What Makes A Healthy Oil?

An interview with the guru of healthy oils, Udo Erasmus.

| BY ANNA MARIA CLEMENT, PhD, L N |

On a brisk Canadian autumn day, I sat with the world’s most famous man in the field of oils and fats, Udo Erasmus. This vibrant and fit 77-year-old teacher, author, and advocate had just finished his latest book. We spoke of his pioneering work and how he inadvertently sparked a new movement in 1986 due to his own revelations about self-heal-ing and omega oils known as essential fatty acids. These elements were first discovered in the late 1920s

when omega 6 was unveiled. Omega 3 made its appearance in 1981, and though there are others such as 9, 7, 5, and so on, these two have become powerfully important because of their foundational necessity. Udo spent eight years studying chemistry, biochemistry, and related conventional academics. He always felt there was something missing and found himself disenchanted enough not to pursue work in this field professionally.

As a father of three, his role as caretaker led him to the pesticide industry. After three years, this noxious occupation fully contaminated his body and left him weak and ill. When visiting physicians, they offered no remedy to remove these poisons from his body. Udo concluded that he must be his own advocate and find his way out of the grips of his disorder.

When you cook even a healthy oil, it contorts more than a million molecules. Cancer and other disorders notably rise out of this abnormal process.

Becoming acutely interested in all the available research, he was led to study fats and oils. When finding that 99 percent of the public does not harbor adequate amounts of omegas, it moved him to investigate further. A compilation of insight, knowledge, and passion made him want to produce oils with health in mind. Consuming these powerful foods in concord with sauna, fasting, diet, and supplementation brought about his recovery. He could no longer flounder once he unlocked the secrets that these nutrients held. By 1986, he put together Udo’s Oil, which was significantly based on flax, and recognizing there was an imbalance between omegas 6 and 3, he later added sunflower, sesame, primrose, lecithin, vitamin E, and a small amount of coconut oil. Now the real challenge came to educate the natural health industry and the general population.

Udo and a colleague loaded up their van with boxes of this oil in 1988. Over a 101-day period, they visited 35 states and 85 cities. This rock star-style voyage resulted in an explosion of interest in the omegas, and soon Udo and his oil became the aristocracy of all available products and knowledge.

Udo’s brand is marketed internationally, and in many countries, when you mention essential fats, they ask, “Do you mean Udo’s Oil?” Udo has become the “Kleen-ex” of tissues in the healthy oil industry more than three decades after he challenged the faulty studies that claimed the body could not convert plant-based varieties into usable forms. Of course, most of these so-called research conquests were funded by the fish oil industry.

Between the conventional food industry and the aquatic oil hucksters, one can be quite confused about which oil to use. We now, unfortunately, even have notable plant-based physicians telling you that all oils are bad. Processing, storage, chemicalizing, and cooking/frying are the real culprits in making this otherwise superior fare concerning. As Udo says, “Fry food, fry you.”

One revealing fact that he shared is that when you cook even a healthy oil, it contorts more than a million molecules. This is significant, since only two molecules, when changed, result in a morphed gene expression. Cancer and other disorders notably rise out of this abnormal process.

Udo created the platinum standard by demanding that you refrigerate these extraordinary, yet volatile, foods. Each and every cell requires essential fats. Your level of energy, both physically and mentally, is determined by whether or not you possess these essential agents of health. Udo says that as bad as sugar is, processed oil wreaks as much havoc in human health.

Hippocrates Wellness has clinically observed the significant role that unheated, unprocessed, organic oils play in overall well-being. Through loads of tests, we have discovered that while consuming an organic, uncooked, plant-based diet, your body easily converts these inherent fats into usable forms of energetic nutrients. There are now sage, algae, and berry seed oils, among others, making their way into research laboratories, furthering our knowledge in this pinnacle subject. How absurd it is to say that fish is a good source since the omega oil that they contain comes from sea plants. The largest and most successful company producing more than half of all the krill and fish oils on earth highly processes, significantly chemicalizes, and allows its product to oxidize. When Udo later attended the HHI program, he presented an enlightened exposé on the field of fats and oil nutrition.

We thank Udo for his diligent work, as it has helped millions to find better health.