Raw wild-caught salmon occupies a foundational position in the Primal Diet as one of the most important ocean foods a person can consume. Aajonus identified ocean wild-caught fish as categorically distinct from freshwater fish and from farmed fish, and he emphasized salmon specifically as a high-value food for rebuilding the nervous system, supplying concentrated minerals unavailable from other food sources, and providing fats that bind to and neutralize toxins within the body.

Aajonus placed raw wild-caught salmon within his broader category of "ocean wild-caught fish," which he described as the only fish he recommends without qualification. He stated plainly: "ocean wild-caught fish is the only fish I recommend, no freshwater fish, because our rivers and lakes are about 35-40% polluted. The ocean is only 4-8% polluted, depending upon where you look." In another statement he placed ocean contamination at only 2%, noting the contrast with freshwater's 33-35% contamination rate. Regardless of the precise figure he cited in a given talk, the principle was always the same: ocean wild-caught fish is substantially safer and more nutritious than any freshwater or farmed alternative.

Salmon specifically appears throughout Aajonus's teachings in multiple roles: as a food he personally consumed regularly, as a subject of his famous parasitology self-experiments, as the centerpiece of numerous specific recipes, as a food that intelligently triggers detoxification vomiting when the body needs to expel toxins, and as a case study in the difference between wild-caught and farmed products. Aajonus described it as "a good food" and emphasized that when properly sourced, it is safe, deeply nourishing, and medicinal.

He also addressed raw salmon in the context of sashimi culture, pointing out that the existence of sashimi, steak tartare, and carpaccio on restaurant menus around the world is evidence that raw animal foods have always been recognized by humans as legitimate food: "If that weren't true, there would be no sashimi, there would be no steak tartare, and there would be no carpaccio on any menu."

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Aajonus described raw fish, and salmon specifically within that category, as primarily a food for reconstructing the nervous system. In one clinical narrative, he described a patient named Louis who ate raw fish or fowl twice a month and within a year managed a fifteen-minute conversation in thirty minutes, cutting his original time in half, a result attributed entirely to the consumption of raw meats including fish. Aajonus said of fish's role: "Fish is mainly to reconstruct [the nervous system]" and contrasted it with red meat, which he described as more appropriate for skin repair.

Aajonus stated that fish provides a uniquely high concentration of minerals that cannot be obtained from other foods. He made this point specifically when discussing whether frozen wild Alaskan salmon from non-food waters has the same nutritional value as fresh: "in fish you have a high concentration of minerals that you can't get from other foods." This mineral density was one of the reasons he continued to recommend fish even in frozen form occasionally, while noting that frozen food as a steady diet is not ideal.

One of the most detailed biochemical principles Aajonus articulated about raw fish, and explicitly demonstrated with salmon, involves the role of fat molecules in binding to toxins and preventing their absorption into the body. He explained: "when those animals, including myself, ate it raw, the fat molecules that were bound to those toxins were relatively undigested. So the body knows and can determine as it passes through the intestines. However, once it's cooked, it's, everything's fractionated. Everything is dispersed. So the poisons go into the system."

He further elaborated on this with specific data: when fish containing natural toxins, including mercury, is cooked, only 5-8% of those toxins are blocked from absorption, while the rest enter the system as free radicals. In the raw state, the fat molecules remain intact and bound to the toxins, allowing the intestines to pass them through without absorbing them. This is why he considered cooking fish to be specifically dangerous with respect to heavy metal and toxin accumulation, and raw consumption to be protective.

Aajonus described a fascinating phenomenon where the body uses a good piece of salmon to mobilize and expel stored toxins via vomiting. He narrated this in detail from a workshop: "my mouth just filled with bile, I'm getting ready to throw up, an hour after I ate a salmon. But I'm not sick, I don't feel ill at all." He explained the mechanism: "your stomach said, okay, we've got this wonderful salmon here, we're going to put toxins into it, and it's going to go one of two directions. The easier, quicker direction is, let's just get it up this way."

He further explained: "You get done throwing up, you go back to work, and you're going, I feel fine, but yet I just threw up. Why is that? It's kind of freaky, kind of a weird thing, you're thinking, well is it bad salmon? The answer is no, it's perfectly fine, it's just my body says, it's great salmon, we're going to use this to move some stuff."

He also addressed the same phenomenon in his Q&A correspondence: one person reported vomiting week-old salmon about ten minutes after eating with no problem and no discomfort, just a reflexive rejection. Aajonus's answer attributed this to free-radical bile: "The bacteria and their verotoxins instantly dissolve and release the bile, making it a free-radical substance. Those poisons must immediately dump into the stomach or bowels causing vomit and/or diarrhea." He explained this was not a sign that the salmon was bad, but that the person's bile throughout their system was not bound with solidifying compounds, making it unusually caustic and reactive.

Aajonus performed deliberate self-experiments with heavily parasite-infested salmon and documented the results rigorously. He ate salmon undulating with pinworms on multiple occasions, had his feces, urine, and blood checked for 10 weeks afterward, and did not develop a single parasite. He described the most famous of these events: in 1979, after a 42-day (or 45-day, he acknowledged his memory blurred with fasting that long) fast, he broke the fast on a Sunday night when no stores were open. He went to garbage cans and eventually to a fish market's garbage, pulled out a salmon that looked "beautiful" in the moonlight by the moonlight, "nice and rich and red", and ate approximately a pound of it at the garbage can itself. He brought the rest home, opened it up, and saw it was "undulating with pinworms, in and out, they're just weaving in and out of it." Despite having had a vagotomy (severing of the vagus nerve, meaning he produced no hydrochloric acid in his stomach) and being in very poor health at the time, he "did not get one worm."

He ran subsequent deliberate experiments as well, eating parasite-infested salmon specifically to test whether parasites could be transmitted through raw fish consumption. He had laboratory confirmation across multiple 10-week testing periods. He stated: "after 10 years and having eaten parasite infested salmon once and never getting a fluke at all, never getting the pinworm and eating calves brain that had a fluke in it and eating chicken liver that had fluke in it, but never getting any of those flukes. I realized, wait a minute, this is 13 years I've been eating raw meat. I've never gotten an incident of it."

In one Q&A response specifically about a news story claiming a couple was "eaten alive by tiny worms" from raw fish, Aajonus replied: "Sounds like fake news. In 1980, I ate 3 lbs. of salmon that was infested with those worms and did not get one parasite."

The mechanism he offered for why parasites do not infect a person eating raw foods was that parasites seek degenerative tissue: "All your degenerative tissue that exists in your body attracts and", the transcript cuts off, but the principle elsewhere stated is that parasites consume only dead, degenerating, or toxin-laden tissue, not healthy living cells. In a properly fed raw-food body, the parasites have no substrate to establish themselves in.

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Aajonus's strong preference was always for fresh raw wild-caught salmon. However, he acknowledged that frozen wild Alaskan salmon from non-food waters supplies meaningful nutrition, unlike frozen land meats, because of the fish's high mineral concentration and because the fish is not polluted or "cauterized" in the way farmed or chemically contaminated fish are. He stated explicitly: "it does supply some good nutrients for the nervous system so if you have to eat frozen fish once in a while that's ok but you wouldn't see it as a steady diet, no, no way."

His explanation for why freezing is more tolerable in fish than in land meat was that the fish is not polluted and not cauterized, so while freezing does cause some degradation, it "doesn't cause it to become a free radical." He contrasted this with the general principle that frozen food causes free-radical damage in land meats.

Aajonus was explicitly and completely against smoked salmon as a substitute for raw. He stated: "Smoked salmon is dehydrated. Any kind of dehydrated food is lacking in enzymes and activity, so it won't be utilized very much." He made this point in the context of a question about whether smoked salmon available in stores is a viable option. His answer was unambiguous: dehydration destroys the enzymatic activity and reduces the food's utilizable nutritional value dramatically.

Aajonus documented the preparation of "high meat" using ocean wild-caught raw fish, including salmon. He described a specific protocol for aging fish in a jar alongside aged meats, to progress through approximately 17 stages of bacterial development. He noted that the stinky, fermented fish was "preferable over the other" (fresh fish) among the Eskimos he lived with, who reported more energy, more strength, and better ability to deal with cold and illness from the fermented/aged fish compared to fresh. He described having vomited week-old salmon in one instance, attributing it to his particular bile chemistry, but did not categorically prohibit aged salmon for others.

The high-meat protocol as described in his recipe book specifies using ocean wild-caught raw fish in a jar, airing it every 3 to 4 days by taking it outdoors and completely removing the lid, waving the jar in the air to exchange the air inside, then re-sealing and returning to refrigeration. After 4 weeks, one may begin eating one marble-sized piece once or twice every week. He stated: "There are approximately 17 stages of bacterial developments. Airing the meat is required to progress bacteria through the stages. If you don't replace the air in the jar every 3 to 4 days, the bacteria stages will not progress."

He also specified: "If you go on a trip, when you return, recommence airing the meat so that it will resume progress through all of the bacterial stages." He recommended taking the meat outside to eat it, as the smell can linger in a home for up to 36 hours.

Aajonus acknowledged the tradition of marinating fish in lime or lemon juice, as in Tahitian cooking and in his own ceviche recipes, but consistently distinguished this from "cooking." He described watching native people in Morea marinate raw fish in lime juice and described it as an acceptable preparation. However, he clarified in his recipe directions and throughout his teachings that raw lemon juice and raw vinegar "promote fermentation, they do not stop fermentation", meaning marinating in citrus does not sterilize or damage the fish the way heat does.

He warned that marinating times matter. His Ceviche recipe specifies marinating for 10-40 minutes before consumption. He was consistent that raw fish marinated in citrus is still biologically raw and retains its enzymatic and nutritional properties.

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Aajonus was unequivocal that only ocean wild-caught fish is acceptable. He stated this in multiple ways across many seminars: "ocean wild-caught fish is the only fish I recommend." He gave geographic specifications as well: "it has to be from the East Coast or the Pacific Coast and preferably halfway up above, let's say, around the Carolinas and California, above San Francisco. That's preferable, but I will eat any deep-sea ocean fish, even from areas all the way down to Florida, out of the Atlantic coast of Florida."

He specifically excluded the Gulf of Mexico: "The Gulf of Mexico is about 10% polluted. I don't eat anything from the Gulf of Mexico."

When asked specifically whether Wild Copper River Salmon, which comes into season in May, was safe to eat, Aajonus answered: "I have not investigated Copper River in several years, so I do not know." This answer appeared twice in the Q&A records (January 7, 2007 and June 6, 2007, same question essentially repeated), and both times he gave the same non-committal answer, indicating he was not certain enough of Copper River's current condition to recommend it without investigation.

He specifically addressed "wild Alaskan salmon from non-food waters" in the context of whether it's available to the general public only in frozen form and whether that matters. He confirmed it is "a good food" and that frozen, while not ideal, "does supply some good nutrients for the nervous system."

Aajonus specified that ocean wild-caught fish is acceptable "unless it is from the China sea from the Philippines to Northern China." He stated this explicitly in a September 29, 2011 Q&A response, identifying this region as having mercury levels high enough to cause cellular damage even in raw ocean fish.

Aajonus addressed a disturbing industry practice directly in his newsletter. A correspondent named Patty reported that filleted fish in supermarkets was being run through a chlorine bath to kill bacteria, and that the buyer told her "as far as he knows ALL fish that is filleted is run through this chlorine bath." Another friend was told Whole Foods was spraying fresh fish in the case with ionized water to keep it looking fresh. A third friend was told to wash oysters because they were being irradiated.

Aajonus's response was to direct readers toward whole fish (not filleted) and to provide mail-order alternatives, implying that the chlorine bath treatment on filleted fish was a serious concern. His recommendation to preserve fish in oil addressed the question of how to keep raw fish viable without such industrial interventions.

Aajonus provided specific guidance on preserving raw fish (like sardines) in oil in his newsletter. He recommended: - Marinate the fish in lemon juice for 1-24 hours - Pour off the lemon juice - Add vinegar - Store in glass containers only (not metal) - Consume within approximately 2 weeks, as the shelf life in this method is limited to 1-4 weeks - Be aware that some gas may form which smells "slightly rank" - Remember that raw lemon juice and raw vinegar promote fermentation rather than stopping it

He was explicit that metal containers are not acceptable, glass only.

Aajonus was comprehensive and damning in his description of farmed salmon. He explained that farmed salmon: 1. Are fed cooked, pressed toxic byproducts of food processing, "big byproducts of food processing because it's cheaper" 2. Lack the natural diet that gives wild salmon their rich red flesh color 3. Are given artificial food coloring developed by the University of Washington (paid for by the salmon farming industry) to make their flesh "look rich and alive", coloring that was found in a report he cited to not be a food substance, unable to be absorbed, and "a form of plastic that has a BPA and other kinds of toxic substances that can cause damage in the system" 4. Are kept in polluted ponds rather than natural water

He described the food coloring discovery: "They looked at it and said, oh my God, looks diseased. So they lost a fortune those first two years. So they paid a fortune for the State of, the University of Washington... to develop a food coloring that they could give to these fish to make their flesh look rich and alive. The report came out about three years ago and I saw the report that when it's passed through the human body, it is not even a food substance. It can't be absorbed and causes lots of toxicity and it's a form of plastic that has a BPA and other kinds of toxic substances that can cause damage in the system."

He commented on the industry's motivation: "They want to farm salmon. Hey, who cares what happens to you. It's the way it goes."

When a reader accidentally consumed farmed salmon at a sushi restaurant (two courses of sashimi) and then discovered what they had eaten, Aajonus responded: "You probably used about 2 meals of good food to contain and detoxify your farmed-food poisoning. That type of poisoning is unlikely to cause any permanent damage as long as you ate and continue to eat a healthy diet. I suggest that you eat 10 eggs per day fo, " (the passage cuts off). The key points here are: - Two courses of sashimi of farmed salmon is equivalent to losing approximately 2 meals of good food to detoxification - It is unlikely to cause permanent damage if one is eating a healthy diet - Eggs (10 per day) were being recommended as part of the recovery protocol

Aajonus discussed the practical problem of ordering salmon at sushi restaurants and not knowing whether it is wild or farmed. He himself addressed the challenge of traveling and eating raw fish at restaurants, advising "carne crudo" for beef in Mexico and implying the need to research and verify sourcing. He mentioned that when eating out, including at sashimi restaurants, one must ask specifically and even call the manager afterward to verify.

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Aajonus consistently paired salmon and other fish with raw unsalted butter and/or raw cheese, and he provided explicit biochemical reasoning for this. The pairing is not merely culinary, it serves a specific protective function.

He stated: "You can always eat a little no-salt raw cheese with fish to insure that any free-radical mercury is absorbed and contained in the cheese." This instruction appeared in his September 29, 2011 Q&A response regarding ocean wild-caught fish and mercury. The mechanism is that raw cheese acts as an absorptive, binding medium for free-radical heavy metals, specifically mercury, that may be present in the fish, preventing them from entering the bloodstream. He described cheese as acting like a sponge in the intestinal tract, drawing toxins to itself and carrying them out of the body.

Raw butter also appears in virtually all of his salmon recipes, and its inclusion is not arbitrary. His broader teaching is that dietary fat, particularly raw fat, is the primary protective substance against toxicity. The fat molecules in raw butter bind to toxins and carry them through the system without allowing them to damage cells. The Hot Buttered Salmon recipe and the Spiced Salmon recipe both include substantial amounts of raw unsalted butter.

Aajonus suggested combining raw salmon with raw ostrich in one workshop context: "By the way, raw salmon is great to have with raw ostrich. Have you ever had raw ostrich?" This suggests he viewed the combination of ocean fish (providing minerals and specific fats) with lean land meat (ostrich being very lean and high in protein) as a beneficial combination, though he did not elaborate extensively on the specific biochemical rationale in the passages available.

He also discussed combining white fish with red meat for those who are highly acidic: "I'm not sure with this kind of an acid condition that I would eat red meat without having some white meat with it. So I'd always combine white meat with your red meat." However, he specified that fish serves a different primary function than what is needed for skin repair, noting "Would white fish with red meat, that one cut it? No. Fish is mainly to reconstruct", the nervous system being the implied endpoint.

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While Aajonus did not set a rigid daily dose for raw salmon specifically, he described eating raw meat, including fish, multiple times throughout his personal accounts: "fish several times a month" was mentioned as one period of his dietary history. He described eating fish at a level that provided meaningful neurological benefit when consumed as infrequently as twice a month, while also describing periods of eating much more.

As noted in the therapeutic protocol section, Aajonus specified 10 eggs per day as the recovery dose after accidental farmed salmon consumption. This was his go-to high-dose egg protocol for detoxification.

Aajonus provided a data point about his own intensive seafood consumption: "While living on Jekyll Island, I consumed up to 7 pounds of raw seafood a week, including shrimp." He reported no ill effects from this level of consumption despite the waters around Jekyll Island being "known to have been contaminated to some degree." His explanation for his safety was the fat-toxin binding mechanism of raw seafood, paired with cheese to absorb free-radical mercury.

He specified "a little no-salt raw cheese" as the companion quantity, not a specific gram amount, but the implication is a small amount sufficient to act as an absorbent buffer for any free-radical mercury. He did not define "a little" beyond that description.

• First documented incident: approximately 1 pound eaten at the garbage can site, rest brought home (1979, after 42-day fast)
• Second documented incident: 3 lbs. of salmon infested with worms (1980)
• Follow-up testing in both cases: feces, urine, and blood checked for 10 weeks with zero parasites

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1 Serving - 5 to 8 ounces fresh ocean wild-caught raw salmon - 3 tablespoons lemon or lime juice - 1/8 to 1/2 hot pepper - 3 tablespoons raw unsalted butter - 2 tablespoons grated no-salt-added raw cheese

Method: Warm lemon and lime juices, hot pepper and soft butter together in a 4-ounce jar, capped with blender washer/blades/base, immersed in a bowl of mildly hot water for 5 minutes. Blenderize on medium speed for 10 seconds. Pour mixture over salmon and top with grated cheese.

This recipe appears identically in both The Recipe for Living Without Disease and in the Benefits of Eggs and Cheese book, indicating it was one of his most consistent and important salmon preparations.

1 Serving - 5 to 8 ounces fresh ocean wild-caught raw salmon - 1 tablespoon slivered shallots - 2 tablespoons unsalted raw butter - 1 sliced mushroom - 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill - 1 egg - 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice - 1/4 to 1/2 chopped fresh hot pepper

Method: Blenderize egg, chilled butter, dill, and lemon juice together in a 4-ounce jar on high speed for 5 seconds. Cut salmon into strips and arrange in circular pattern on plate. Cover with blended mixture. Arrange shallot slivers on top and sprinkle with chopped hot pepper.

This recipe is referenced but the full recipe text was not available in the source passages. It is noted here for completeness as a documented salmon preparation.

While this recipe is not salmon-specific, it applies directly to wild-caught ocean fish including salmon:

1 Serving - 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root - 1 teaspoon WASABE or HORSERADISH - 3 tablespoons flax oil - 1 tablespoon very soft unsalted raw butter - 1/2 teaspoon unheated honey (optional) - 5 to 8 ounces fresh ocean wild-caught raw fish

Method: Vigorously stir all ingredients together, or blenderize in a 4-ounce jar on low speed for 5 seconds. Spoon over fish.

1 Serving - 3 ounces coconut cream - 1/2 to 1 diced tomato - 3 to 4 tablespoons fresh lime juice - 5 to 8 ounces fresh ocean wild-caught raw fish

Method: Stir coconut cream and lime juice together and let stand for 10 minutes. Dice meat. Place fish and marinate. This preparation is culturally validated by Aajonus's observations in Morea, where he watched native people prepare raw fish marinated in lime juice as a traditional food.

Referenced in both indexes and recipe sections, Aajonus's ceviche recipe specifies a marinating time of 10-40 minutes. The recipe includes: - Fresh lime or lemon juice - Diced apples - Diced red onion (optional) - Unheated honey (optional), if using honey, mix with lime or lemon juice until honey is dissolved - Tomato - Stir tomato, apple, and onion together and spoon over fish; marinate for 10-40 minutes

Referenced in the recipe index as a documented salmon/fish preparation, though the full recipe text was not available in the source passages.

• Cure the fish for 1-24 hours in lemon juice
• Pour off the lemon juice
• Add vinegar
• Store in glass containers only (never metal)
• Keep in refrigeration
• Consume within 1-4 weeks
• Expect possible slight gas/rank smell from fermentation
• Understand that this promotes, not stops, fermentation

Aajonus described a personal practice of bringing raw salmon and other foods through airport security and eating raw eggs in front of security personnel when they refused to hand-check his food. The implication is that he traveled with raw salmon regularly and was willing to assert his legal rights to consume it: "I eat it all before I go through. I eat it right there where they've been waiting."

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One of Aajonus's most specific documented exposés involved the farmed salmon industry's use of artificial food coloring. He described the following sequence of events:

1. The farmed salmon industry discovered that farmed fish, fed on industrial food waste rather than their natural diet, had pale, diseased-looking flesh rather than the rich red of wild salmon 2. "They looked at it and said, oh my God, looks diseased. So they lost a fortune those first two years" 3. "So they paid a fortune for the State of, the University of Washington... to develop a food coloring that they could give to these fish to make their flesh look rich and alive" 4. A report emerged approximately three years before the lecture stating that when this dye "is passed through the human body, it is not even a food substance" 5. "It can't be absorbed and causes lots of toxicity and it's a form of plastic that has a BPA and other kinds of toxic substances that can cause damage in the system" 6. The industry proceeded with this coloring regardless: "But they don't care. They just want you to buy whatever they can make money with. They want to farm salmon. Hey, who cares what happens to you."

Aajonus directly addressed the popular fear that eating raw salmon causes salmonella, a fear so entrenched that it had become a pun: "People were saying, 'Nobody eats raw salmon. Salmon, salmonella.'" Aajonus laughed at this and proceeded to dismantle the fear by pointing out that salmonella is a naturally occurring bacterium found in the human body's own cavities, nose, eyes, ears, under nails, with approximately 1,600 varieties present normally. He argued that salmonella in raw food is not the dangerous pathogen it is portrayed as, and that the danger comes from cooked food where bacterial waste products are toxic, not from raw food where the bacteria and its activity support natural detoxification.

He also made the point that the bacterial count in cooked meat and eggs must grow 60 times higher than in raw meat and eggs before producing a putrid odor, and that the waste produced by bacteria feeding on cooked food is "extremely toxic", whereas in raw food, the bacteria are performing useful biological work.

Aajonus described laboratory work, some apparently involving animals, some involving himself, that demonstrated the following: When animals ate raw fish containing toxins (including from contaminated sources), the fat molecules bound to those toxins passed through the digestive system "relatively undigested," meaning the body recognized them and did not absorb the toxin-fat complexes. When the same fish was cooked first, only 5-8% of the toxins were blocked, the rest entered the system as free radicals. He described this as evidence of the intestinal intelligence of the body: "Obviously your body and intestines are intelligent enough to know that, hey, we don't want to digest this."

Aajonus referenced his appearance on Ripley's Believe It or Not (first aired July 17, 2002) as a public, documented record of his experiments with parasite-infested foods including salmon. He used this as evidence to direct people to when they doubted his claims: "If you see that, and you see what I eat, you'll know that you shouldn't be afraid of anything after you see that." He appeared on the program twice.

Aajonus made explicit arguments about the legal right to eat raw fish. He pointed out that sashimi, steak tartare, and carpaccio are legally served on restaurant menus, and that any law against eating raw food would have to contend with the legal right of individuals to eat as they choose: "You have to prove to me that this is dangerous. Prove to me that this egg is dangerous. If you can't do that, you take me to court. And you think that I'm going to be found guilty for eating a raw egg? That it's a crime?" He also stated in legal guidance to others: "There is no legal case or direct science that says eating raw and/or high meat are dangerous and that they could kill you. If it were so, everyone who eats sushi, steak tartare, carpaccio and kibbe would be dead or in jail."

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