Transcribed by Aajonus.net & Rawmeatgang
Date: 27 October 1997
R = Dr. Robert Atkins, A = Aajonus, G = Guest
Your Health Choices, his syndicated radio show.
[Intro]
R: Greetings, friends. You know, one of the things that we will always do, not always, but very, very often, is if there is a new idea, an idea so revolutionary that we haven′t thought about it, that sometimes we like to think about it right here on this broadcast. That′s what′s going to happen today. We′re going to explore whether it′s not what we eat, but how what we eat is prepared. Maybe that′s the key. I was looking in a book, and I get a lot of books sent to me, and this one was entitled, We Want to Live. And the subtitle is, Out of the Grips of Disease and Death, which is the story. And then there′s going to be a volume two, Healthfully, The Facts. And I was also captured by something else that said on the title, that every millennium has at least one great catalyst that changes people′s lives. This book is one. It reveals that people can live without disease, fear of disease, and the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bankruptcy that results from disease. Well now, we′re going to find out what that means. We are going to find out whether we believe that it′s true enough that we′re going to look into it farther. The author of the book is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, and he′s agreed to be our guest on this program. Aajonus Vonderplanitz, welcome to Your Health Choices.
A: Thank you, Dr. Atkins. It′s an honor.
R: Well, thank you very much. All right, let′s just start with your premise. What are you telling us in this book?
A: Well, I tell the story about how my son, who was in an automobile accident 11 years ago, fractured his skull in three places, and they said that he would never come out of the coma. How I got on a plane and went back to Cincinnati with raw unsalted butter and unheated honey, putting it under his tongue every 20 to 40 minutes, brought him out of the coma and fed him raw meat and raw fish that I had pate′d in a food processor and fed him that, and a raw custard that I made with raw papaya, raw unsalted butter, raw eggs, and unheated honey and fed him that. He was out of intensive care in five days and in rehab seven days after that.
R: But you already knew something about it from your own life experience, even by that time.
A: When I do that process in the story, I flash back on how I got through diabetes, psoriasis, angina pectoris, bursitis and cancer of the blood and bone, multiple myeloma.
R: Now you yourself didn't have the scientific background to figure this out. It was as a citizen who had a problem. Is that right?
A: Correct, yes.
R: Why don't we go back to your own health problem, I guess the first clue that you got that you may have to look at food in a different way.
A: Well, it starts off with me being born a very sickly child. I was borderline autistic so I really didn't communicate with other children until I was in my teens and I was severely dyslexic to the point where if I looked at a page of print I got vertigo. So I couldn't do anything in school nor could I communicate well and I was very sickly. I had a brother who beat me up about every day. I was born when he was still in diapers and he didn't appreciate that. So I was a very abused child and of course that kind of stress usurps your nutrients and if you're not getting the proper foods or enough nutrients then of course you will never heal from the stress. So by the time I was ten years old I had peritonitis which is a perforated intestine and bleeding and most people died from it back in those days, that was in 1957. And I died and came back on the operating table.
R: You mean you had a real death experience.
A: Right. Then by the time I was sixteen I was diabetic and had angina pectoris and by the time I was nineteen I had an ulcer that became tumorous and they performed a vagotomy pyloroplasty on me and the incision became keloided and tumorous so they irradiated that to eliminate that problem but then the radiation therapy which is pretty intense caused multiple myeloma which is cancer of the blood and bone. So I went through chemotherapy, three rounds over a three month period that pretty much destroyed me, made me nimble, I couldn't leave a restroom for five minutes without a diaper and it sucked me bald, well with scraggly hair, and with a death sentence, medical death sentence of about three months.
R: It certainly would seem that way, I must say.
A: And you know, a fellow from a hospice you know those people who love to help you out while you're dying...
Q: And there was no question about that in anybody's mind that that's why you were there. Is that right?
A: Yes.
R: Yeah.
A: So he gave me a book, I guess it was about 82 pages on a woman who had cured herself of cancer by drinking raw fresh carrot juice. And I thought oh how simple. Wouldn't that be, wouldn't that be wonderful and easy? But I began drinking it and as I told you I had severe dyslexia and I was 21 at the time. And as I began drinking the raw carrot juice my dyslexia subsided and when I stopped drinking the carrot juice it would resurge again. So I discovered that the raw carrot juice had some properties. I didn't think it would reverse my cancers and of course it didn't but it certainly helped and I was able to read and I went out and bought about $110 worth of books in 1969. That was a lot of books. And they were all on nutrition so I began studying nutrition. I got a tutor for three and a half years who counseled me, who tutored me in nutrition. And I went from there. I found that raw fats were probably the most important nutrients that would cause all of my diseases to subside.
R: Which raw fats? Obviously you've mentioned raw butter many, many times.
A: Yes.
R: Are there others that you would put in that class?
A: Well, where you can get them, raw cream, raw milk, avocados, raw unsalted cheeses. I found that all of the animal products digested the easiest and they worked best with my patients in reversing diseases.
R: Now you say patients. Now how does it happen that you have patients?
A: Well, I'm a nutritionist.
R: You've gone on to get a degree in nutrition.
A: No, I didn't get a degree because what they teach in school is nothing. They don't have a clue.
R: Okay. But anyway, so you're an acting, practicing nutritionist.
A: Correct. Yes.
R: Okay.
A: I found that those fats work the best, the animal product fats.
R: What do you believe, Aajonus? What do you believe is the reason that the fats, or what are the constituents of the raw fats that you believe give us these healing properties? And do we lose them simply by cooking them or heating them? And if so, how much heat would take away their advantage?
A: Okay, there's a lot of questions there.
R: Yes, indeed.
A: I'll cover the first one.
R: Okay.
A: The properties in fats, well, you have to consider what fats do. Fats lubricate the body. They give you fuel, your greatest amount of energy, and they clean out the body. They are part of the immune system. White cells attach to toxins and remove them from the system, or dissolve them and then remove them from the system, or neutralize them and remove them from the system. So there are quite a different varieties of cholesterols that perform those activities. And if you look in the cultures who were hunters and gatherers who had no degenerative diseases like the Eskimos, until white men brought sugars and breads, in fact they didn't have an incident of cancer until 1934. And they ate 80% of their caloric intake was fat.
R: Yeah, mainly seals, not fish, but actually sea mammals.
A: Yes, and also whales, yeah. And down in Chile there are several tribes down there, you know, people say, well that's because they're in such a cold climate, they need a lot of fat. But however, the tribes in Chile eat the same quantity and that's to ward off the heat. So it works in both circumstances.
R: It seems there are more primitive tribes to study, and as soon as we get a hold of them, we start feeding them candy bars and ruin everything.
A: Yes, and the sugars and the carbohydrates, the cooked carbohydrates, and then we have problems.
R: All right, but there's no question that the Eskimo data is there.
A: Yes.
R: And that is one of the scientific facts that we have to go on. And from that people have come to the conclusion that why don't we just take capsules with a lot of fish oil, a lot of EPA and DHA.
A: Well, then you'd be like Diane Cannon. You'd have to consume bottles of capsules every day. Why not just eat it, you know, as food as it normally comes anyway? And that would be an easier way to do it and probably a much more appetizing way if you know how to prepare your food. And you can prepare anything raw except for breads and cakes, you know, that you can prepare.
R: Which are not exactly something you should be eating anyway.
A: Correct.
R: Yeah. Well, it's very interesting. So...
A: Well, let me finish the other question about the fats that you had. When you heat them, you cauterize the epidermis of the fat cellular structure. It's like clay. Clay, when it's wet, is very malleable. Once you dry it out or fire it, it goes anywhere from brittle to extremely brittle, like glass. And it's impermeable. So the fat molecules, once you heat it above 104 degrees, it interferes with its ion exchange. By the time you hit 112 degrees, it hardly occurs at all. So if your body forms...
Q: [unintelligible] talking about Fahrenheit, just the way it gets in Las Vegas at noon. We're talking about that.
A: Well, yeah, it could do that. But I've found that if it's exposed to such gradual climbs and is exposed to the direct dryness, if you contain the oxygen, it won't happen until you get up to around 122 degrees, and then it will, even if it's contained from oxygen.
R: So we're going to take a break in a couple of minutes. I want about one minute or a minute and a half devoted to what people whom you advise, what you tell them to eat.
A: Okay. Well, let me finish one thing. If you heat a food as well, you have quite a few varieties, like 60 varieties of lipid oxides that are formed, which are all toxic, and acids which are formed that are carcinogenic. So heating your fats is obviously not a beneficial way to handle your foods.
R: Well, some fats can take heating and others cannot. But you say that even when they can, it still takes away its value.
A: Yes, it does. I found that in my work, I've used oils that have been pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit because I found when they're pressed over 96 degrees Fahrenheit that the healing properties are reduced. You may not be able to see it under a microscope, cellular structure change, but there's definitely a change that reduces the healing factor.
R: How did you determine that they didn't work or that they did work?
A: Because I could give a person for, let's say, several weeks a bottle that had been heated to 100 degrees and one that had not for the next two weeks. And I would go back and forth with them.
R: You could clinically tell the difference, in other words, in their well-being.
A: Yes, you could see swelling changes. You could see tissue differentiation. It was very demonstrable.
R: All right, this is the time we'll take a break. When we come back, then we want to talk about what other people's experience has been on the programs that you've devised for them. All right. Right now, we're going to talk about other people. What about you, the other people? How many of you would like to know more? I'd like to ask Mr. Vonderplanitz question about his diet, his recommendations for your diet. Great opportunity. This is something new. How many people like to deal with things that are new that you haven't heard before? We'll find out. Why don't you dial our number, 212-244-1050. Dial that number, 212-244-1050. Now, these messages.
[ad break]
R: All right. My guest is Aajonus Vonderplanitz. I mean, I'm not going to even tell you how to spell the whole thing. But I will. I think I will. The last name, anyway. V-O-N-D-E-R-P-L-A-N-I-T-Z. The book is called We Want to Live. A colleague of mine, by the way, a medical colleague of mine, has been doing your diet. He's very happy about it, so that sort of motivated me to want to know what exactly is the program that you recommend.
A: Well, I recommend eating, like I said, tremendous amounts of raw fats and raw meat, at least an equal portion of raw meat to raw fat. I do recommend eating more fats if somebody is very ill because fats clean out the system. They lubricate the system, they protect the system, and they give you your best energy. It's like the weightlifters, they're all fat. Bodybuilders are very muscular and very defined. They don't have fat, but your weightlifters and wrestlers are all fat because it gives them a tremendous amount of energy. Now I recommend that for supplements, instead of supplements, that people, my clients and everyone, drink raw vegetable juices with carrot juice being no more than 40% of the juice.
R: Now why do you place the limit? Because of the sugar in it?
A: Correct.
R: So you are pretty mindful of the harmful possibilities that come from sugar.
A: Absolutely. It melts tissue. It creates cancerous conditions. All kinds of...
R: Let's just say we have a sedentary business person, 60 years old, 60 year old man, hasn't come down with anything, seems to be in ordinary health, but has a tendency to just about everything. A tendency to high cholesterol and high blood pressure and a tendency to arthritis, but nothing really unusual. And a family history of everything. What sort of... What would you tell him? Run through a typical day, if he were your client, what he would have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
A: Well, what I'd have for breakfast is half of a pink grapefruit or a white grapefruit, but preferably a pink grapefruit. That lowers the blood pressure naturally.
R: Has lycopene in it, too.
A: Correct.
R: Right. Okay.
A: So that handles the blood pressure most of the time. Sometimes it takes more than just half of a grapefruit. Sometimes it takes a whole grapefruit.
R: Well, is that enough to hold a person? I mean, just that one little thing for breakfast?
A: Well, no. I suggest that someone eat some raw fat with it. I suggest that he would eat raw unsalted cheese, avocado, raw cream if it were possible.
R: Right. Now, that should hold until lunch?
A: Well, not necessarily.
R: So what are the daytime snacks? What snacks do you recommend?
A: I recommend anything like if someone got some raw cold-pressed peanut oil. There are several brands, but only one that I know of that you can get in New York, which is Spectrum Natural. And you can mix that with like raw carob powder and then unheated honey. Now, unheated honey is not supposed to be raised over a beehive temperature on a hot day, which is about 100 degrees.
R: Well, now, that's going to have some of the problems with sugar. Do you place a limitation on the honey?
A: Well, I found that it doesn't. I found that in the lab experiences that I had done to investigate that, because of all the healings that were done in Central America and South America, I had to assume that it didn't occur with unheated honey. And it didn't. Only 10% went into blood sugar and an actual glycogen substance. The rest was converted and utilized as protein catalysts. So I was very impressed by it, and it does speed up healing. So I found that even diabetics can use it, because it doesn't require insulin to utilize it. People can eat up to half a cup a day without any sugar problem. So I would have some kind of snack, let's say some raw carrot powder blended with the peanut oil.
R: You didn't mention anything about eggs, which would be a natural breakfast thing.
A: Excellent fat. Now I found in my work that it doesn't really help regeneration of tissue, but it aids greatly in the detoxification of even drugs that somebody might have taken, whether they are medical or recreation. But they help eliminate toxins wonderfully.
R: Okay, we're going to take calls in just a couple of minutes. I've got one more question that needs to be dealt with. And that's with everybody being concerned about the purity of meats or the bacteria that are in the chicken and the meat supply and everything else. And meanwhile, we're now recommending that we don't even bother to cook it and do the one thing for which the cooking of meat and fowl and fish were really probably done. They originally were probably done more for some desire to remove impurities than for the taste reasons. How do we get around that? How does your system avoid that?
A: Well, I think it's called medical and scientific terrorism because the bacteria phobia and the parasitical phobias that exist I haven't found to have any basis.
R: In other words, you don't even have to tell them where the meat or the butter or the eggs come from. You don't have to say it's important that it be organically grown or organically raised.
A: Well, yes, I find that if there are hormones and antibiotics in it, then it can create an anemic animal. Of course, there are side effects from those kinds of hormones that transfer into the body.
R: So you're more concerned with the hormones than the bacteria.
A: Not the bacteria. Bacteria is not a problem. Take, for example, the Eskimos, and I tried some. They take caribou and they beat it into a mince, and then they roll it in either seal or whale blubber, and they bury it about six inches under the ground, and when it smells for half a mile, it's ready. The bacteria in that is enough, according to science and medicine, to kill about five herds of elephants.
R: Wow.
A: I didn't even get diarrhea from it. Well, I had had my vagus nerve severed to my stomach when they performed the vagotomy pyloroplasty on me for the stomach ulcer and tumor. So I'm in the category, according to science and medicine again, of people in their 80s and 90s who have no hydrochloric acid to destroy bacteria and parasites as they enter the body, of death. And I have been eating raw meat and raw fish and raw chicken which is sometimes very ripe and rotten since 1976 and never have had a problem. And I've had over 3,000 clients who have eaten raw meat on a regular basis and some of it very [unintelligible].
R: How many of your clients have a problem with the enjoyment of the food? People who are accustomed to going to a steakhouse and getting their steak that way or getting a rack of lamb at the French restaurant. How many of them have sort of had a problem adapting to the idea that everything is uncooked?
A: Well, it takes about 30 days for your taste buds to change. It's mainly the salt. Restriction from salt will change that. It will boost your taste buds. So the food is all very rich. Now most people spice cooked foods because once you cook it, the flavor is gone. They have to change it because it's very flat. However, in raw foods, if you chew it 100 times, 500 times, it's going to have the same flavor. When you're chewing something cooked after about 5 or 7 chews, the taste is pretty gone.
R: So people can adapt to a whole new taste sensation.
A: Correct.
R: Okay, very interesting. We're ready to take calls when we come back. If you want to be a part of the program and ask Mr. Vonderplanitz one of your questions instead of one of mine, then this is the number, 212-244-1050. Now these messages.
[ad break]
R: My guest is Aajonus Vonderplanitz. He's written an important book, an exciting book. It's called We Want to Live, and it's going to give you information on the subjects that we've been talking about here, along with a story, the story of how it came about and some case histories. Aajonus, how many case histories do you allude to in this book?
A: There are probably only about 15 that I give some kind of a clear picture. The results in the remedy section of the book, which is volume 2, two volumes in one book. What I wanted to say, Dr. Atkins, is that if somebody wants to get it in their local bookstores and have it, they can go ahead and order it through the local bookstore or call 1-888-777-7930 and the publisher can get it to them quickly.
Q: So it's 888 and then four sevens and then 930.
A: Correct.
R: Okay, that's a strong hand.
A: Isn't it wonderful.
R: Okay, let's talk with Ed. Ed, you're on Your Health Choices.
G: Hi, thank you. Am I on?
R: Yeah, you sure are.
G: Okay, thanks.
A: Hi, Ed.
G: Hi, how are you doing?
A: Good, how are you?
G: Good. My father accidentally discovered he had a large tumor on one of his kidneys about two years ago. They took his kidney out at Sloan Kettering and he was followed up by an oncologist here on Long Island. The oncologist noticed he had high blood protein and suspected myeloma, did tests, and he was monitoring this, quote, indolent myeloma for about a year and a half. Recently, my father had some high calcium, so right away this oncologist put him on chemotherapy.
A: Right.
G: And it's not helping his high calcium at all.
A: Of course not.
G: We're worried about him, of course. I wanted to know what you would recommend for my father at this time as far as your theory goes.
A: Well, I've had seven multiple myeloma clients that have been on the diet for over five years, and they're completely in remission.
G: Really?
A: And remain there. Let me give you an example.
G: Excuse me. I'm going to hang up because I've been on the call phone for a while. It's getting red hot. I'm going to listen on the radio, okay?
A: Okay. Thank you, Ed. Okay. There was a woman who called me from the Issels Gershon Clinic who had multiple myeloma. And for those who don't know what multiple myeloma is, it's cancer of the blood and bone, and only 1% of those who have it survive over two years. And they sent her home to die because she wasn't responding and she was getting transfusions twice a week. I put her on a diet of eating raw beef, raw fish and a little raw chicken five times a day, two to three ounces at a time. She would have to have the fish, one ounce of fish or one and a half ounce of fish and one and a half ounce of beef, two times of those five times a day, raw beef two of those five times a day and raw chicken one of those five times a day. And in three months her blood was normal.
R: Was there anything else or was the diet all these meat dishes? Was there any plant product in her diet?
A: Well I have her eating, I have her drinking 32 ounces of juice a day, twenty percent of it being parsley, forty percent of it being celery and forty percent of it being carrots.
R: Now why did you pick on that? See this is, now you got a lot of specifics that are above and beyond just the principle of raw foods. What made you decide what the specifics were?
A: Because the high quantity of chlorophyll in the parsley allows the blood to carry oxygen easier and of course utilize the sun's rays and vitamin D.
R: Now are these things that you learned by trial and error?
A: Yes.
R: In other words you had to sort of feel your way through all this. If that same person had come to you at the beginning it wouldn't have been so specific, is this what you're saying?
A: Well yes. I mean there were so many things I tried over the years. It took me 13 years to figure out all of this.
R: And basically just based on empiricism what worked you kept and what didn't work you modified.
A: Correct.
R: Okay. Very interesting. And now we're going to talk with Dorothy. Dorothy you're on Your Health Choices.
G: Yes. Hi. I was inquiring. [unintelligible] developmental problems and I was wondering if you treated any children and also how you managed to get them to eat this kind of food.
A: It's funny. Children eat it a lot... It's easier to get them to eat it than anyone else.
R: Yeah. I'm beginning to think I'm not a child anymore.
A: The sound was cutting out so I couldn't hear what the child had.
R: Well developmental problems. Speech and language, sense of hearing.
A: Yes, well that's pretty easy if you can't give them raw vegetable juice with lots of carrot in it. Now in children the sugar content is a little bit easier because they burn so much and usually for a child and mental development problems raw fats with the juices are very important. If you are in a place where you can go to an Amish or Mennonite farm and get the raw milk, the raw cream and raw unsalted butter it makes progress very, very rapid.
G: Have you treated any children?
A: Yes.
G: With what kind of results and how so?
A: All completely successful. My results have been 95% and no matter what it is. Alzheimer's in third and fourth stage, I can get the body to be very young and youthful but I can't seem to reverse the damage in the brain and balding is difficult for me.
G: Is there a way I can speak to you on the phone?
A: Yes, if you call 310-226-7055 and leave a message my office will get back to you as soon as I can.
R: Now suppose a person simply wants to be healthier and wants to partake of the program but really doesn't want to not go to restaurants. Would there be any benefit in following your program four or five days a week and having two days where restaurant food was consumed assuming that it was the same type of food with meats and fish and chicken and vegetables that just happened to be cooked?
A: Anything you do is going to be an improvement. Let me give you an example. I always use New York City as my example because it is an old city and there are repairs that need to be done, there is cleaning that needs to be done, there is gutting and there is rebuilding and remodeling that needs to be done. Basically a body is the same way when you fed it cooked foods for a lifetime. If you eat raw foods it is like hiring millions of helpers to do all the work. If you cook it, it's like destroying all of your helpers and you have to do it all on your own. Your body has to convert its hormones and leach its enzymes to supplement what you have destroyed in the cooking process and the toxicity that is formed in the cooking process.
R: Have you found that there are people who are trying to get you to say that? Why don't I follow your diet just four days a week and then eat what I normally eat the other three days?
A: I have people who do that who have no real illness. But those who have illness are committed to getting rid of it.
R: I can understand that. But what about in the group that are just in ordinary health trying to get [unintelligible]?
A: I order steak tartare, carpaccio, and that is raw meat. I order sashimi and ceviche. All those are raw. That is raw meat.
R: I certainly do a lot of those. I can see that. I think it is in a direction that I was moving without having read your book. As far as the cancer patients, I try to get them to do as much of that and make sure that the vegetables are basically uncooked. What about just steaming vegetables? Does that change much?
A: That alters it. It still creates a crystallization of the fats over a period of years. That leads towards Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and other kinds of things.
R: Now then there are certain vegetables such as the lentils and baked beans and something which are really very hard to eat uncooked.
A: They are impossible unless you are a vegetarian animal. Many vegetarian animals won't eat many of them.
R: So you just leave them out.
A: That is correct. It is not for a human really.
R: Oh okay. We talk now with Marcia. Marcia you are on your health choices.
G: I just discovered, just learned that I have a hardening of the carotid artery. I am in my late 70s. Pretty good otherwise.
R: So we are talking about atherosclerosis. So Aajonus, what do you have to say about this most widespread of all degenerative diseases?
A: As I said the reason we have that is because we are eating lots of cooked fats and the molecule cauterizes so it does not exchange ions over a period of 40, 50, 60 years when an artery or any part of the body has been lubricated with one of these types of lipids it dries out and hardens and cracks over the years. So the only way I have found to be able to reverse that condition is eating the exact same thing, lots of it, that has not been cooked, so lots of raw fats. Olive oil is a good remover of that kind of a fat, good stone pressed olive oil. Peanut oil, raw unsalted butter, raw unsalted cheeses, raw eggs are wonderful to do that.
G: Organic I imagine.
A: That is preferable always.
G: Raw eggs, olive oil, peanut oil, but to what degree?
A: Coconut is wonderful for that also.
G: Coconut?
A: Good fresh coconut.
G: Ah, good fresh coconut.
A: And avocado.
G: And avocado, which I do have, yeah. But how much oil does one take in?
A: I would consume as much as you can eat.
G: By the teaspoon, by the glass full?
A: I would say by the, you know, ounces full.
G: Ounces full?
A: Yes, if I have a client like that I have them consume at least a cup of fat a day.
G: A cup of what?
A: A cup of fat. A cup of raw fat a day.
G: How about the Omega-3 oils?
A: They're pretty good. It's a little astringent in some situations because it cleans a little too fast and it can cause nausea and some aches and pains in the joints.
G: And that's it.
A: But the saturated animal fats seem to do it with more comfort.
G: Depending upon the degree of the deterioration, how long should this regimen take to show signs?
A: A lifetime.
G: A lifetime.
A: Oh no, I mean it'll take a lifetime.
R: Before you begin to see this sign.
G: Before I begin to see it now.
A: Usually it's about 10 days.
G: 10 days?
A: 10 to 30 days.
G: Wow.
R: Yeah, wow. Okay, we're going to take some more messages and then more calls at 212-244-1050. Now, these messages.
[ad break]
R: Okay. My guest is Dr. Aajonus Vonderplanitz. He's written the book, We Want to Live. This is a very exciting book. And one of the things, I guess, as you go through the medical literature, nobody's thought of this idea. So none of the research, none of the epidemiology talks about whether people who eat raw foods do better than people who eat cooked foods. I'm almost certain of that, am I right?
A: Yeah, that's true. The people who mainly eat raw foods are vegetarians and fruitarians. And they have a lot of degeneration because of the high carbohydrates.
R: Right.
A: So they aren't necessarily...
R: So they're really not on your diet, which is basically a high-fat...
A: High-fat, high-meat diet, yes.
R: Yeah, so nobody, there is... Basically, no one could do a comparative study except to look at cultures that are so far out of Western civilization that you can think of a hundred reasons why they're different from France or the United States or whatever.
A: Correct.
R: So how are we going to get some proof? You got anything in mind that could be done? Can you get somebody to do a study? How are we going to get the public that demands some sort of proof to believe it?
A: Right now it's being done. There's studies going on. I have researchers doing it right there at NY, New York City Medical University Center there. There's a biochemist which is researching and studying it now. There are quite a few people who are following it and following some of it.
R: So do you think one day there will be something published on it?
A: Correct.
R: I mean in the Scientific Journal?
A: Yes.
R: Oh, that's exciting. You guys who listen have a chance to get involved in it sooner. What about, do you think people should just try the diet for a week or so just to see what happens, just to see how they like it? I'm talking about the healthy group.
A: Even the sick group.
R: The sick group, they have to. The sick group is not negotiable.
A: [laughter]
R: I mean if you're sick and this can help you, how can it be negotiable?
A: I agree. The volume two of the book in the remedy section, there are several thousands of remedies for several hundred diseases. So like the woman who just called with atherosclerosis, there's a section on that in there, I give.
R: Oh yeah, I'm going to sit home with the book tonight and finish it. Let's talk with Charles. Charles, you're on Your Health Choices.
G: Okay, I want to go back to the question. I'm not really quite convinced. I don't feel confident enough to eat raw meat because of my fear of bacteria, salmonella and such. We've heard about this for so long, about how to prepare meat to cook it thoroughly, and now to talk about just eating meat raw.
A: Let me give you an example, Charles.
G: Okay.
A: If you saw a carcass out in the desert being eaten by the vultures and the crows and the worms, do you blame the vultures, the crows and the worms for the carcass that exists?
G: No, no.
A: Well, the bacteria is the same way. It exists in an environment of decaying flesh, decaying tissue.
G: Okay.
A: What causes the decaying tissue? It's cooked foods, it's poisons, it's chemicals of some kind. Now, according to what I understand of the Jack in the Box incidents, where something like 125 people were affected, it wasn't the E. coli. The E. coli is present in the existence of decay. There was some kind of a cleaning solution that obviously existed in the grinder or on the conveyor belt that wasn't rinsed properly, and it poisoned some tissue in these people. And, of course, E. coli becomes present in that condition. But it is not what killed those people or made them ill.
R: What was your reaction to the story on mad cow disease?
A: Well, that's a problem. When you're cooking cow itself, byproducts of cow, and you're cooking them at high temperatures, you've got a lot of lipid oxides and other kinds of toxins that are formed. And, of course, it's poison when you feed the animal that.
R: So you think those people could have eaten that contaminated meat raw, they would have been better off?
A: Yes, I did it. When I was in France, I was eating out of Carrefour there, that's a food market, meat that had been purchased from England that was mad cow. And I ate it raw and had no real reaction.
R: But they wouldn't allow it on the market if they knew it was contaminated. It just was in a group that was suspect, right?
A: Right. Well, I ate it before they found out about it. I've been going to France several times a year for about four years.
R: Well, I'm going to start with steak tartare tonight, I'm telling you right now. I'm going to start with steak tartare. That I'll do with my raw butter. That I'll do right away because I like that stuff.
A: My lab technician who did some research for me, he found that in the raw meat, any animal who has eaten a toxin will store it in, of course, the fat system. And your glands are like 80 to 85 percent fat. So your greatest concentration of toxins are in the glands and in the bone marrow.
R: Now do you think there's any advantage to the person, let's say who does go to a steakhouse and says, well, I'm going to order it medium rare or blood rare rather than medium or well done. Is there any advantage to a person doing that?
A: Yes, it is. But still you're creating a great deal of lipid oxides within a greater percentage of it. So the nutrients that you get in the half that isn't cooked will be utilized in neutralizing the toxins that you've created.
R: Yeah, but I can tell you right now, there'll probably be about 500 of my listeners right now that tonight will go and order their steak about two notches rarer than they would have ordered it otherwise.
A: I'd say that's still better.
R: Okay, so that's really, well, anyway, gang, you know what to do.
A: Do you know what I do?
R: Blood rare.
A: Doctor, I go into a restaurant and I say, give me a cold steak on a cold plate.
R: Oh, the plate shouldn't even be, oh my goodness.
A: Well, they'll usually heat the plate up to about 400 degrees and then they'll serve it, you know, on a wooden platter so it doesn't burn the waiter.
R: I see, okay. All right, let's see how many more calls we can take. We've got the switchboards completely filled. Okay. Talk with Ed, line four. Ed, you're on Your Health Choices.
G: Yes, thanks for taking my call, Dr. Atkins. I have a question for you and your guest. What about the so-called superfoods, things like green stuff, red stuff?
R: What's green stuff and red stuff? You mean like green algae and red what?
G: I don't know what red stuff is. Okay, I'll just say you see different products. They're usually a powdered product in a health food store that is a concentrate from a lot of different uses.
R: In other words, freeze-dried vegetables.
G: Freeze-dried vegetables or fruits, that type of thing that you can then put in.
R: Okay, good question. What about that kind of processing? [unintelligible] processing as freeze-drying?
A: Well, I found that any time you dehydrate something, you're neutralizing a great deal of the co-workers that are involved in utilizing every nutrient within the food.
R: So you lose an awful lot in that translation.
A: You lose a great deal. Now, someone who's on a completely cooked high-fat diet or high-carbohydrate diet may be benefited by that kind of supplement, but it's certainly not the way to go.
R: Time for one quick call. Abner, you're on Your Health Choice.
G: Yes, hello?
R: Yeah.
G: Yes, it's an honor to speak with you, gentlemen. How about eating raw nuts?
R: Okay, good question.
A: Well, I've found that most people don't utilize very much of it. It's mainly used as a starch. The starch level goes very high. The fat level is good, but the protein doesn't seem to be utilizable.
R: You mentioned about peanut butter, right? You mentioned about some nut butters that you would do?
A: Well, nut oil. Peanut oil. Yeah, pressed below 96 degrees.
R: So you think the nut carries some undigestible starch along with it?
A: Yes, it does.
R: Okay.
A: They're rather difficult to digest. If a person's been on a raw diet for a couple of years, then they could utilize more of it, of course.
R: Okay, so there's an answer there. It's the same principle. Well, I think it's fascinating. The book is We Want to Live by Aajonus Vonderplanitz. And where can they get the book? Let's say they go to the bookstore, and the bookstore says, Well, yeah, we heard about it, but we don't have it.
A: Well, they can order it through the bookstore and wait a couple of weeks.
R: Or...
A: They can go to any bookstore and order it.
R: That we know. And what about getting it quicker?
A: They can call 1-888-777-7930.
R: Okay. Thanks for being a part of our program. We're going to have you back as soon as people start calling me, telling me they've been on your program, and I'm going to get some feedback on that. Okay.
A: Okay. Thank you very much.
R: Your Health Choices is brought to you by the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine right here in Manhattan. Our phone number is 888-ATKINS-8. The producer is Jackie Rudin, and I'm Dr. Robert Atkins. This is Your Health Choices.