Canned and bottled foods occupy a central position in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework, not as foods at all, but as vectors of industrial poisoning disguised as convenient nourishment. In his teaching, canned and bottled foods represent one of the most consequential health catastrophes ever inflicted on the human population, introduced deliberately through wartime propaganda and maintained through institutional corruption, corporate greed, and the systematic suppression of nutritional truth.

Aajonus taught unequivocally: canned food is cooked food. That single statement carries enormous implications within his framework, because all cooked food is, by definition, nutrient-deficient and difficult to digest and utilize. But canned food goes far beyond ordinary cooking, it layers metal contamination, chemical preservatives, rotten base ingredients, industrial processing, and plastic toxicity onto an already destroyed nutritional matrix. The result is not food at all, in his understanding, but a multi-layered chemical insult to the body.

Within the Primal Diet framework, canned and bottled foods have no place whatsoever. There is no circumstance, no emergency, no compromise position in which commercially canned food represents a health-neutral or acceptable choice. Every category of canned and bottled food, whether fruit, vegetable, tomato puree, sauce, fish, meat, or dairy, is condemned in his teachings on the same foundational grounds: nutrients are destroyed, contamination is introduced, and the body is burdened with industrial poisons it was never designed to metabolize.

---

Aajonus taught that all canned food has been cooked, and not simply cooked once, but pre-cooked (blanched) before sealing, then processed again at high heat inside the can. This double or triple heat processing destroys enzymes, denatures proteins, oxidizes fats, and eliminates the biological vitality that makes food usable to the body. What remains in the can is a nutrient-depleted, chemically contaminated shell of the original food.

He stated explicitly: canned foods are nutrient-deficient and difficult to digest and utilize. The body must expend energy attempting to process substances that provide little or no usable nutrition in return.

The most extensively detailed harm Aajonus associated with canned food is metal leaching and metal poisoning. He explained the mechanism in detail across multiple workshops:

When acidic foods, such as tomato soups and sauces, apple sauce, pineapple, tomato purées, and fish, are sealed inside metal cans, the acidity of the food actively pulls metals out of the can walls and into the food itself. This is not a theoretical risk but a direct chemical interaction: the preservative chemicals added to the food increase the food's acidity, and that acidity acts as a solvent on the tin and other metals composing the can.

He stated: "When you put an acidic processed food with preservatives in it, what's it going to do? It's going to delete metal from the can. So you've got all this amalgam tin poisoning, metal poisoning. That's in the cell of these foods now that you're eating."

He identified this as the mechanism behind multiple epidemic diseases that emerged after World War II. Specifically:

Tonsillitis Epidemic: The tonsils function, in Aajonus's framework, as the brain's primary protective filter. Any toxin taken in through the mouth and absorbed through the mouth tissues goes to the tonsils first. He taught that the metals leaching from canned food concentrated in the tonsil tissue and caused progressive deterioration: "All of that metal started deteriorating the tonsils exponentially." He noted that before canned foods became ubiquitous, tonsillitis was extremely rare. Within one to two years of canned foods appearing on every household shelf, tonsillitis became endemic. Children eating canned foods developed constant sore throats. Children raised on farms who did not eat canned foods did not develop tonsil problems.

Polio Epidemic: Aajonus extended this metal-poisoning thesis to the polio epidemic of the 1950s. He stated that the metals from canned food did not stop at the tonsils, they continued into the spinal cord, where they began deteriorating spinal tissue. He identified poliomyelitis as the viral response the body mounted to break down and clean up this damaged spinal tissue. In his framework, viruses are not contagious pathogens but cellular cleanup agents the body deploys to address specific types of damage. Thus, the polio virus was the body's response to metal-damaged spinal tissue caused by the widespread consumption of metal-contaminated canned foods.

He stated: "Metal went down into the spinal cord. Started deteriorating spinal tissue. Poliomyelitis is a virus of the spinal cord to break down damaged spinal tissue."

He further connected this to the timing of the polio vaccine, which he claimed was introduced in 1958, after the tonsil-protective plastic lining was introduced inside cans in 1961 (reducing but not eliminating the metal contamination), and after the worst metal damage had already subsided. He contended the vaccine received credit for ending a crisis it did not create and did not resolve.

Beyond metal contamination, Aajonus repeatedly documented the role of 60 varieties of industrial chemicals used in the canning process. He stated this directly in multiple workshops: "They didn't tell you that there was 60 varieties of chemicals used to make them."

He identified preservatives including formaldehyde, referred to by other names in the industry, as among the chemicals added to canned foods. These preservatives served the industrial purpose of extending shelf life by eliminating bacteria and microbial activity. In his framework, eliminating bacteria from food eliminates its life and its utility to the body. Dead, sterile food cannot support living biological functions.

He taught that the preservative chemicals interact synergistically with the metal contamination: the preservatives increase the acidity of the canned food, and that increased acidity accelerates the leaching of metals from the can walls. The two forms of contamination thus amplify each other.

Aajonus also identified heavy salting as a defining characteristic of canned foods. He described the rationing-era canned foods as "processed so heavily with salt and all kinds of contaminants and preservatives and metal." Salt in this context functioned as both a preservative and a flavor agent to compensate for the destruction of natural flavor caused by processing. In his framework, processed salt, unlike the naturally occurring minerals in raw food, disrupts cellular hydration and mineral balance.

Aajonus provided detailed first-person testimony about the actual base ingredients used in commercial canned sauces and tomato products, drawn from direct observation during nearly three years living and traveling outdoors on a bicycle:

"I observed how tomatoes are prepared for soups and sauces. They let the tomatoes sit in open trucks to ferment, mold and rot for weeks, then haul them to factories where they process them as much as they process and alter large-factory milk. The coloration, fragrance and flavor are all produced with industrial chemicals that are not food."

He stated explicitly: "Most canned and bottled food, like fruit and tomato purees and sauces, were rotten. Then they were very processed and chemicalized to hide the rotten taste."

He also noted this in his recipe book: "The tomatoes sit in open trucks in the hot sun for days, spoiling. After the spoiled tomatoes are sterilized, they are seasoned with chemical and/or processed flavorings to hide the rotten taste."

He distinguished this from the beneficial effects of naturally fermented or spoiled raw food: "A little spoiled raw food has been shown to be beneficial to health, but not when processed, sterilized and eaten repeatedly. Diets of spoiled, cooked and processed foods have proved repeatedly to coincide with disease."

Beginning in 1961, Aajonus documented that the canning industry, which he attributed specifically to decisions made at the level of the King and Queen of England, began lining tin cans on the inside with plastic. He stated this was done secretly and without public announcement, because revealing the reason would have caused people to link tonsillitis and polio directly to the canned food industry.

The plastic lining reduced but did not eliminate metal contamination, introducing instead a different category of harm: hormonal disruption through plastic chemicals (particularly BPA and related compounds).

He described the mechanism: "There's a scientist that came out three years ago and said, wait a minute, they mimic female hormones. Men eat it, they turn into women. Women eat it, they turn into men. It's imbalancing all the system. It's turning the frogs..."

He explained that even with plastic lining, the risk of metal contamination persists wherever the plastic coating is not applied evenly or completely: "If it gets through that plastic, let's say the plastic isn't sprayed evenly in the can, and it gets through, then you're going to have tin and the plastic in your system."

He applied this specifically to canned tuna, which he identified as among the worst offenders because the acidity of tuna processing was particularly aggressive in pulling metals from can walls. He stated: "Tuna fish in a can is not a good idea. Absolutely." And: "Canned tuna was one of the biggest contaminants of metal. It would pull the acidity of it out of any process and would pull the metals out of the can and cause massive contamination."

He characterized the transition from metal contamination to plastic contamination as a change of disease type rather than an improvement in safety: "It's not better than before. It's just different diseases. It's still toxic, it's still terrible. Very toxic."

Aajonus connected the metal poisoning from canned foods directly to behavioral and neurological disorders in children. He referenced a 10-year Canadian university study from the 1950s to 1960s, conducted because schools began experiencing substantial student behavioral problems in the 1950s, coinciding precisely with the mass adoption of canned foods:

"It was suspected that consumption of high rates of processed foods ushered into the public with World War II-canned-food-rationing strategy. All of the studies accrued and presented substantial proof that processed food and food-additives caused major mental and behavioral problems."

He stated directly: "They didn't tell you it was going to create tonsillitis in your children. They didn't tell you it was going to create autism and learning disorders and all kinds of things."

He provided personal testimony linking his own family's canned food consumption to behavioral dysfunction: he described constant fighting with his brothers growing up on canned foods in Cincinnati, contrasting it with his mother's family, who were raised before canned foods were ubiquitous and who largely got along, thirteen children who coexisted peacefully compared to the chronic conflict in his canned-food-raised household.

He stated: "That kind of contamination in my body, in the human body, creates all this anxiety, this angst about life."

Aajonus articulated a fundamental structural argument about why canned and packaged foods must always be toxic: the pursuit of infinite shelf life requires the elimination of all biological activity, and eliminating all biological activity requires destroying everything that makes food valuable to living organisms.

He stated: "In order to create infinite shelf-life, all ingredients must be sterilized. That is, anything that occurs in food to make them naturally decompose (nature's digestion) for bio-recycling must be chemically altered, destroyed or removed."

The processes required to achieve this include: high heat, centrifugal or chemical fractionation, radiation, isolation, and industrial chemical treatments.

He further stated: "No food, no packaged food is safe. There's all kinds of toxins in the process. Every food, most of the food to pass the FDA and USDA scrutiny has to have no animal fat and bacteria in it, or else it's short shelf life. All companies are striving for the longest shelf life."

This means that achieving regulatory approval and market viability requires, structurally and inevitably, the destruction of nutritional integrity. In his framework, this is not an accident or a correctable flaw, it is the built-in design of the industrial food system.

---

Aajonus was unambiguous that there is no form of commercially canned food that is raw, alive, or nutritionally intact. The canning process necessarily involves heat that destroys enzymes and vital nutrients. The pre-cooking (blanching) that occurs before sealing destroys the food's biological integrity before it even enters the can. The subsequent heat processing to sterilize the sealed can adds another layer of nutrient destruction.

He stated: "CANNED FOOD is cooked food. Therefore, canned foods are all nutrient-deficient and difficult to digest and utilize."

Aajonus extended the same analysis to bottled processed foods. He specifically addressed olive oil labeled "raw" and products bottled and sold as raw: "So when it says raw and bottled, really? It's not raw. You see olive oil juice, it says raw. It's not raw. It's an absurdity. For raw, it would have all the enzymes that would cause fermentation. But they remove it."

He stated that once a food has been processed, bottled, and packaged, "the effectiveness is reduced to, at the most, 20% effectiveness."

On bottled water specifically, Aajonus taught that water is a solvent and will leach toxins from any plastic container it contacts. He stated: "I suggest that people do NOT drink much water and never from plastic bottles. Water is a solvent and leaches toxins from plastic. You taste plastic, as I do, because there is plastic in water that is bottled in plastic."

He described Bisphenol A (BPA) and other plastic toxins as leaching into water stored in plastic bottles, with the harm outweighing any benefit from drinking the water.

On specific brands: He previously favored Gerolsteiner mineral water, which was available in glass in the United States, but when Gerolsteiner switched to plastic bottles in the US market, he stated he would no longer consume it. He wrote: "I have not consumed any bottled water in 3 weeks."

He identified the following as preferable options when bottled water in glass was still available: Apollinaris, San Faustino, San Pellegrino, and Perrier (with the caveat regarding Perrier's artificial carbonation, addressed below).

Regarding Perrier: He had previously stopped recommending Perrier because it was artificially carbonating its water rather than using natural carbonation, making it no longer a true natural sparkling spring water. He later stated that Perrier resumed buying natural carbon dioxide from another mineral spring company, approximately two years before his statement on the subject, making it acceptable again in glass. However, he confirmed that "the plastic BPAs and other toxins outweigh the health value negative", meaning even a high-quality mineral water becomes harmful when bottled in plastic.

Aajonus explained the mechanism of how plastic bottles introduce contamination even beyond BPA: "When they make the plastic bottles, they have the molds in them that have a solvent and a powder that keeps it from sticking to the machine. So it's constantly lubricating the machine and the plastic is formed and a lot of that gets inside the bottle. So what happens is when you put your food in there, when they put water in it, you're getting some of that in there. You're getting some plastic in there, you're getting some petroleum lubrication for the machine, you're getting some of the powder."

He stated that if companies were to clean their bottles before filling them, this contamination would be reduced, but they do not do this.

He applied this specifically to raw milk sold in plastic containers, referencing Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures: "If you're getting your milk in plastic like Mark McAfee with his organic pastures, oh, that plastic doesn't get in. I said, what test have you done, Mark?" He acknowledged that the minerals in raw milk, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, would bind with the plastic chemicals and contain them, but at the cost of depleting the mineral content of the milk itself: "You're losing some calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium out of the milk. So it's better not to have plastic."

His conclusion: "Don't keep anything in a plastic container and don't freeze anything in plastic."

When asked about emergency food storage and whether freeze-dried or home-canned foods were preferable (for a crisis scenario), Aajonus acknowledged the question without fully resolving it in the available source material. He was asked to compare freeze-dried foods versus home-canned foods (for example, organic peaches canned in Ball jars), as well as dehydrated foods. He acknowledged that "all are severely depleted in nutrients" without providing a definitive ranking in the available passages, but the question itself confirms his position that even home-canning represents severe nutritional depletion.

---

Aajonus documented that the use of canned and bottled sauces extends throughout the restaurant industry, not merely in home cooking:

"Even most of the better restaurants use canned sauces rather than prepare them. ALL fast-food restaurants use canned sauces such as tomato and paste, mustards, horseradish and other sauce condiments."

This means that avoiding canned products while eating commercially prepared food is essentially impossible. The contamination problems he identified are not limited to home consumption of canned goods but permeate the entire commercial food service industry.

Aajonus documented what was reportedly an FDA policy requiring that food containers made from metal have a layer of plastic, containing BPA, on any surface that contacts food, ostensibly to prevent metal leaching. He noted the irony of this: "Apparently its now an FDA policy that with food containers made from metal, that any areas that come into contact with food must have a layer of plastic containing BPA to prevent leaching from the metal. How silly is that! Typical FDA."

In his framework, this policy represents a regulatory solution that substitutes one form of toxic contamination (metal) for another (plastic hormonal disruptors), while providing the appearance of safety action.

Aajonus conducted his own investigation into Ball and Kerr brand canning jar lids regarding BPA content, documenting the results in detail:

He described his method: "Take a sharp paring knife and scrape it across the white enameled lid. If you find a thin transparent or translucent product, it has been plastic-coated."

His findings upon scraping the Kerr lid: the plastic coating was apparent and could be peeled-rolled off the lid. With the Ball lid, no such plastic peeling occurred. He stated: "Also, notice that the plastic coating on Kerr lids dissolves rather quickly and the lids rust quickly, evidence that the BPA in the plastic is absorbed into food."

However, he qualified this finding: "Since I am not in the USA, I cannot verify that that holds true 2 years later (since my last purchase of Ball lids and scrapings)."

A person who spoke directly with a Ball Company representative reported that the representative confirmed: the white interior lid does contain BPA, and it is a small amount. The storage caps made by Ball are made from polypropylene (#5 plastic), which the company stated contains no BPA or PVC.

Aajonus's assessment of the BPA risk from Ball lids in the context of home use: "Because the plastic coating is enamel-like, I found that it does not leach into food." He also stated: "The coating of at least 2,300 lids would have to completely dissolve into food to cause a severe reaction from BPA. I estimate that that would take about 500 years. The trace amount of BPA that might be released over many months from one lid would not be enough to store and harm the bodies of people eating my Primal Diet."

His one caution: "Once the white-coating has chipped it should not be used; recycle it with cans."

He also noted that the Tattler brand lid, marketed as BPA-free, contains a small amount of formaldehyde, which the company claims will not leach unless heated above 250 degrees. His comment: "Either way, not good as far as I am concerned."

He noted the existence of a German company called Weck that manufactures glass lids, rubber rings, and glass jars as an alternative approach to sealing food in glass.

Despite his concerns about BPA in commercially canned foods, Aajonus specifically recommended Ball jar lids with enamel coating for home storage of raw meat (high meat preparation), distinguishing them from Kerr lids:

"I use the ball jar lids because they're enameled. The curd jar has that plating, steel plating on it, and it will rust and falls down into the meat and destroys bacteria and poisons you. So use the ball jar lids with the enamel coating on it. And it has a true rubber sealer. The curd uses some gray matter that melts into the food."

He specified Ball canning jars in 4, 8, 16, and 32 oz. sizes for various food preparation and storage purposes, directing people to grocery stores and providing a phone resource (800-819-6118 or 215-538-8552 from Candlesandsupplies.net).

He gave explicit guidance: "Never freeze anything in plastic. If you want ice cubes, you get some Pyrex glass that won't break easily." He stated that people making ice cubes in plastic get BPAs in them, and that heating things in plastic also transfers BPAs.

---

This section does not apply in the affirmative to canned and bottled foods, Aajonus prescribed no pairing protocol to make canned food acceptable or safe. However, he did document a protocol for addressing benzene contamination from soft drinks (a related bottled food category) that involves specific fat buffering:

For people who consumed soft drinks and want to remove stored benzene before it could cause cancer, he prescribed:

• 1–2 cups of raw mixed vegetable juices consisting of 90% celery and 10% cilantro, consumed once daily around noon for 5 consecutive days
• Approximately 20 minutes after drinking the juices: 1 tablespoon of no-salt-added raw cheese and 1 tablespoon of unsalted raw butter or avocado
• Repeat this process every 10 days for 2–6 years, depending on how much soft drinks were consumed

This protocol is not a way to make soft drink consumption safe, it is a remediation protocol for people who already consumed them.

---

Aajonus provided no "safe dose" of canned or bottled food because he taught that no safe dose exists. His position was that even trace consumption represents a burden on the body's detoxification systems and a displacement of genuinely nourishing food.

Regarding BPA from Ball canning jar lids specifically (in the context of home food storage in glass, not commercial canned food), he provided a quantitative assessment: the plastic coating of at least 2,300 lids would have to completely dissolve into food to cause a severe reaction, which he estimated would take approximately 500 years. This was his rationale for considering Ball jar lids (with intact white enamel coating) acceptable for home food storage in the context of the Primal Diet. Once the coating chips, the lid must be discarded.

---

Aajonus presented an extensively developed historical argument that World War II was partially engineered or exploited specifically to introduce industrially canned food to the global population. He attributed the primary agency in this to the British Royal Family, the Windsor family, the King and Queen of England, whom he stated owned 70% of all food manufacturing in the world, including major American corporations like Purina, General Mills, and General Foods, held through trust arrangements.

He stated: "Who instigated World War II? Basically, the Windsor family, king and queen of England. Why? They owned 70 percent of all food manufacturing in the world. They wanted to usher in canned foods. Big moneymaker. Less spoilage. Keep it on the shelves for years."

He stated the canned food industry was also supported by Rockefeller and Rothschild interests, who were simultaneously invested in the medical industry and understood that metal contamination from canned food would create more disease, and therefore more patients and more pharmaceutical sales.

Aajonus documented in detail the propaganda campaign used to drive mass adoption of canned food. The core messaging was: "Support your loved ones fight the War, eat convenient canned foods."

He described marketing tests conducted at the time which showed that most people with developed taste buds did not like canned foods and stated they would continue buying fresh foods. This forced the canned food industry to pursue aggressive marketing. The solution was to attach canned food consumption to patriotism, claiming that Americans eating canned food at home somehow supported soldiers at the front.

He stated repeatedly that this logic was incoherent: "How the frick is that, supporting our troops by us eating canned food when we can eat fresh food grown from the farm. Doesn't make sense. That was your brainwash."

The propaganda campaign ran continuously on radio, and later on early television. He stated: "Newspapers and radio all over the world. Eat canned food, support the troops."

He described the wartime rationing system as reinforcing canned food adoption by creating artificial scarcity of fresh foods while framing canned food as the patriotic alternative: "We all got used to the rationing because they told us, oh, for the troops, you need to eat canned foods like they do. And it was a patriotic thing to do."

Aajonus used his own family as a recurring case study throughout his workshops. His mother, who was not raised on canned foods (they did not exist when she was young), enthusiastically adopted them as an adult. Her motivation was purely practical: she no longer had to wash, peel, cut, or extensively prepare vegetables. She could simply open a can, pour it into a pot, and have a meal ready in minutes because the food had already been pre-cooked (blanched) before canning.

He described her reaction: "My mother absolutely adored canned foods. She didn't have to wash the vegetables. She didn't have to cut them up. She opened the can and dumped it into the pan."

But he connected this convenience directly to the health outcomes in his family: constant fighting among the brothers, behavioral problems, and eventual serious illness. He contrasted this with his mother's own family, who were raised before canned foods and who "all got along... thirteen children all got along."

Aajonus documented that in 1961, the canned food industry secretly began lining the inside of tin cans with plastic. He attributed this decision specifically to the King and Queen of England. The secrecy was deliberate: "They didn't tell you, they didn't want to tell you, why they were all of a sudden plasticizing the inside, because people would have linked a lot of diseases, like tonsillitis and polio, to that."

He documented the timing: after the plastic lining was introduced beginning in 1961, the rates of tonsillitis began to drop significantly. The polio vaccine was introduced in 1958, one year before the plastic lining, and received credit for eliminating polio. He stated: "And that's when the vaccine came out the year after. But they cured polio. Nonsense."

He stated that polio went up 400% in 1958 when the first polio vaccines were given, and that the polio vaccine itself contained mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, detergent, and ether, "all full of metals going into the spinal cord, creating more polio."

Aajonus described his research into the origins of what he identified as an epidemic of tin and metal poisoning. He was investigating diseases linked to tin exposure and traced the introduction of industrial tin to the general population to within 5–10 years prior to 1955. He identified two major industries introducing tin at that time: the canned food industry and roofing metal. He concluded that canned food was the primary vector, given its direct introduction into the human food supply.

He linked this to the observation that children on farms who did not eat canned foods did not develop tonsillitis, while urban children eating canned foods did, a clean natural experiment validating the causal link.

Aajonus articulated a systemic argument about regulatory complicity: "Every food, most of the food to pass the FDA and USDA regulations for food passivity has to pass an inspection where there can be no bacteria. Bacteria is all of life. So you destroy the bacteria, you destroy the life."

He further stated: "The food industry wants pasteurization, chemical washes, antibacterials and irradiation because their products will have a longer shelf life, reducing their costs by slowing spoilage. They care much more about their products" than about health.

He also stated: "Most foods in markets today are not foods at all but merely plastic versions of real food with indefinite shelf-lives."

Aajonus referenced a 10-year study conducted by a Canadian university beginning in the 1950s, prompted by the sudden emergence of major behavioral and learning problems in schools that coincided with the mass adoption of canned and processed foods introduced through the World War II rationing strategy. The studies showed substantial proof that processed food and food additives caused major mental and behavioral problems. He was introduced to this research by his nutritional tutor in 1971–72, along with the books Sugar Blues and Sugar and the Criminal Mind.

As an extension of his analysis of bottled foods and corporate deception, Aajonus documented the acquisition by Coca-Cola of a water company around 1996, as an example of chemical beverage companies expanding into the bottled water market, a market driven by health-conscious consumers attempting to avoid chemically processed beverages. In his framework, this represents the chemical food industry colonizing the space created by consumer flight from chemical food, and bringing its contamination practices with it.

---