Buttermilk, in the context of Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework, is not the commercially produced, pasteurized, cultured product found in grocery stores. Rather, it is the liquid byproduct that remains after cream has been churned into butter, the whey-like fluid left behind when the oil-soluble fat components of cream are extracted and consolidated into butter. This distinction is foundational to understanding why Aajonus considered it healthy.

Buttermilk arises naturally from the butter-making process. When cream is churned, the fat globules coalesce and separate from the surrounding liquid. What remains behind, the liquid portion, is what Aajonus called buttermilk in its traditional, natural sense. This liquid is distinct from the fermented, pasteurized product sold commercially as "buttermilk" today, which bears little resemblance to the genuine article in terms of nutritional value or therapeutic effect.

Aajonus referenced buttermilk primarily in the context of explaining the biochemistry of dairy fat and water-soluble versus oil-soluble components, and in the context of his own family's history with it, specifically his father, who thrived on buttermilk throughout his life.

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The core understanding Aajonus expressed about buttermilk relates directly to its chemical composition and why it possesses unique health properties. To understand buttermilk, one must first understand the structure of milk and cream.

Aajonus explained that milk is approximately 82% water. Despite this high water content, cream disperses throughout the milk, a remarkable fact, because cream is a fat and would ordinarily not mix with water. It does so because in its natural state within milk, the cream exists in a water-soluble form. This is a critical distinction that Aajonus returned to repeatedly when discussing the properties of various dairy fats.

When cream is churned into butter, a transformation takes place at the biochemical level. The fat undergoes a process that extracts the oil-soluble components, the fats that are in an oil-soluble state, and consolidates them into the solid butter. However, during this extraction process, everything that is water-soluble is lost. Those water-soluble fat components do not end up in the butter. Instead, they are shed into the remaining liquid, and that liquid is the buttermilk.

This is why Aajonus declared buttermilk to be so healthy. The water-soluble fats and fat-associated nutrients that remain in the buttermilk are in a form that the body can transport and utilize without the same digestive burden required for oil-soluble fats. In his framework, water-soluble fat is among the most important and most underappreciated categories of nutrient on the planet. He noted explicitly that "nobody talks about water-soluble fat," yet it is "the most important and most prolific fat on this planet."

He pointed out that milk is "riddled with" water-soluble fat, and that the coconut is also riddled with it. The proportion of the cream's fat content that can be made into butter, the oil-soluble portion, is only approximately one-third. This means that two-thirds of the fat in cream remains in water-soluble form and would be present in the buttermilk. In the case of Holstein cows (which Aajonus considered inferior dairy animals), the proportion might be even lower, as little as one-fifth to one-sixth of the cream's fat converting to butter, leaving an even higher proportion in the water-soluble buttermilk fraction.

When butter is made from dairy, Aajonus stated, the resulting butter is "completely utilizable", but the buttermilk retains those components that are already in a form the body can use without extensive bile production, without emulsification processes, without the full digestive burden associated with oil-soluble fats like butter or especially cream.

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Aajonus's references to buttermilk are specifically to the natural byproduct of raw butter-making, the liquid left after churning raw cream. This is not pasteurized, not cultured, not commercially processed buttermilk.

The entire framework he built around buttermilk's health properties rests on the premise that the water-soluble nutrients in the buttermilk have not been destroyed by heat. Pasteurization, in his view, damages and denatures nutrients across all dairy products, and buttermilk would be no exception. A heated or pasteurized buttermilk would not retain the properties he described, because the heat would alter the water-soluble fat fractions and the associated enzymatic and nutrient complexes.

He noted that butter itself, when historically produced before widespread refrigeration (before approximately the 1940s), was always sour, because there was no refrigeration to keep it fresh, and the natural bacterial activity caused it to ferment. He stated: "So sour butter is good butter because..." (the passage was cut off at this point, but the direction of his argument was that fermentation and souring were natural and not harmful). This historical context implies that the buttermilk from which such butter was made would also have been naturally fermented to some degree, again, a natural and acceptable state in his framework.

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Aajonus did not provide extensive specific sourcing guidance for buttermilk itself as a standalone product in the passages provided, because his primary discussion of it was in the context of explaining the biochemistry of dairy fat separation. However, the implicit guidance is clear: buttermilk must be the raw, natural byproduct of churning raw cream into raw butter. It would necessarily come from the same sources he recommended for all raw dairy, farms and dairies producing genuine raw, unpasteurized dairy products.

He was highly critical of commercial dairy operators who freeze their butter and misrepresent the nutritional equivalence of frozen versus fresh products. He mentioned Mark McAfee by name, noting that McAfee freezes everything, including butter, to the point of solidity, sometimes chilling milk to 32 degrees or below (evidenced by ice crystals forming in the milk). Since buttermilk is a byproduct of butter-making, and since Aajonus demonstrated that freezing butter damages it significantly (as evidenced by his animal experiments showing three to five times slower healing in skin disorders for animals given frozen versus non-frozen butter), the same principle would logically apply to any buttermilk derived from frozen or compromised dairy operations.

Regarding storage of butter (and by extension, the dairy system from which buttermilk comes): Aajonus recommended keeping raw butter at room temperature for up to two weeks, as long as room temperature did not exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. He noted that even at 90 degrees, raw butter remains flavorful for two days or more unrefrigerated, though it should not be exposed to direct sunlight, as an hour or more of sunlight exposure causes it to sour. He preferred to refrigerate his raw butter until the day before use, then leave it at room temperature.

He also noted that butter stored in the refrigerator tends to develop mold and turn into something resembling blue cheese, which he personally enjoyed but acknowledged as a distinct transformation from fresh butter.

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The passages provided do not contain specific mandatory pairing protocols for buttermilk itself as a consumed beverage or food. The discussion of buttermilk in the sources is primarily biochemical and explanatory (why it is healthy due to water-soluble fat content) rather than protocological (specific instructions for consuming it). His father's example of thriving on buttermilk is presented as anecdotal evidence of its general health-promoting properties without a specific pairing protocol attached.

However, given Aajonus's general framework for all dairy consumption, which consistently pairs dairy with appropriate proteins or other fats to modulate digestion, it can be understood that buttermilk, as a dairy product, would likely follow similar pairing logic. His broader teaching was that mixing butter and cream without protein can cause the body to become confused, because it takes protein to break down these fats by themselves. Since buttermilk contains primarily water-soluble fats and associated nutrients rather than the heavy oil-soluble fats of butter, this concern would be modulated.

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No topical applications for buttermilk specifically are documented in the provided passages.

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No specific quantity or frequency guidance for buttermilk consumption is provided in the passages. His father's example suggests that buttermilk can safely be the primary or exclusive milk source for an individual long-term, his father consumed it to the exclusion of other milks for decades and lived to 93.

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No specific culinary recipes utilizing buttermilk as an ingredient are documented in the provided passages. Aajonus's recipe references are to butter, cream, and whole milk rather than buttermilk specifically.

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The most extensively documented aspect of buttermilk in Aajonus's teachings is its relationship to butter, specifically, that buttermilk is what remains when butter has been made, and that its healthfulness stems directly from what butter-making removes.

Aajonus explained this relationship in precise biochemical terms within his framework:

The Separation Process: Cream, in its natural state within milk, is water-soluble, it disperses through the 82% water content of milk without separating. When you churn cream into butter, you are extracting the oil-soluble fat components. The churning process changes the structural relationship of the fat, butter is no longer water-soluble, whereas the cream it was made from was water-soluble (or at least dispersed in a water-soluble matrix). Everything that was water-soluble in the original cream is left behind in the buttermilk.

The Proportion: Only about one-third of cream's fat content becomes butter (the oil-soluble fraction). The remaining two-thirds, the water-soluble fat fraction, stays in the buttermilk. For Holstein cows, the conversion is even lower: as little as one-fifth to one-sixth of the cream becomes butter, leaving an even greater proportion of water-soluble nutrients in the buttermilk.

Why Butter Has Different Properties: Once fat has been consolidated into butter, it is no longer water-soluble. The body must then process it through an extensive bile-production system to digest and assimilate it. Butter requires approximately one-third of the cholesterol varieties (and one-third of the bile types) that cream requires, which is why butter is easier to digest than cream. But it still requires significant digestive effort compared to the water-soluble fats that remain in buttermilk.

The Water-Soluble Fat Category: Aajonus described water-soluble fat as critically underappreciated. He stated: "Nobody talks about water-soluble fat. But it is the most important and most prolific fat on this planet. And the coconut is riddled with it. Milk is riddled with it." Buttermilk, being the repository of the water-soluble fat fraction left after butter-making, is therefore an exceptionally rich source of this underrecognized category of nutrient.

Colostrum as a Related Reference Point: Aajonus provided additional context through his discussion of colostrum, the milk a female mammal produces for the first three to five days after offspring are born. He noted that colostrum is much yellower than regular milk, and that this yellower fat is "butter fat rather than cream fat." He explained that all human babies require five days to develop the ability to digest cream, to begin manufacturing the kind of bile required to break down cream fat. In the meantime, the colostrum's butter fat is more readily digestible for the newborn. This parallel reinforces his framework that butter fat (oil-soluble) and cream fat (requiring all 60 varieties of bile) represent distinct categories with distinct digestive demands, and that the water-soluble fraction (buttermilk) occupies yet another category entirely.

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Aajonus referenced buttermilk historically in the context of the broader raw dairy movement and the political struggles around raw dairy access. He described a period during which he and others were "unable to get cream and butter because of that law" for three weeks, and he attended a board hearing where anti-raw-milk food specialists were called in. At that hearing, all of the called specialists admitted that checking coliform counts does not make milk any safer, that checking for actual pathogens (such as E. coli 157, Listeria) is what matters. He noted that Sally Fallon gave testimony at the same panel, and that this was "the first time I've been saying this for years" regarding certain admissions.

His father's lifelong preference for buttermilk, predating the modern raw food movement and existing simply as a traditional food choice, represents the historical context in which buttermilk was a common, uncontroversial dietary staple. The current commercial "buttermilk" sold in stores is a vastly different product: pasteurized, artificially cultured to produce the sour flavor that once came naturally from traditional butter-making, stripped of the living enzymatic and water-soluble fat content that Aajonus identified as the source of its health properties.

The broader political context of butter is also relevant: Aajonus documented the dispute with Mark McAfee and Sally Fallon over freezing butter, which he argued was damaging to butter's healing properties. He conducted experiments with sick animals, seven animals with skin disorders, with the worst cases assigned to non-frozen butter and the less-damaged cases to frozen butter. The non-frozen group healed three to five times faster. He documented presenting this evidence in laboratory analyses alongside another scientist, and stated that this evidence was pulled from a report he co-wrote that was used to change California raw dairy law. The freezing controversy is directly relevant to buttermilk because any commercial or even small-farm production of butter using frozen processes would yield a buttermilk from a compromised source.

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