Rice occupies a very specific and carefully delineated position in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework, not as a health food, not as a staple, and certainly not as a dietary cornerstone, but as what he described as the best of the available cooked grains when a cooked starch is genuinely needed. Rice is positioned almost entirely in the context of remediation: it is called upon when cheese, butter, nut formula, and exercise have all failed to arrest excessive hormonal dumping, and when no adequate dairy is available. It is a last resort among cooked foods, chosen specifically because it produces less toxicity during cooking than other grains, pastas, or breads.

Aajonus was emphatic that rice is not a regular part of the Primal Diet for most people. He himself reported consuming roughly two-thirds of a cup of cooked rice per year, total, and then only when traveling in Asia without access to dairy. The role of rice in the full Primal Diet is thus vanishingly small in terms of volume, yet its therapeutic function when conditions demand it is precisely defined.

He also distinguished rice as the grain that sustained Asian civilizations better than any other, noting that rice was less harmful to the body than wheat, corn, or other grains when those populations had no access to dairy, no abundant meat, and were eating essentially 80% grain diets under dynasty-imposed dietary restrictions.

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Aajonus made a critical biochemical observation about rice that governed everything he said about it. When asked whether rice contains gluten, he stated clearly: "No, but it has a heavy starch, which is similar to gluten." This equivalency is what determines rice's utility. The heavy starch in rice behaves functionally like gluten, it acts as a sponge to absorb and bind excessive neurological hormones and metabolic toxins.

He explained the broader mechanism: "Released starch or gluten can bind with excess neurological hormones and toxicity if the starch or gluten is refined, that is, without the bran and germ." The bran and germ of the grain prevent this binding action. When bran and germ are present, the starch and gluten attach to those components rather than to the excess hormones, rendering the entire therapeutic function useless. This is the foundational reason why refined, white, bran-free rice is preferred when cooking rice for therapeutic purposes.

He elaborated: "Eating refined starch goes against the established concept that more fiber is better, but people rarely utilize starch and gluten in whole grain products because the starch and gluten often attach to bran and germ and cannot be absorbed. Also, cooked fiber robs the blood and intestines of available fats. That often causes dryness, irritability and/or lethargy. If starch and gluten are not properly utilized, they will not arrest excess hormones, toxic hormonal byproducts, including psychological, and other related toxins. Therefore, refined flours that are unbleached and not fortified or enriched are better for that purpose than whole grain."

The primary reason cooked rice is ever prescribed is its ability to bind with excessive hormones circulating in the body, specifically the kinds produced during intense detoxification cycles, or in states of chronic anxiety, anger, rigidity, and irritability. Aajonus described boiling rice as helping to "harness those excessive hormones that can cause severe imbalances, cause anger, irritability, closed-mindedness, rigidity, all kinds of nasty behavior."

He noted that rice binds with "a lot of excessive hormones. But it still won't bind with those if you need them." This is a key distinction, the starch-hormone binding is selective in the sense that it will not strip the body of hormones it actually requires. Corn and beans will also bind with excess hormones, but Aajonus considered rice the superior choice when a cooked grain is necessary because it generates less metabolic toxicity in the cooking process.

When the starch hierarchy is laid out, Aajonus placed them in this order of preference: 1. Cheese (preferred, addresses the issue 99.9% of the time) 2. Butter (used together with cheese) 3. Nut formula (blended nuts, egg, honey, cream, addresses most remaining cases) 4. Cooked rice, whole grain, not wild rice (the best cooked starch option) 5. Sourdough bread, mentioned as formerly recommended but later found to be "okay but not good for the system" 6. Potatoes and pastas, also used but found to have more toxicity than rice

He stated directly: "I've tried potatoes and other pastas and stuff like that and I find there's less toxicity formed in a whole grain rice."

Aajonus gave a specific reason why rice, among all grains, produces the least damage when cooked: its hull structure. He explained: "The rices, their hull has a tendency to break down easier than the other grains. The hull on wheat and rye is very rough and very sharp. And the germ, of course, has its own sheath." This structural difference means that when rice is cooked, the breakdown products are less harsh and less damaging to the digestive system than the breakdown products of wheat, rye, or millet.

He contrasted rice with millet extensively. Millet, despite being theoretically the "easiest grain to digest" and the "only alkaline grain" according to conventional analysis, was shown by Aajonus to be practically useless: "In millet it's a very complex starch. It does not break apart easily. It doesn't act like a sponge like you need it to, and it's very difficult to digest. You can hardly get a goat, and you know how goats can eat anything, they won't eat much millet. You put millet in their mix and they will eat it for a couple of days, and then they won't touch it, even if it's only five percent millet." Rice cakes without millet and without other added grains are acceptable; puffed millet cakes are not.

Aajonus recognized that the Asian use of rice had a historical basis. He noted that rice "did maintain a better health than any other grain. Wheat had allergies to it and all kinds of other problems. So rice was the best grain that could be had that didn't hurt the body the least." He attributed the comparatively better health outcomes of rice-consuming Asian populations (relative to corn-consuming populations, for example) to this reduced harm. However, he was equally clear that this comparison was entirely relative, it was the best of bad options for populations denied access to raw dairy, abundant meat, and adequate fat.

He connected the Asian 80% grain diet to Chinese dynasty-imposed dietary restrictions: "The people were told that 80% of their diets should be grain like rice. And rice was the main thing... And then only 5% of the body, only 5% of the diet was meat. And 10-15% was vegetables. So everything was cooked. Absolutely everything." Japan was cited as the one exception, being the country that most successfully worked against this dietary framework by incorporating more raw fish.

He also made the observation about Asians as a whole: "Your rice, that's why the Asians use it and do a lot better than countries who use corn. It sustains their systems better."

One notable use Aajonus described for rice was its ability to suppress hunger when dairy is unavailable. He explained that when traveling in Asia without access to cream or milk, the digestive system begins producing excessive quantities of digestive juices in anticipation of the dairy that would normally arrive. This creates a false hunger signal and a sense of hormonal dysregulation. Rice with butter addressed this: "I'll have a third of a cup of rice with an equal amount of animal fat with it and it'll curb my hunger. And I can go two, three weeks without getting hunger pains just by having that much grains." And: "That'll take me through almost three weeks and prevent me from secreting all those digestive juices that want that cream."

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Aajonus made a sharp and frequently repeated distinction between what is sold commercially as "brown rice" and what he considered true brown rice. He was emphatic: "I don't know why they call that brown rice. Brown rice is wild rice. That's real brown rice, black rice." What is commercially labeled "brown rice" is, in his view, simply off-color white rice, still essentially white rice with the bran partially intact.

He stated: "So brown, so called brown rices, which are just off color white are called brown rices. True brown rice is wild rice, which is dark brown and black."

The conclusion is that for therapeutic use (starch-hormone binding), the refined white rice with bran and germ removed is preferred. The bran interferes with the starch's ability to act as a sponge for excess hormones. When asked to confirm this, he affirmed: "That's why I say, if you are going to cook it, it's best to have it refined." And when asked to confirm "so we are talking white rice primarily," he said: "Yes."

However, he also said in separate passages: "if you're going to cook a grain to bind with toxins in the body, make it a whole grain rice. That is not wild rice." This represents a tension in the sources, in one passage he says refined white rice is best (because bran and germ interfere with starch availability), while in another he says "whole grain rice" for toxin binding. Both positions are presented as his, and both are documented here without resolution.

Wild rice, which Aajonus identified as true brown rice, the dark brown and black variety, is rejected entirely, both raw and cooked: "True brown rice is wild rice, which is dark brown and black. And those are not easy to digest and I don't suggest those rices even cooked." He attributed this to: "there is heavy gluten in the wild rice," which makes it difficult to digest, and more broadly to difficulty breaking it down at all.

Sweet rice, also called pearl rice or small grain rice, was one of Aajonus's personal preferences for germination. He described his own mix: "The wild rice with the long grain pearl rice and the small grain rice." And when asked whether he wanted brown rice, he clarified: "No, the sweet." When asked why he wanted the sweet, the answer was: "Again you want the gluten." He confirmed that sweet rice has the gluten/starch properties that make it suitable for germination-based preparations.

He described sweet rice as tasting "kind of like crackers to me" when germinated overnight. He found this texture appealing: "That's what I love... It tastes kind of like crackers to me."

Basmati rice was mentioned in the context of germinated grain preparations for digestive problems. One client with constant digestive problems was given a protocol that included basmati rice mixed with short sweet rice (pearl rice) and rye, germinated together overnight, then rinsed and combined with raw egg. Aajonus noted: "He would mix the basmati rice, the short, sweet rice (pearl rice), the rye, and then I would have him put raw egg after he would germinate that altogether overnight."

When someone mentioned liking basmati, Aajonus acknowledged it but redirected to germination as the proper preparation method.

When asked whether basmati is refined, Aajonus addressed the hull question: "The rices, their hull has a tendency to break down easier than the other grains. The hull on wheat and rye is very rough and very sharp." He did not specify whether basmati is or is not refined in the commercial sense, but contextualized it within the general flexibility of rice hulls compared to other grains.

Rice cakes are mentioned as an acceptable cooked starch option for most people. Aajonus confirmed: "Rice cakes are okay." He compared rice cakes favorably to puffed millet cakes, which are not okay. The key condition for acceptable rice cakes: "rice cakes without millet and without other grains added. Just straight rice."

Aajonus personally said he had not eaten rice cakes in approximately three years at the time of one interview, noting: "I like them, but I just do not crave cooked starches very often. And when I crave it, it's usually pasta or baked potato."

For therapeutic use, Aajonus specified: "do not fry it, steam it or boil it. Slowly." The method is specifically slow boiling, not frying, not steaming. Another passage specifies: "boiling rice, brown rices, not wild rice, but brown rices, good raw rices, boiling that in some good water in a Pyrex, not in a metal pan." The vessel matters, Pyrex is specified explicitly, metal pans are excluded.

Separately from cooked rice, Aajonus practiced and sometimes recommended germinating rice overnight. This is a raw preparation, not a cooked one. He germinated rice "just one night. At least twelve hours." The result is slightly crunchy, still largely raw, and in his words "tastes kind of like crackers." He would then mix the germinated rice with egg, honey, and cream: "I like mixing it with egg and honey and maybe some cream."

This germinated form is distinct from the cooked therapeutic application. The germinated form is a food preference and occasional preparation; the cooked form is a remedy of last resort.

Commercial rice-derived products like rice milk and rice sour cream are rejected as "all very processed. You know, you have your Danish glycation products and your acrylamides that form out of it."

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Aajonus was explicit that commercial processed rice products are not what he means when he recommends rice. He said: "I'm not talking about Uncle Ben's. I'm talking about a whole grain brown rice." The distinction is between minimally processed whole grain rice versus industrially processed white rice products.

The cooking vessel is specified with unusual precision: "boiling that in some good water in a Pyrex, not in a metal pan." Metal pans are excluded. Pyrex, glass, is the required vessel.

The method is slow boiling in good water. Frying is explicitly excluded. Steaming is also mentioned as an acceptable alternative in one passage, though boiling is consistently mentioned first. The instruction was: "do not fry it, steam it or boil it. Slowly."

For germinated rice, the process is: 1. Take one or more kinds of rice (he mixed wild rice, long grain pearl rice, and small grain sweet rice) 2. Soak overnight in water, at least twelve hours 3. Pour off the water in the morning 4. Rinse 5. The result is slightly crunchy, germinated grain 6. Mix with raw egg, honey, and optionally cream

He noted he gets this craving "a couple of times a year."

In We Want to Live, a separate protocol involving grains (not specifically rice alone, but any grain) is described for specific remedial purposes: "Moldy grains are made by soaking 1/3 cup of one or more kinds of grain in a glass or ceramic vessel containing 6 ounces mineral water for three days, then pouring off the fermented water and drinking it immediately. Then let the fermented grains stand for 6-8 days in a place with little natural light with a cloth covering the vessel. After 6-8 days, pour ½ cup distilled water over the moldy grains and stir until the mold is mixed into the water, pour off and drink. Once every six months, moldy grains may be eaten after blending only 3 ounces of moldy grains with ½ cup distilled water."

In one personal experiment, Aajonus described fermenting what he described as a raw substance resembling corn (not exactly rice, but noted in the same context of grain fermentation): "I fermented it in raw milk for 14 days. With a tight cap on it. When I removed the cap, the alcohol was so strong, it burned my nostrils." He drank the whole quart in about 24 hours and described this as a mistake. This is documented as a cautionary personal experiment, not a protocol.

For infants, Aajonus specifically rejected rice cereal: "Rather than the rice cereal, which is heavily processed and full of processing chemicals, masticate 1/4 tsp. no-salt raw cheese for him and feed it to him once or twice daily." He described commercial rice cereal for infants as "heavily processed and full of processing chemicals."

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Aajonus was consistent and repeated across multiple passages that any cooked rice must be eaten with an equal amount of butter. The formula is: rice and butter in a 1:1 ratio by volume.

He stated: "eating that with an equal amount of butter will help harness those excessive hormones." In describing his own travel use: "I'll have a third of a cup of rice with an equal amount of animal fat with it." In the therapeutic prescription: "Have about three, four tablespoons of butter with it and see if that works."

The specific instruction: "Preferable just a little bit of already steamed or boiled rice. Only a third of a cup after boiling. So you may start with two tablespoons and end up with a third of a cup of your rice. Have about three, four tablespoons of butter with it."

In another passage, the pairing is specified as butter: "eating that with an equal amount of butter", and the butter must be raw and no-salt. He stated this directly in the context of the prescription: "always eat it with an equal amount of butter. Raw, no salt butter."

The alternative to butter in some contexts was coconut cream: "a third of a cup of rice with an equal amount, a third of a cup of butter or coconut cream with that rice."

The fat pairing serves multiple purposes: 1. It buffers the toxicity generated by the cooking process 2. It helps carry the bound hormones and toxins through the system 3. It prevents the cooked starch from drawing too heavily on the body's own fats and creating dryness 4. It maintains the therapeutic function, without fat, the bound material cannot be properly escorted out

The entire principle aligns with the broader doctrine that cooked foods always produce some damage and always require fat to buffer that damage.

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"I eat maybe two-thirds of a cup of rice a year, cooked rice." This is presented as the outer limit of what he personally consumed, and only under the specific circumstance of being in Asia without access to dairy.

"A third of a cup after boiling." This is the standard serving size for the therapeutic protocol.

"You may start with two tablespoons and end up with a third of a cup of your rice."

Equal volumes of butter or coconut cream to rice. Third of a cup rice: third of a cup butter or coconut cream. "Three, four tablespoons of butter."

"Every other day" during an active hormonal dumping episode. "You can eat half of it one day, half of it the next day."

If the nut formula doesn't work after ten days, switch to rice. If rice itself is not resolving the issue, reassess, more exercise may be required or the detox cycle is prolonged.

"I'll eat, you know, the grain. So I'll probably consume a whole three-quarters of a cup a year and a third of a cup at a time of cooked rice." He consumed it three times per week when needed: "I'll eat a third of a cup of rice three times in a week. So, I'm having a cup of rice in a week. That'll take me through almost three weeks."

Acceptable as a cooked starch substitute. No specific dosage given for rice cakes, though they are positioned as comparable to cooked rice in function.

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Aajonus described mixing three types of rice for germination: wild rice (as a flavor component, though noted as difficult to digest in larger amounts), long grain pearl rice, and small grain sweet rice. He would germinate the combination overnight (minimum twelve hours), pour off the water, rinse, and mix with: - Raw egg - Honey - Raw cream (optionally)

The result was described as tasting like crackers, slightly crunchy, flavorful, and satisfying. He described craving this preparation "a couple of times a year."

An alternative described for a specific client: mix basmati + pearl rice + rye, germinate overnight, pour off and rinse, add raw egg, use the next day.

The only culinary application for cooked rice is: boil slowly in good water in a Pyrex vessel; serve with equal volume of raw unsalted butter or coconut cream. No salt. This is a remedy, not a meal, a third of a cup at a time.

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Rice bran is the primary derivative discussed by Aajonus, and it is discussed entirely in a negative context. Rice bran contains gibberellic acid, which causes water retention and swelling. Aajonus described the commercial extraction of gibberellic acid from rice bran using kerosene: "they use the kerosene to break down the bran to get the gibberellic acid out of it."

He described the commercial application of this gibberellic acid to fruit: "You put it with fruit, it'll swell it up. You can take a grape from this size and make it this size. You lose 90% of the flavor, but you got a big grape. Full of water. Very little nutrients. High in sugar. Yet it doesn't taste that sweet."

He identified this as fraudulent marketing under the label of "natural": "they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and the FDA backs it because it's big money." The reasoning used by industry is that because gibberellic acid originates from rice, it is "natural." Aajonus's counter: "when they pull it out of the rice bran to free up that jellic acid, it is a complete chemical just like kerosene."

The bottom line on rice bran: it causes water retention, it is a source of commercially exploited toxic compounds, and its presence in a rice product is a reason to avoid that product therapeutically.

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Aajonus placed the Asian reliance on rice within a specific political-historical narrative. The 80% grain diet of Asian populations was not, in his view, a dietary choice arising from nutritional wisdom, it was an imposed structure: "The people were told that 80% of their diets should be grain like rice." This was attributed to the influence of Chinese dynasties controlling the diet of the population. Rice was then the best available option within that constraint, not the ideal food.

He contrasted this with the free hill tribes of Thailand, who "don't work as slaves for anybody in a rice paddy. They're out there doing their craft. They make their food. They hunt it. They gather insects. They're free people. And they're very strong and healthy compared to the person who's out there working in the rice paddy." The rice paddy workers were effectively enslaved laborers on a grain-based diet; the hill tribes were independent, omnivorous, and substantially healthier.

Japan was the exception within Asia: "Japan is the only one who worked all against China's domain of that diet", specifically through the incorporation of more raw fish and by resisting the grain-centric dietary prescription.

Aajonus described a specific fraud around gibberellic acid from rice bran being marketed as "natural." The compound is extracted using kerosene, a toxic industrial solvent, yet because the acid originates from rice (a natural source), the industry labels it natural. He named both the USDA and FDA as complicit: "So they lie, and they lie, and they lie, and the FDA backs it because it's big money." He used this as one example within his broader argument that "organic does nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you look at the organic standards on the USDA and FDA sites, they let over 300 chemicals they say are safe. Including kerosene."

He used this as a specific illustration within his broader critique: "All supplements are toxic. They are not real vitamins and minerals and enzymes. They are not. You can only get those from food."

In one passage, Aajonus noted: "Most of your rice is not processed. Most of your rice is fermented." This was stated in a discussion about rice versus bread as a cooked starch, where he was pointing out that fermented rice (used historically across Asia) is a different product from industrially processed rice. He did not expand this into a full protocol but offered it as context for why rice had been used more safely historically.

Aajonus identified that processed rice products, rice milk, rice sour cream, carry Danish glycation end products and acrylamides, the same harmful compounds produced when any carbohydrate is exposed to high heat. These are categorically rejected.

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