One solution that Lex offers is to eat raw, zero-carb but when forced to eat SAD foods in a social setting, one should eat cooked meat(yes, even grainfed) but nothing else. If eating cooked,grainfed meat, he advises people to supplement with raw cod-liver-oil, beforehand, to make up for the lack of omega-3s. Mind you, even Lex admits that, every now and again, he's forced to eat some raw carbs.

To my mind, it's easier going raw, low-carb as I can always eat raw fruit/raw veg if put in a position where I'm expected to eat what others are eating. I'll even, on rare occasions, eat cooked-food in social settings, usually only lean meats as fats are worst affected by cooking. Fortunately, there are now sashimi restaurants over here by the multitude, so eating out isn't always a downer.

Well, Aajonus could easily make far more money if he, like other gurus, recommended cooked-foods  or sold supplements, so I think he can claim some integrity for that. Yes, he has a niche audience but it's pretty small by comparison to Atkins or Sally Fallon, too small to make the kind of money Sally Fallon earns.

As regards his claims, the fact that there are any adherents at all of his raw diet, given all the social phobias about raw meats,  at all should indicate that it's pretty successful. I live in the UK so don't have the opportunity to meet many RAFers(just 2 or 3), but I've  come across enough personal posts by Primal-Dieters/RAFers who state that they got rid of the symptoms of Grave's disease/cancer or recovered their fertility etc. etc., to realise that there's something to it. Also, the primary reason why people are so keen on this diet is simply because they've usually tried and failed previously with every other possible method, whether conventional or alternative, only to finally find that the RAF diet worked.

I agree that there are also plenty of people who've  had problems with the Primal Diet(re dairy or veggie-juice etc.), and plenty of Primal Dieters believe that their food-intolerances etc. are merely "detox" and suffer for it, but most RAFers find that modifying AV's diet(re adding raw organ-meats/removing dairy etc.) does the trick.  I don't claim that even this diet is 100% effective, though - after all, some people may seriously damage their organs beyond repair via junk-food diets or accidents, in which case conventional treatments such as organ-transplant are a better solution.

Re AV/heavy-metals-detox:- I'm personally heavily sceptical of AV's take on heavy metals. When I listened to his tapes, in his consultations he would, most of the time, cite heavy-metals as being the supposed "cause" of the consultees' health-problems - this seems highly unlikely, and much of the heavy-metals-issue has been disproven such as the mercury-in-fish hype.On the other hand, I do believe in detox in general given my own personal experience and that of many others. It's just that one has to use one's personal intuition/experience to tell the difference between a genuine detox and something worse.

As regards detox,all animals would have to have some form of detoxing mechanism as, otherwise, they would be gradually affected by the accumulation of minimal toxins in the body taken up by consuming the occasional mildly toxic plant or animal.

Re gurus:- There is no real Rawpaleodiet guru. RPDers in general
 borrow from Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Weston-Price, Mercola,Vinny Pinto, as well as from cooked-diet gurus like Ray Peat, Loren Cordain Ray Audette, Sally Fallon etc. and then they correlate the opinions of those gurus with their own experiences re diet and discard those gurus' opinions which don't work.   Each of the gurus may only have a tiny fraction of useful info on diet, and some may  be correct but not relevant to a particular individual or group, but, taken together, one can make a balanced viewpoint of it all.

Re mainstream views:- I do agree that we need to fit in with mainstream views, which is what the childboards of the General Discussions forum  are all about. That won't convince most die-hard SAD-eaters, though. I know, for a fact, that if I'd been moderately healthy for my age, that no amount of hard scientific data proving the raw diet would ever have convinced me to switch to raw animal foods - it was only serious ill-health and the lack of effectiveness of other diets that forced me to do so, after which I found the RAF diet surprisingly useful. Judging from the fact that more and more people I know are suffering from various health-issues and the fact that there's been an ever-increasing trend in the last century towards increasing the processing of foods, unprocessed diets like ours will become increasingly attractive, by default.

Lastly, I do agree that Aajonus can be a deterrent. At one point, I almost left the diet because of Aajonus' insistent claims that it was impossible to be truly allergic to raw dairy and that all one had to do was drink it at room-temperature  or whatever. If I'd quit then, I'd be dead by now, so it's just as well that I decided to read all the raw diet
group-archives and follow the advice given by individual Primal Dieters, instead, and recover accordingly. At the same time, if I'd never heard of Aajonus, I would never have come across this diet, so I'm grateful to him for that, at least.

First of all, any criticism of RAF should really go in the Hot Topics forum, where it belongs. I'll do that now, and then address your other points.


OK, first of all, most of us do NOT view everything Aajonus says as gospel, with several past posts on this forum criticising him and the Primal Diet. Many of us have had problems with some of his recommendations(such as problems with raw dairy and raw veggie-juice, in my own case). However, when some of what Aajonus says is corroborated by what many other RAFers are experiencing, then we are willing to give him the credit.

Re foxes:- It was coyotes, not foxes. Yes, I know it's a dodgy story, to put it mildly, but the fact is that most people aren't attracted to diet for logical reasons but either for emotional reasons(like with most things) or because they've tried every other diet to cure some extremely serious health-problem without success and the raw palaeolithic diet is the only one left - so, for example, Raw Vegans are often attracted to their diet because of concern for animals/the environment etc., low-carbers are attracted to their diets because of the nice feeling they get when they're slim etc. etc. So, appealing to logic only works for the minority of the population who are of a primarily rational, analytical type. Others tend to like a good story. And, besides, Aajonus lives in wacky California, so is merely adapting to the local environment, so to speak. I was a bit wary of him, at first, when I'd heard that he had something like 6 different past aliases, but it turns out that this is quite normal for those living in Los Angeles, as they often have different names for the different types of jobs they do, without anything unethical being involved - it's just a cultural thing.

As regards the notion that there's very little scientific data to support Raw Foodism, that's just not the case. Have a look at the child boards of the General Discussions forum(as few seem to do!) and you'll find numerous references to scientific studies proving the benefits of Raw-Food diets, and those are just a fraction of the total number of studies focusing on the toxins in cooked-foods. IMO, cooking has been around for a couple of hundred thousand years, so it's going to be kind of difficult to convince people to turn to raw animal food diets, given the social phobias involved re bacteria/parasites. The thing that ultimately convinces people to turn to RAF diets is when they see just how unhealthy people on SAD-diets are.

Lastly, one shouldn't be too concerned re the social aspect. For one thing, if you're confident about something and treat it as perfectly normal, people are more willing to accept it, whereas if you're nervous and hide the diet, they will sense that nervousness and not feel so comfortable about it.

Re Detox:- I agree that not every negative symptom can be "detox" but, quite frankly, all gurus use this sort of  detox-claim, not just Aajonus. My own definition of a detox is something that is usually mild(not always), and is generally short-term in effect most of the time, never lasting more than 2-3 weeks, with one feeling better after the detox than before, and if the detoxes become less frequent, less severe and shorter in duration than previous times until they stop once you're generally healthy. If a "detox" goes on forever and gets steadily worse, then it's not a genuine detox. That said, one can still get minor detoxes, later on after health is recovered, if one eats any  cooked-foods as the body then gets rid of the toxins from that food in unpleasant ways(diarrhea etc.)

Re Food-Posioning:- A lot of scares have been created around raw foods, but, quite frankly, the worst cases of food-poisoning come from the consumption of cooked-animal foods which have been stored for long periods of time(eg:- canned foods). The trouble with cooking is that it kills off the good bacteria within the meats, thus creating a vacancy for bad bacteria to get in - at least that's the theory. At any rate, Aajonus does have a point when he criticises the statistics and data used to justify government crackdowns re food-poisoning. More important than the above, though, is the fact that we RAFers have been eating raw animal foods for years, without incurring the kind of  problems with bacteria/parasites that promoters of  balanced diets/SAD diets try to claim. I mean, we are constantly bombarded with articles in the media claiming that eating a raw-meat-diet will lead to death over a period of a few weeks etc.,  or told that humans cannot survive for long on a diet of raw foods, even if they include raw animal foods(a ludicrous, but frequent claim!), so, by comparison to such exaggerated claims by the mainstream, we're actually not as extreme or as fanatical.

Geoff, how much of fermented CLO do you use? 1 ml daily as suggested or more?

I'm not concerned with amounts as I don't view the cod-liver-oil as essential. Some days I go without, sometimes I'll take as much as 5ml a day, but usually it's just over 1ml a day.

Caveat:- The increased benefits may well be due to another factor, entirely:- I've been a bit more careful to resume daily exercise. I'm currently following  a bodyweight training manual by a Ross Enamait(who gives the wrong advice re nutrition, but who has some fascinating stuff to say about how much more useful it is to train without weights). In the past, early on in this diet, I would go to the gym and quickly build up muscle, especially in the calves(faster than pre-raw diet), but I would always feel so tired and achy in my muscles between gym visits and would find it difficult to make time for the gym(it's halfway across town), whereas with this form of bodyweight exercise, the benefits all seem to be positive, and I can do them all at home.

Geoff, do you use this CLO: http://www.greenpasture.org/products/fermented-oil/1087

What have you noticed?

Yes blue ice fermented is the one I'm using - it's now very popular in the UK. I was surprised to get a benefit as previous cod-liver-oils I tried pre-raw diet were absolutely useless, but this is the genuine raw product. I'd thought that this effect was due to winter and therefore lower vitamin  D-production, but I eat c.20 oysters(many of which are double-oyster-shells, so more like 30 oysters) a fortnight, so I should already be getting enough vitamin D. Perhaps it's the pufas from the cod-liver-oil that's working on me, I have no idea. The effect is hard to describe, sort of a definite increase in focus/concentration, but not like high-meat, somehow different.

I'm looking to add in more RPDers' testimonials for our info-site rawpaleodiet.com. If anyone's interested, please write your testimonial down below, so that we can use it for the aforementioned website. Cheers:-

I feel amazing, today(and have been since yesterday). I haven't been touching high-meat or any boosting raw food like oysters, just my usual raw beef tongue. I feel absolutely great, on top of the world.

you have to use the full link http: etc. for youtube videos.

Re cod-liver:- blue ice cod liver oil(the fermented raw version) is the best one available. It's searchable online(under green pastures website?)

Well, I must admit you've got some courage, Edwin. A lot of married RPDers tend to feel they have to kowtow and can only eat cooked-meats, not raw meats, when they're at the table with their other half.

Well, my family accept my diet, but just view it as one in a long line of past eccentric behaviour - they've had to admit that it hasn't killed me after 7 years, so they're not too bothered. I don't mention it to most people, unless they ask. Even if they do ask, I usually just state that I'm following a Palaeolithic Diet, without stressing the raw, though I've told some acquaintances that I eat raw animal foods.

The only criticism I get, really, is from an NHS  doctor acquaintance of mine, who keeps on trying to convert me to the cooked balanced/diet philosophy. He always has this stupid smirk on his face, as though he's supposedly all-knowledgeable on health and showing great forbearance about my supposed ignorance re diet, and makes pointed claims about  the RAF movement supposedly being a cult etc. The irony of it is that he's in very bad shape needing all sorts of supplements to make up for the nutritional deficiencies of his so-called balanced diet and and has to take pain-killers twice  a day in order to be able to walk properly because his joints are almost completely destroyed.

But it's only vitamin D3 that gets stimulated by the sun, right? The other 3 or more types of vitamin D, I'm not sure about- are they used by the human body?

Asking butchers for adrenals wouldn't work, better to go straight to the source and ask the farmers(though most of the latter won't have a clue what the adrenals are, either).

Dr Ron's website is the easiest to access, I suppose(Slanker's and northstar bison(I think) provide raw adrenals, not sure). Since dr ron's product is so expensive, just 1 capsule a day is fine - do what I do which is to open the pill and swallow the contents as the gelatin of the capsule inhibits absorption of nutrients.

Re high-meat:- Everyone needs a different dose. For example, in my own case, I need 2 large chunks of high-meat a day(each chunk just able to fit into my mouth, without needing to chew), during those periods I use it, in order to get the full effect - yet, if I eat a whole plateful of high-meat, I don't get more benefit than what I get with just those 2 chunks. Others seem to be fine with just marble-sized amounts.