The 66-year-old nutritionist
was, in some ways, the father of the food rights movement, having
fought, often nearly alone, on various fronts over the last 15
years--in Los Angeles, in Washington DC, and in states around the
country for legalization of raw milk sales and the rights of
farmers to sell nutrient-dense food privately. It was his farm
lease and food club models that were the basis of the arrangements
used by Vernon Hershberger in Wisconsin and Alvin Schlangen in
Minnesota. Those arrangements and a half dozen others were the
common thread linking government legal assaults on farmers over the
last half dozen years, described in my book, Life, Liberty, and
the Pursuit of Food Rights. Vonderplanitz’s agreements, formed
under the auspices of a nonprofit organization he put together
known as Right to Choose Healthy Food, mostly stood up well to the
legal assaults.
But Vonderplanitz seemed to be
followed by controversy, never more so than when he went after his
old partner in arms, James Stewart, who launched the first
Vonderplanitz-conceived private food club: Rawesome Food Club in
Venice, CA., back in 2003 and 2004. Vonderplanitz began his assault
on his former partner in October 2010, a few months after the
initial government raid on Rawesome, accusing Stewart and a farmer
who supplied Rawesome, Sharon Palmer, of misrespresenting eggs her
farm supplied the food club.
Eventually, Vonderplanitz would
go to the Ventura County District Attorney with his allegations,
put up a web site to show off supposed evidence he had against
Palmer, and also file a civil suit against Stewart and
Palmer. He abandoned the civil suit a few months ago, coming to a
settlement that provided for him to take down the web site. He
insisted after the settlement that he had additional evidence and
allegations that he wanted to make public against
Palmer.
His seeming obsession with
endlessly lashing out at Stewart and Palmer alienated many food
rights supporters, and reportedly damaged his nutrition business.
He advocated raw foods of all sorts as a means to fight disease and
maintain health, and traveled around the U.S. and various parts of
the world holding get-togethers where he would teach about his raw
food concepts and diet.
He grew up Richard Swigart, and
changed his name in his early twenties. He also said he grew up
autistic, and credited raw milk and carrot juice, consumed on the
advice of a friend, with helping unshackle him from the effects of
the condition.
Vonderplanitz died in a rural
area of Thailand where he had a home, about three-and-a-half hours
from Bangkok. According to close friend Larry Otting, Vonderplanitz
was seriously injured a few days ago when he stepped out onto a
second-story balcony on the house, and it collapsed or a railing
collapsed. Vonderplanitz broke his back, and was taken to a local
hospital where he was placed in traction. He was in such intense
pain that he accepted pain-killing medication, and shortly after,
went into a coma and died.
Otting is planning to travel to
Thailand to retrieve Vonderplanitz’s body and bring it back to the
U.S. Vonderplanitz has a son, whom Otting said was unable to make
the trip.
While he’s there, Otting says he
plans “to investigate the balcony. It was strange that it just gave
way like that.”
Vonderplanitz related frequent
tales about mysterious attempts on his life--he figured government
or private corporate-hired agents working to derail his food rights
activities were behind the efforts. In one episode a few years ago,
he said he was tied to his bed in a hotel room in the Philippines
while agents injected him with various toxic substances. In another
last year, he said an auto he was driving in Thailand was
sabotaged, causing it to roll over into a swamp; he and his
girlfriend barely escaped from the car before they would have
drowned, in his telling.
Ironically, Vonderplanitz was in
Thailand in part because of yet another legal controversy.
According to Otting, Vonderplanitz was helping Otting pursue a
legal action against a Thai woman whom Otting had purchased a
machine to make coconut cream. The woman had failed to deliver the
machine after Otting and a group of investors had issued her a
check for $5,000, he alleges.
Otting told me that
Vonderplanitz didn’t have a direct interest in acquiring the
coconut machine--it was being acquired by a business group Otting
was involved with that wanted to produce a coconut cream sorbet.
Vonderplanitz “was just a good guy. He was trying to get us a
machine.” The machine uses the milk from coconuts to produce a
creamier thicker product than coconut milk.
Not surprisingly, reactions to
Vonderplanitz’s death among food rights supporters varied widely.
James Stewart, who adopted some of Vonderplanitz’s dietary
recommendations to turn around various health problems he had had,
said he had written Vonderplanitz an encouraging note earlier when
he was hospitalized. After learning of Vonderplanitz’s death,
Stewart wondered if his former colleague “had pushed the karmic
envelope” in the controversy over Sharon Palmer. “If he does get
reincarnated, he’ll come back and do a better
job.”
Otting said that Vonderplanitz
“saved my life. I was headed downhill healthwise back in 1998.
Using his diet, instead of losing wight and wasting away, I put on
about thirty pounds.” Otting allowed that Vonderplanitz “went a
little crazy about Sharon and James. But he felt he was lied
to.”
Otting expects there will be a
funeral or memorial service of some kind, probably in Los Angeles,
once he returns with Vonderplanitz’s body.
http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2013/august/29/death-life-controversy-follows-aajonus-vonderplanitz
