In the March issue of the Los Angeles free monthly "Whole Life Times" there
is a 2 1/2 page interview with Aajonus Vonderplanitz, author of "We Want To
Live".  This is quite an event as the magazine over the years has been a
loyal mouthpiece for the local vegan & vegetarian new age communities.
There is not much new in the interview but a few items did catch my eye:

On cancer treatment:  "I tried chemotherapy, which doctors told me would
increase my one-year life expectancy, but discontinued it after several
months when I developed psoriasis and bursitis.  Since then I've learned of
studies by medical researcher Hardin B. Jones, Ph.D., a professor at U.C.
Berkeley, in which people diagnosed with cancer who received no surgery,
radiation or chemotherapy lived an average of 12 1/2 years.  Those who
received those therapies lived an average of three years.  The doctors lied
when they told me they would extend my life."

On digestion:  "Raw and raw-sprouted grains and plants are too complex for
the human digestive tract and are rarely completely digested before
excretion.  Herbivores have many times the digestive enzymes to disassemble
cellulose to utilize the protein and fat from vegetation.  Cooked grains
and cooked plants compound the problem because they take nearly 38 hours in
digestion, depending upon a person's digestive system.  Eating vegetation
causes alkalinity in the human digestive tract, which should be acid.
Between 40% and 80% of the friendly bacteria and flora are paralyzed or
destroyed in an alkaline environment."

On cooking:  "Cooking destroys nutrients, creates toxins that accumulate as
carcinogens, causes the digestive tract to be over-acidic, and damages
health.  Eating raw vegetables is good when on a cooked diet because
vegetables neutralize some of the acidity.  However, if a person eats raw
foods, including red meat, fowl and seafood, her/his digestive tract would
be impaired by the consumption of whole raw vegetables because they would
destroy the bacteria that makes digestion of meat and fat proper.  If you
combine raw meat with raw vegetables, it often impairs digestibility of
both foods, unless someone suffers from over-acidic digestive tract.  I
recommend that people drink their vegetables with the pulp completely
removed.  That way the juice is usually absorbed near the duodenum without
alkalinizing the intestines."

On eating fruit:  "Also, eating more than a little fruit each day
deteriorates the tissues and bones, imbalances the sugar level and causes
poor mental function."

On pesticides:  "At a nutritional panel last November, a study was
presented showing that vegetarians had higher levels of pesticides in their
tissues.  The theory was that people who eat animal products get fewer
pesticides because the body systems of the animals have already either
eliminated the pesticides or stored them in glands and bone."

Aajonus said that he expected his cookbook to be out in December.

Updates:

I have mentioned a couple of times that the mother of a friend of mine was
on Aajonus' diet trying to get well from a serious case of multiple
myeloma.  Initially she did quite well on the diet but then gradually
started going down hill and after having been on the diet for 8 months she
passed away a few weeks ago.

A holistic practitioner who attended Aajonus 5-day training in the Fall to
learn his protocols and methods of diagnostics has been trying to get a
partial refund of the $1500,00 that he paid for his tuition.  He says he
was given no written materials and feels that he did not learn anything he
could take back with him and use in his daily practice with his clients.
He also accused Aajonus of frivolously diagnosing some of his (the
plaintiff's) own clients by looking into their eyes and saying that they
would likely be getting a brain tumor in the next three to six months if
they did not change their diet. (I have come across similar stories so I
know them to be true.)
Aajonus is refusing to give any refund and instead letters have been
circulating with threats of lawsuits from both sides.  Things are cooling
down now and I expect nothing more will come of this story.  Both sides
have made both good and bad points but I do  agree that his training does
not deliver its money's worth.

At a talk that Aajonus gave recently he said that the cancer cures in his
book were reversals, not total remissions and that it often takes 10 years
or more to get rid of all the tumors of a cancer. I find it positive to see
that he publicly is lowering the expectations to his diet which obviously
is not the cure-all that many had hoped it would be. His obvious weaknesses
aside I still think he is doing a terrific job at widening the dietary
playing field with his disrespect for most dietary dogma. If not for him I
might still be lost in my vegan wasteland munching on a cabbage leaf. ;-) I
only wish that he would do a little better catch-up on some of the
credibility issues.  I have yet to meet anybody who has put on weight on
his diet and then after a few years lost it again after the body, as his
theory goes, has finished using the excess fat for cleansing and healing
purposes and who without exercising has ended up looking as fit as he does.
 If there were just a few of such fit & living testimonials around, it
would do more to promote his diet than a thousand well-delivered speeches.

Best, Peter
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