blood clean. The formal term for this is phagocytes, from the Greek meaning "to eat." When white blood cells consume these dead cells, their waste products exit the body through the kidneys, or are additionally processed by bacteria in the blood.

In Aajonus's account, if the blood were doing only this one job, delivering oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, every person would have enormous energy and stamina. He said directly: "If that's all the blood had to do, you'd have so much energy, you wouldn't know what to do with it." The problem is that in a toxic body consuming cooked and processed food, the blood is recruited to do jobs that properly belong to the lymphatic system, namely distributing nutrients to cells. That additional burden depletes the blood's capacity to focus on energy production.

Aajonus was consistent and emphatic that fat is the body's superior fuel and that oxygen is the mechanism by which fat becomes energy. The body can convert carbohydrates and proteins into acetates and acetones, which are fat-like bodies, but fats made from carbohydrates or proteins yield very little energy and no endurance. When the body uses a pure fat directly, such as fat derived from animal sources, it produces two and a half times more energy than fat synthesized from carbohydrates or proteins.

He used the example of weightlifters to illustrate this. A weightlifter who carries significant body fat will press far more weight than one who does not. He described one weightlifter who pressed over 480 pounds when carrying substantial fat and dropped to around 270 to 280 pounds of capacity when leaner, losing nearly 200 pounds of lifting strength simply from losing fat stores. Fat is not just stored excess; it is the primary substrate for the oxygen-based energy system.

The process itself involves no heat in any meaningful sense. The carbon compounds produced by normal fat metabolism look nothing like the carbon compounds produced by cooking. The byproducts of normal oxidation in the body resemble the carbons produced by breathing, not carbon monoxide, only carbon dioxide, and nothing like the heterocyclic amines, lipid peroxides, and other toxic compounds produced by cooking at high temperatures.

When the bloodstream is burdened with transporting nutrients and neutralizing toxins, the red blood cells lose their capacity to be exclusively focused on oxygen transport. More carbon dioxide stays in the body because white blood cells are similarly distracted. Lactic acid builds up in the muscles, then crystallizes with calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. Collections of clots, caking, and plaque accumulate in the muscles and skin as a direct result. This is one mechanism by which physical degeneration proceeds.

Aajonus connected low oxygenation with anemia and more severely with leukemia, noting that when the blood is required to transport nutrients in addition to oxygen, damage to red blood cells follows. He described anemia as a state where the body cannot adequately oxygenate tissues, resulting in extreme fatigue and loss of physical capacity. A person with anemia, he said, cannot climb a tree or run ten feet.

He referenced a specific case involving a man whose red blood cells were eating other red blood cells, a condition he described as far too toxic for even a person on the Primal Diet at one hundred percent compliance. The resolution in that case was a milkshake of one egg, two ounces of milk, and one ounce of cream, which restored the person enough to wake up ready to function. This illustrates his view that oxygen delivery depends on the integrity and sufficiency of the red blood cells, which in turn depends on adequate fat intake to sustain white blood cells and the overall blood ecology.

One of the more specific protocols Aajonus discussed in relation to oxygen involves naturally carbonated water. He recommended drinking naturally carbonated spring waters, specifically naming Perrier, Gerolsteiner, Ramlusa, and San Pellegrino as examples. His reasoning involves a chain of conversions: the carbon dioxide dissolved naturally in these waters, produced by geological processes in the earth, enters the intestines upon drinking, where it converts to nitrogen. That nitrogen, when it enters the blood, converts to oxygen. By the time the carbonation reaches the blood, it has become oxygen.

He made an explicit distinction between this natural carbonation and artificially carbonated beverages or medical-grade oxygen. Natural carbonation he described as compatible with the body and beneficial. Artificial carbonation, he said, gives him a headache immediately and shuts down his thinking: "My brain shuts down, if I get that synthesized oxygen. All of a sudden I get cloudy; I can't think straight." He extended the same objection to medical-grade oxygen, calling it a synthesized oxygen that does not have the proper molecular bonds. Even though on paper the molecule may be chemically identical to oxygen from a plant, it does not react the same way in the body.

The natural carbonation from wells that produce these waters also generates what he described as a natural hydrogen peroxide in the body, which helps cleanse the body, as long as the carbon source is natural rather than industrial.

He applied this principle clinically. In an account from his book involving a person named Jeff who needed as much oxygen to the brain as possible, he gave Perrier water, explaining that natural carbonation increases nitrogen in the digestive tract and oxygen in the blood, and that the high natural mineral content would bind toxic substances, neutralize them, and reduce fluid on the brain.

He connected naturally carbonated water and red meat together as a paired protocol for raising blood oxygen. When asked whether medical-grade oxygen would help someone with low blood oxygen, he rejected it in favor of red meat and naturally carbonated water as the appropriate tools for raising oxygen in the blood naturally.

Aajonus pointed out that standard blender bowls pull air down into the food while blending, and that this oxygen contact destroys up to 20 to 30 percent of nutrients in whatever is being blended. His solution was to use Mason or pint jars inverted onto the blender blade assembly rather than the bowl, so that the blending occurs in a hermetically sealed environment with no air entering. This preserves what he described as 20 to 30 percent more nutrients because the food is isolated from oxygen during the mechanical process. He applied this technique to all blending, including preparation of beverages, and noted it also preserves electrolytes that would otherwise be lost.

The distinction here is important: oxygen in the blood is beneficial and necessary for energy production, but oxygen in contact with raw foods during preparation degrades the nutrients before they are consumed. This is consistent with his observation about laboratory experiments on digestion where meat in a liquid form was hermetically sealed with no oxygen present to allow observation of enzymatic breakdown without interference.

Aajonus recommended placing plants that produce large amounts of oxygen in sleeping areas, specifically naming the dracaena (which he described phonetically as a corn dracaena, resembling a corn plant) as superior to ionizing machines. His reasoning was that plants are biological systems that naturally balance their outputs, producing carbon dioxide and oxygen in cycles that complement human respiration. Humans exhale carbon dioxide, which plants use as food; plants exhale oxygen, which humans use as food. He described this as a natural reciprocal relationship where one organism's toxin is the other's food.

He contrasted this with ionizer machines, which he viewed as mechanical approximations that require constant calibration and testing to achieve a balance that plants achieve automatically. His research with ion machines in a laboratory setting, where he let diesel exhaust run through ion machines and observed the results, led him away from mechanical ionization and toward biological solutions for air quality.

He encouraged people to search online for oxygen-producing plants to find which varieties produce the highest concentrations, noting there are several besides dracaenas that serve this function. The underlying principle is that sleeping in a room with adequate natural oxygen supports the body's ability to oxygenate the blood and detoxify the nervous system during the long period of sleep, when the brain and nervous system do their primary cleansing work.

Aajonus conducted an experiment in a hermetically sealed, sterile room costing $36,000 to construct, designed to test whether parasites arise spontaneously from fresh meat or require airborne introduction. The room provided oxygen through a separate chamber containing corn dracaenas, which generated natural oxygen. This oxygen passed through three HEPA filters before entering the sealed glass chamber where freshly butchered sheep meat was kept. The HEPA filtration ensured that no bacteria or parasites could travel through the oxygen supply into the chamber.

The meat was kept at the sheep's natural body temperature, approximately 101.6 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the natural oxygen supply being filtered of all airborne organisms, the meat developed parasites and bacteria within three to four days. He interpreted this as evidence that the seeds for parasites exist within every animal cell and emerge in response to the conditions created when the animal dies, not through external contamination via the air.

The specific design choice to use corn dracaenas as the oxygen source rather than a mechanical oxygen supply was deliberate. Aajonus wanted everything in the experiment to mirror nature as closely as possible, which meant using biological oxygen from plants rather than synthesized or compressed oxygen.

Aajonus noted that breathing supplies oxygen to every cell in the body and that oxygen is as important as nutrition. He described learning to breathe properly from the diaphragm, slowly and fully, as something that increases mental clarity, physical energy, and emotional balance. He referenced Hatha yoga breathing exercises as useful for this purpose.

He also addressed the byproducts of breathing, noting that carbon dioxide is a normal byproduct of cellular respiration and metabolism, and that carbon monoxide is associated with cooking, not with healthy bodily function. The body's metabolic carbon compounds, produced by oxidizing fats for energy, resemble the carbons produced by breathing, not the toxic carbons from fire or cooking. This distinction was important to him because the medical and food industries use the word "burning" to describe metabolism, implying that cooking is analogous to what the body does internally, which he rejected entirely.