2005 · Aajonus Vonderplanitz
We Want to Live
What this work is
A book setting out the Primal Diet: raw meat, raw dairy, raw eggs, and raw fats, with no cooked food. It is written partly as the story of Vonderplanitz's own illnesses and recovery and partly as a manual of food remedies. In the cancer section he reports a cohort: of 239 cases, 238 showed indications of reversal and 223 had survived, with roughly 90% reversal when there was no prior medical treatment and about 60% for lung and esophageal cancers. He argues that cooking destroys enzymes and nutrients, that raw foods let the body clear stored toxins and rebuild tissue, and that bacteria are not the cause of disease.
Then and now
Vonderplanitz counted 223 survivors among 239 cancer cases on a diet of raw animal foods, raw fruit, and honey. Mainstream medicine ignored the count and kept cancer care to surgery, radiation, and drugs.
Verdict
SCIENTIFIC
The work follows the scientific method, and the paradigm it assumes passes. Both layers must pass. The verdict is scientific.
1·This work · inside the paradigm
SCIENTIFIC
Follows the scientific method within Terrain Theory.
2·Paradigm · Terrain Theory
SCIENTIFIC
Passes all three tests.
How the verdict is decided
The verdict grades both layers: the paradigm this work assumes, and how the work was carried out inside it. Both must be scientific for the whole thing to be scientific. A clean method inside an unscientific paradigm is unscientific. An unscientific method inside a better paradigm is unscientific. A split on either layer is mixed. The worse layer decides.
1·This work
Did this work test its claim with methods that are independent, falsifiable, and non-circular?
SCIENTIFIC
This work claims that a diet of raw animal meats, raw dairy, raw fruits and vegetables, and unheated honey facilitates cancer remission and recovery from serious illness, with 223 of 239 cancer cases surviving. All three tests pass.
Independently Verifiable
Pass
A tumor shrinking, a person surviving, and a person dying are events anyone can witness without first accepting that raw food heals the terrain.
Falsifiable
Pass
The author reports 14 deaths out of 239 cases, a 60% reversal rate for lung and esophageal cancers, and one case that did not reverse, so the diet's success was not guaranteed by the design.
Non-Circular
Pass
The diet is defined by its physical ingredients, not by the outcome it claims to produce, and the observation of survival does not require the terrain model to run first.
Why
Survival, death, and a shrinking tumor are events a stranger can see, and the diet is defined by what is on the plate, not by whether the patient got better. The book reports its failures with reasons: 14 deaths, one case that did not reverse, and weaker results for lung and esophageal cancers. A diet that did nothing would have shown up in those same counts.
2·Paradigm · Terrain Theory
Does the framework this work assumes pass the three tests?
SCIENTIFIC
Independently Verifiable
Pass
The terrain is the condition of the host, and whether a tumor shrinks or a patient survives is observable without joining any pathogen or genetic model first.
Falsifiable
Pass
If raw food did not produce remission in these cancer cases, the terrain claim would have nothing to stand on, and the reported failures show the outcome was not predetermined.
Non-Circular
Pass
The terrain framework was built from what could be seen in the organism, and this paper's observations of tumor reversal and survival do not require the terrain model to define them before they can be counted.
Why
Terrain theory starts from what is visible in the body: digestion, wasting, recovery, and death. The book applies it to cancer. Its claim is that raw food restores the body and the body clears the tumor. Whether that happened is visible: tumors shrink or not, people live or die. The deaths and the weaker results by cancer type are reported as failures, not as exceptions that protect the theory. If raw food had produced no remissions, the claim would have collapsed.
From the work
Only 1 of 239 cases did not achieve indications of reversal. Of those 239 cases, 223 have survived.
Fourteen of those who died were malnourished and very thin. They either refused to eat because of nausea or were unable to eat enough because of pain medication that destroyed their appetites and/or made them nauseous.
The lowest reversal rate for cancer on the Primal Diet for people who did not receive any medical treatments has been approximately 90% for all cancers except lung and esophageal. The reversal rate for lung and esophageal cancers has been approximately 60% without any medical treatments.
The efficacy of all of the dietary wisdom in this book is from experience