5 Star Wellbeing Podcast
5 Star Wellbeing Podcast
Udo Erasmus - Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill
This is a super informative episode with guest Udo Erasmus.
Udo is an acclaimed speaker and author of many books, including the best-selling Fats That Heal Fats That Kill, which has sold over 250,000 copies.
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Music by Ian Hildebrand
All right, so wonderful today to welcome Udo Erasmus to the show. I'm really excited to have him on. He's certainly been interviewed by many people a lot more famous than me, which wouldn't be hard, but I'm really feeling a bit starstruck and really delighted that he's with me today. Udo is a health, wellness, spiritual and human nature educator. Just the title is fascinating. So I'm sure we're going to get lots and lots of beautiful wisdom today. So Udo, can we just start with a bit of an introduction into you your origin story, and why it is where you are now?
Udo Erasmus:Sure. So I I was born during the Second World War in what was then Poland, was then Germany, but is now Poland. And my parents came from Latvia and Estonia, we had they had German Swedish background. And when Stalin and Hitler made their non aggression pact, part of Latvia went to the Soviet Union and part of Poland went to Germany. But there was nobody from Latvia or Poland at the meeting. So they just took it. Because they were big and they could, right. So my parents left Latvia, because they loved Russians, but they hated communism, because communism was a dictatorship. They took everything away from everybody and made it state owned. So they had because they had German background, they ended up in Poland and part of Germany. So I was born on a stolen farm. And, and I was a refugee kid, when I was two and a half years old. Born in 1942, so in 1945, we were refugees fleeing from the communists in tanks and trucks. on dirt roads, in horse drawn horse drawn hay wagons, mostly women with young children, because the men were all either dead or at war, or in prisoner of war camps, wherever. Yep, my mother had six, and there was no military presence on those roads. And the allies, the good guys, you know, the good guys, they were using the us refugees as target practice - shooting us from planes
Arwen Bardsley:oh, my goodness,
Udo Erasmus:and a and, and then it became unsafe to be on the road. So my mother had six kids, they were six, and under. Two of them were kids that she took because their parents had perished during the war, four were her own. And she then decided to go through the fields, it was winter, but it was safer in the fields than to be on the road. So she left four kids behind two of her own, and the other two, with a farmer who was supposed to take us to Berlin to relatives. And, and, but by the time he got there, they had already flown because, you know, everybody was fleeing. And I ended up in an orphanage for I don't know how long several weeks until my mother's sister caught up with her and found out and then she came back behind enemy lines and fished us out. I don't remember a lot from the war. But I remember hunger. I remember confusion, chaos, didn't know what I could trust. And not feeling safe. Because there were live bullets. This was live stuff, right? dead horses and dead people in the ditches. You know, so I really I just remember like, like the, you know, anxiety this is I mean, if that's my fallback if I don't if I'm not conscious? I'll go like this.Totally anxious. Anxious, right. And we made we eventually got reunited made it out living in Germany I'm six years old. And I'm listening to people arguing adults arguing about things that I thought were trivial at six year old, so it must have been really just stupid stuff. And it always made me really uncomfortable. And, and the thought occurred to me, that must be a way that people can live in harmony. And this little cocky voice that doesn't know how complicated everything is. I'm going to find out how that's basically been my driver. And because I was very shy, I got into books, because books are safe. You know, you can read about a war in a book, but there are no bullets flying. And, you know, there's no, it's like it's safe, right? And when it came to studying, I wanted to find out how things work. So I got into science to figure out how things work. Because, you know, if you're insecure, the knowing how things work gives you a certain amount of predictability and safety that comes from that. Then I got into Biosciences to figure out how creatures work. Then I got into psychology to figure out how thinking works. And I got into medicine because I wanted to Know how health works, but we only learned about disease. So I only lasted a year and went back into biological sciences, because I had recognized at that point that when you study biology, any of the biological sciences, you're actually studying the normal functioning of normal creatures in normal situations, which is almost a definition of health, normal function, right? And so I got back into biochemistry in genetics, and then there was still something missing. You know, and I left university and then I got into self knowledge. And it turned out that the thing the only thing that I really needed to really know was how do I work? And so that's kind of my background. When I was 30, my marriage broke up. We had three kids, marriage broke up, I was really angry. I was really upset. I wanted to kill something and I had taken a pesticide applicators license in a gardening job I had, so I took a full time job as as a pesticide sprayer, because pesticides are only made to kill living things. Right. So it was a perfect job for me. I wanted to kill something. And I was really careless and I walked over the lawns I I sprayed barefoot till the skin peeled off the bottom of my feet. At that point, I started wearing rubber boots, wellies, you know what wellies are right? I started wearing wellies. But it's a it was a summer job. So I did in a bathing suit with wellies. And I had a tractor and because I like to get a tan because I was a like, like a blonde guy, right? And you know, if you're discontent, whatever your skin color is you want it different I wanted, I didn't want to have blue eyes, I want to brown eyes. I want to have darker skin and I wanted to have black hair. Right? Well, at least I could get the skin part. By my doing a job in a bathing suit. You're driving a tractor on a bathing suit with a big tank of pesticides behind it. And the wind would drift a spray on my back. And one of my partners in the business not like that I worked with said to me, as a lady, you know. She said to me, aren't you worried you're gonna get poisoned? And I said, '"Nah I'm immune". And we call that testosterone poisoning happens to a lot of young men until they have their major first major disaster. My disaster came three years later, I got poisoned by the pesticides I sprayed, went to the doctor said what do you have for pesticide poisoning? And she said, real short answer nothing. And that day, the penny really dropped for me. Oh my God, my health is really my responsibility. And I was never like a junk food eater so much. But I never really took responsibility. deliberately took responsibility of my health. And now I had to right. And so because I had the background in sciences, I went into the research and looked at health and nutrition, disease and nutrition. You know, because I knew the body is made out of food. Of course, it's made out of food, water, air and and solar energy. But I wasn't thinking about that. At that point. It was just food. So I studied food, all the different molecules, and ended up getting stuck in studying oils because they were so confusing. That's why the book is called "Fats that heal fats that kill". There are two completely opposite stories about fats, and health. And, and the thing that really got me was it said Omega six is essential, it's an essential fatty acid. It's called linoleic acid. It's been known to be essential since 1929. And essential means that you have to bring it in from outside because you cannot make it from anything else in your body. And if you don't bring it in, or do you don't bring enough in, you cannot stay healthy, your health will deteriorate, you will get deficiency symptoms. They are degenerative in nature, you're literally falling apart. And the symptoms get worse with time. And if you don't get enough, long enough, you die. These are the essential building blocks for body construction, body maintenance, energy production, and, and so on. Right? There's 42 of them. And the good news on the on the damage that's done by not getting enough is that if before you die while you're deteriorating, you bring enough of them back into the diet. Then all the problems that come from not getting enough are reversed because life knows how to construct a body that works provided we take responsibility here at our mouth, to make sure that all of the essential building blocks land into in the body, so life can do its job with them. And if we want optimum health, instead of just minimum health, then we need to optimize our intake of those 42 essential nutrients. And they are 18 minerals, 13 vitamins, nine essential amino acids that come from proteins, and two essential fatty acids that come from fats. And there are no essential carbohydrates! Carbohydrates are the least important food, they're okay for energy, but they cause lots of problems if you eat more than you burn. I call them undeclared fats, because if you don't burn them, you're going to wear them, you force the body to turn them into fat. And then you start to store the fat. Right. And that comes mostly from carbohydrates, although there are people who say that comes from eating fats, and it's not true in my experience.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah, well,
Udo Erasmus:so. So and then so. So essential nutrients, so Omega six is an essential nutrient. And the other researchers on omega sixes said, 'and they give you cancer and kill you'. I'm going what? Right? This is essential for your health, if it gives you cancer and kills you at the same time. This is like it just I mean, it drove me crazy. Yeah, couldn't compute. And finally what it did, it drove me to look deeper. And I started looking at how oils are made. And it turns out that oils are the most sensitive of all of our nutrients. They're damaged by light by oxygen by heat. They need the most care of any of our nutrients. And we give them the least care we throw them in the frying pan and turn them into smoke. And we think that, you know that if you turn oil into smoke, you know, you've changed the chemistry. And then I found out the year after I got poisoned 1980 I got poisoned 1981 It was established that omega three is also an essential nutrient. And 99% of the population doesn't get enough Omega three for optimum health. Every cell needs them. They're a nightmare to work with. And I came to you know, and I have learned about the damage done by by industrial processing as well as food preparation. And, and because they're enormously difficult to work with. And because I knew that I couldn't get healthy on damaged oils from my pesticide poisoning. I said, Man, we should be making oils with health in mind. And then and that meant that you have to take the oils from the seed or nut where they're well protected by nature's packaging, through the pressing, the filtering, the settling the filling, till they're in a brown glass bottle, nitrogen flushed and in a box to keep the light out in the fridge, in the factory or in the store or in your home. So you need to take a lot of care. And of course, people are not used to taking that kind of care of oils. When I found out that omega threes are also essential. I had it's like, I lit up like a firecracker, oh my god, we could help so many people, if we could make oils with health in mind and bring the missing omega threes back into the diet of people we could there there has to be lots of symptoms from not getting enough. And we could be able to life would reverse all those symptoms. If we provided the building blocks in in in an undamaged form and the enthusiasm that came out of that realization. I think there is something in human beings that delights in being able to help And that just like I got obsessed I lit up like like a fire truck I goes oh my god, we could help so many people. And so we built a we built a method. That's really my claim to fame is I developed a method for making oils with health in mind gives them the care they need. So they don't lose their health benefits. Right and and whatever all of that that's that's and then we started with flaxseed oil because flax is the richest source of Omega three. That is that is affordable and available. And so we started with flaxseed oil, we turned that into a into the second highest selling oil in the natural foods trade in US in within two years. We did we did a tour in a van in 1988 in the hottest months in the US. So it was like half of June half of September. All of July and August. We went 101 days. 85 cities 35 states 17,000 miles by road in a van without air conditioning. I slept on the floor of the van, my driver who was also the guy who made the deals, he had built himself a bunk across the back, we had our clothes on a broomstick broom, you know, a broomstick, inside the double doors. And every two or three days, because it was so hot and sticky. In Phoenix, we actually fried an egg on the on the pavement. We didn't eat it. But that's how hot it was. Right? And we So, and then we found out that if we ate carbs, we would get tired. And if we ate meat, we would feel heavy. So we did all but the first 14 days in which we figured that out, did it on Raw, fresh vegetables, like heads of cabbage and broccoli, you know, that's what we had. That's what we ate. We didn't eat anything except fresh, raw vegetables, that was my first pass at plant based living, and talk to anybody who would listen to us, you know, from two people to 100 to 1500 people, and just people got excited. And we had said, Really, I have no business background. I didn't like business. I just like, you know, I but I love nature. And I had really good academic background. I was also really shy. But the enthusiasm. I mean, when I if I had to give a talk in class, I would find a reason not to go to school. And I never asked a single question in class in either in high school or in university, and I spent like six years in university, I was that shy. The idea of I'm, I'm asking question more than two eyeballs looking at me, that would freak me out. But the enthusiasm for this thing dragged me through all my fears. And now it's like, I'm so comfortable. I still like to know what I'm talking about when I'm on stage. But I am so comfortable. When I know what I'm talking about. I'm comfortable. And it's almost like, well, you could expect that if somebody says he's never going to write a book, and he's never going to do anything on stage. Do you know that somewhere down the line? Destiny? Well, we'll take that on.
Arwen Bardsley:Never say, yeah,
Udo Erasmus:yeah, so and so that's, that was like, and then I spent 15 years, living out of a suitcase on the road six to nine months every year, in about 40 countries just talking about why oils are important. What what omega threes are why making the most health in mind is important. And then just talked about oils. And then we got into digestion with digestive enzymes and probiotics and fiber, and then got into greens, because everybody knows they're supposed to eat the greens, most people don't. So we made them portable, and made him put in shakable. Yes, smoothies and stuff. So that's what I've been doing. And then I've been just expanding it. And now it's like anything that has to do with human nature or with nature, is what I like to talk about, and how we live in alignment with nature and our nature. Because everything affects health. And any step we take out of line in eight different arenas of life. Every step we take out of line, you will eventually pay something in terms of illness, or depression, or, or confusion or emptiness, or heartache. And every step we take back in line with it. We get we get it back. So that's a model I have we call it the total sexy health. Right sexy is when you're aligned with all eight parts of nature and human nature. And anytime anytime you get out of line in any one of them that will take away some of your sexy. And so that's the model. So that's kind of the shorts.
Arwen Bardsley:I'd definitely like to to ask you about that the your eight step model. But before I do that. A few questions that came up for me along the way of what you've just been saying first of all, so with the pesticide poisoning, you know, usually now when I'm talking about that with people, it'll be more in terms of Well, you probably don't know this but that might be something you know, to consider or to look into or to be tested for. But in your case, were you you know completely sure right off the bat that okay, I've learnt my lesson I've been sitting here in my bathers, in the tractor and that's what it must be. So what exactly what symptoms did you have?
Udo Erasmus:Oh, this Symptoms I had was nausea, dizziness, cramps, and energy like an 80 year old I was 38. And literally if I walked around a city block, I had to sit down and rest.
Arwen Bardsley:Right. Okay.
Udo Erasmus:I always had I always had lots of energy. I'm 79 I, you know, I got energy. Yeah, so that was that. And the other one, just one symptom that was really strange. If I turned my head, it felt like my head turned, but my brain didn't. Now that's not possible. But what that's what it felt like it was a really strange experience.
Arwen Bardsley:Wow. Okay. And so did you kind of self diagnose Then did you go I think it's the pesticides, or...
Udo Erasmus:Yeah, it was, it was even easier than that. Because we were spraying in, you know, the big tanks that the hold crude oil in they put dams around them, so that if it breaks and you end up with a lake of oil. And it doesn't just flow everywhere into people's houses and stuff. But we used to spray soil sterilants, which means the stuff that kills everything that's growing there. Because Because people and I sprayed them around there, and we were not allowed to clean up for lunch. In the facility that we were spraying. They wouldn't allow us to clean up and I licked some off my fingers. And I didn't. I didn't say hey, let me lick that off my finger. But I was eating my sandwich and ya know, off my finger and then the symptoms happened very, very quickly. It was like minutes.
Arwen Bardsley:Wow. Okay. Yeah, awful. And so and then my next question along your journey was, when you were then you know, you're given the answer of No, you know, there's nothing you can do about it by the doctor. And you went to research yourself? Was there much, you know, information out there at that point?
Udo Erasmus:No, that's, what a great question. Actually, what I did first is I went to the the government agency that gave us the course that I had to pass, I got 99 and a half percent on the course. So I knew this stuff. And and when I got poisoned, I got in touch with them. And I said, Can I come? Can I come and use the literature you have on pesticide poisoning? They wouldn't let me do that. And in fact, they had somebody say, to me, this is a usual the usual whitewash that you sometimes get from industries that are hiding the damage of what they're doing. You know, we're, you know, so there's a lot that have that that goes on over the years. I've seen a lot of it right. And so they said to me, now you probably just got the flu because some of the symptoms are flu-like some of the symptoms of pesticide poisoning or flu like. And I got mad because I knew what had happened. And I know I didn't have the flu, and I've had enough flus to know what they're like. And so I went to Greenpeace. Greenpeace began in Vancouver, where I am right. And I went to Greenpeace, it was a young organization. And I asked them and I was put in touch with two women who had a long stack of papers on the effects of pesticide poisoning, including one paper where they talked about, you know, there was a guy who was a pesticide sprayer like me and he had he had a big tank that he was spraying out of, either you get a gun that you that you shoot pesticides, or you get a something where you spread them over a lawn or something, right. And I had a tank like that as well. And the tank has a lid, you know, you pour in the water, then you put in pesticide concentrate, then you put in some spreader sticker, you know, so that the pesticides don't drip off of whatever he sprayed him on it. So it sticks. That's called spreader sticker. You put some of that in, and then it's it churns while you're spraying. So, a guy was the lid came loose, and he started he took a wrench to tighten it. And the wrench slipped and fell into the tank. And automatically he put his hand into retrieve retrieve the wrench and dropped dead that fast. Oh, that's because the pesticides got absorbed through his skin. And I don't know what he was spraying but all of them you know, the only reason we make pesticides is to kill living things and usually do it either by poisoning the brain or by poisoning energy production. Right. So I was lucky I never that never happened to me. And I was also eating very simply, and mostly Whole Foods. And I think that helped me because a lot of the people who did what I did ended up getting cancer because more than 60% of the pesticides we spray are carcinogenic. And then I and then when I went to Greenpeace, then they, you know, I started doing saunas, you know, sweating is a really good way to detox. It's probably the most underused because oil soluble Toxins will come out in the oil, part of the sweat, and water soluble poisons will come out of the water soluble part of the sweat. And they can you can measure that. And it's been done. And they've noticed, they've measured the decrease in the body through sweating. And they've they've measured the amount of oil soluble and water soluble pesticides in the sweat. So there's research from the mid mid mid 80s. So yeah, so. And then I started, I started reading and thinking and then I started taking supplements, and I started paying attention antioxidants, and, and I started paying even more attention to how I was eating. And fundamentally, I managed to manage to put it aside, um, I had the beginnings of arthritis in my knees when I was 38. Not very bad. But when I bent my legs and put a little pressure on my knees, they would hurt. I'm 79 I got nothing. I got no pain anywhere in my body, but I am paying attention now. And it was the pesticide poisoning that really rubbed my nose in in the value of what we can do, if we're willing to take do self responsible health care.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah. So obviously, you know, most people are not going to have anywhere near those exposure levels, to pesticides that you had. But and you know, I'm a huge proponent for recommending to people that they buy organic foods, whenever they can, you know, at whatever level they can afford to do so buy the foods that you eat the most of try and buy those ones organic. But I guess I just, I'm just interested to get your perspective on, you know, what people need to know about pesticides in terms of everyday exposure for most people, and what they can do other than organic eating? Are there other things that we should be doing or we should be aware of?
Udo Erasmus:Well, I would say this, if you think and I tend to look at it this way, when I try to find the answer to a problem in health. I always want to look at how was it in nature before we got civilized? Because most of our degenerative diseases came with civilization. We used to call them the diseases of civilization. Because they don't they don't exist among the uncivilized. So then the question is, the question is, well, what is health? Where does health come from? How was health created? Well, it wasn't the pharmaceutical companies created it, is wasn't the governments that created, it wasn't the medical profession that created it. Health was was created by life in nature, and the genetic program that we have that that, you know, builds and repairs and renews the body on a constant consistent basis. That program was put together by life in nature, and it is only made to work properly, when we live in line with nature and our nature. And that's why again, you know, every step you take out of line with nature. So it mean, and what was that? What was the standard? Fresh? Whole? raw, organic? That's how all the animals eat, except for us. Yeah, and the animals we eat. Right. And for humans, in most places, mostly plant based. Because there was a time when we only had rocks to hunt with. And when we hunted with rocks, when the hunters hunted with rocks, they came home empty handed most of the time. Because, you know, animals run away and fly away and swim away. Right? And when they came home empty handed then they ate plants because plants are really easy to hunt down and kill. Because they don't run away and they don't fight back. So PLANT BASED that so plant based, and then and so then the question is, well when we come into civilisation, what does it take? What do we need to do in order to live as close to in line with nature as we possibly can? So that then there you say, Okay, well eat organic as much as you can. What you don't know what most people don't know, is there's pesticides in our oils. And that was a shock to me, when I found that out, I called the oil chemist society, because I found out about 1% of the molecules in our cooking oils are damaged. And if you do the math, then if you take a tablespoon of an oil that is 1%, damaged. There are more than a million damaged molecules for every one of your body's 16 trillion cells in that oil. So I so I called them and I said, you know, why do you do this? You know, it's doing you know, and of course, I'd been poisoned, so I was sick, I was trying to be healthy. So you know, you get pretty focused and you can become pretty anally accurate, you know, want the truth and I adhere to it. So I said, Why do you do this? He said, Well, we can get rid of 50% of the pesticides in the oil. And I go, Oh, my God, I never even knew there were pesticides in oils, right? Because that was that's all new to me. Right? And so I said to him, Well, why don't you start with organically grown seeds? And there was this long silence at the other end of the phone. And I waited, I can talk but I can wait too. When he came back, he was really angry. I don't know what your problem is. The oil is just 1% damaged. It's 90%. Good. 99%. Good. And if you got 99% on an exam, you'd be damn happy, wouldn't you? So then I thought, well, maybe I'm overreacting. And that's when I did the math. I ask people, How many? How many damaged molecules do you think are there in an in a tablespoon of oil, all of the estimates are a billion times lower than actual. So that means you are you you are thinking that you are doing much less, that you're doing a billion times less damage to yourself, by using those oils, than you're actually doing and then you know, in a way, it's like, maybe it's time to rethink maybe your body does need an oil change from to get dirty oils out and to bring clean oils in to make a habit, because they're major nutrients, like two to four tablespoons a day. And, and maybe you need to take your frying pan out and turn it upside down and hit yourself on the head with it really hard. It is the dumbest thing we've ever invented to do to our health. Because you burn everything, right? And you burn protein, you increase cancer, you burn starch, you increase cancer, and you burn oils, you increase cancer, all independent of each other. So everything you overheat in your frying pan increases your risk of cancer. Right. And when people know that, you know, then then they have a basis for making some changes and making better choices. So um, so I don't know if that answers your question. Yes. So Oh, yeah. So, so we're talking about fresh, whole raw, organic, mostly plant based. And then I say to people, okay, look at where you are. In your cooking, maybe if you're frying, then maybe cook in water more, maybe steam more, is the next step, maybe eat some of it raw, and gradually eat more and more of your food raw. You obviously have to do that gradually because your system is not used to doing that. And then for a while, it'll kick up, kick up a fuss. And the same thing if you got if you got organic if you got if you got pesticide sprayed, you know get something organic as as much as you can. If you can't afford to go 100% organic, well then go 10% organic? No, but don't do it. But don't say I can't do it perfectly. So forget anything. People tend to do that. And fresh whole, whole, you know, the way nature makes it, not processed processing is a huge area of damage to our foods and damage to our health. And it's the processing of oils. That was the issue. Not the oils themselves.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah. So do you want to tell us a bit more at this point then about your the process that you designed to to make the processing of them and so are you with this as well? We'll just before you say that, so talking about the oil oils having pesticides in them. So are we talking about any non organic oil is likely to have pesticides in it? Is it some types of oil more than others?
Udo Erasmus:Nobody knows. Measure it right farmer sprays what the farmer sprays? So you don't know but part of you know, so half of them come out the other half stay in. Yeah, right. And, and so, so in because oils are so important and have so many important functions, that would be one of the first places I would clean up. The second one I would decrease my intake of, of carbs that are not organic, because what they've learned is they use glyphosate. Monsanto's glyphosate. They use it on the grain crops, sometimes beans, and like soybeans and all the grains. Yep, they put it they spray it on those plants in order to desiccate them, and desiccate is is part of the drying process. And what that does this then you get this whole uniform field, they all dry at the same time. They all ripen at the same time. That makes the harvest much easier for the farmer and you get better yields. But you end up with glyphosate in your in your foods. Now, I used to spray glyphosate when I had my pesticide job. This was in in the like 76 to 80 1980. So early when glyphosate came out, and the company had written on the glyphosate "inactivated on contact with soil". That was their big argument. I was oh my god, that's a that's cool. Finally we have a thing that does its job and then becomes harmless.
Arwen Bardsley:So it doesn't go into the soil. Is that what you mean?
Udo Erasmus:No, that's what they said. And the truth was, it was never true. It was never true. It was a lie. It was an advertising lie. And that lie is basically folk wisdom now. So to actually get all the people who were lied to, to understand that this was not true. So like that'll take decades, right? And so I've gone more in the direction of green plants, you know, broccoli and cabbage and like, like the water, rich vegetables, and more off the grains, partly because they stimulate fat production. If you eat more than you burn, you can get carb addiction very easily from low blood sugar levels, but partly because they you know, if they're not organic, you know, and who knows who's lying about that, too. So yeah, it's like it's like it's a it's a it's a crapshoot. Basically. You don't know, you don't know what what you're getting. So you need to know your sources. You need to grow it yourself. Backyard garden. You know, then if you'd grow it yourself, then you know what you're doing? You know, as long as your soil is clean, right?
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah. Yeah. Which is also hard to know. A lot of the time.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah. And but they slowly, slowly, whatever junk you've put in your, on your lawns. Yeah, slowly that deteriorates. Maybe if it ever rains in Australia, then some of this washed away by the water. Right? Yeah, it all ends up in the ocean, which is why seafood is now the worst, the dirtiest meat in the planet. Yeah. Right. But at least it's going off the land and you can grow plants on the land. You know. And of course, at some point, we're under pressure to clean up our act, because the way we've been living on this planet is so destructively, you know, greedy killers instead of grateful gardeners.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think I think we are absolutely at that point now or we've passed it and we need to really be acting super fast.
Udo Erasmus:Am I answering any any of your questions.
Arwen Bardsley:Yes. But so yeah, so let's go back to the, the the oil processing design that you came up with all the machinery or the actual process? Yeah, yeah.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah. Well, you start with organically grown seeds. Yeah, like I suggested to the industry, right? Yep. So that you don't need to deal with pesticides. And then you have to make a very, very tight system so that no light no oxygen, gets to the oil, during the whole pressing, filtering, settling and filling process. Because when you do that, you're not damaging the oil and then you do it at as low a temperature as possible. Like we don't you know, the oil industry does that at frying temperature. So those oils are fried before you get them before you buy them in the store. They've already been fried. And that's to get rid of rancidity, because they treated with sodium hydroxide, which is a very corrosive base, we use it to see, so you, you have to treat them, you have to treat them with care, so that you don't have a mess to clean up at the backend because you were careless at the front end. But the industry says oh, well, you know, we can we can just mess it up and then let it sit around and deteriorate, and then we'll just do a chemical feast to clean it up. But in the chemical feast, you're doing damage, you're doing damage to the oil molecules that need to be undamaged. And so and then they we, we put it in glass bottles, because plastic leeches into oil quicker than into water. And when you get plastic in your body, you get a chronic low grade inflammation. And you increase risk of cancer from plastics in your body as well. Yes, now we get plastic in our fish. And when you eat the fish, then the plastic from the fish goes through your digestive system and ends up in your body too. And you know, so and then it goes, we put a box around it to cut the light out because light still goes through brown glass bottles, we use brown glass, not clear glass. And then and then you it's nitrogen flushed so that you don't have oxygen in the headspace that makes the oil go rancid. Right, that gets put in the, in the refrigerator, in the factory in the stores at home. And when we ship it to Asia, from from North America, to Asia to Australia to Europe, it gets shipped refrigerated. Now we do that for ice cream and steaks. But for some reason, we've never done it for the most sensitive molecules in our whole nutritional situation. And so we decided to give them the care they need. So they retain the health benefits. And then we started getting results started with flax oil, because that's the richest source of Omega threes. And we started getting results and people got excited. And they told their friends. And that's why it grew into the second highest oil in two years. And we were charging four times more than what people were used to paying for oils. We told the story and people tried it. And it actually they saw results. Most of all of these nutritional supplements, the one that most consistently gets noticeable benefits, sometimes quite unexpected benefits in situations that I didn't know, it would help. And when that happens, people get excited. Not only does it open them up to the possibility of other things that they could do to improve their health, but they also talk to their friends about it. And that helped us a lot.
Arwen Bardsley:can you just tell us what some of those, you know, kind of tangible results were what were people what differences were they finding in themselves?
Udo Erasmus:Yeah, yeah, and we did some studies with them with the oils as well. But the biggest rant is skin makes a skin soft, smooth and velvety. Because Omega three and six together form a barrier in the skin against the loss of moisture in the mix make gives you soft, smooth, velvety skin. No Dry Skin shows up in deserts more than in humid climate. And in winter more than in summer. When your skin is dry, you need more oil, because skin gets a blast and loses it first. Right because you you know inner organs need the essential fatty acids more than the I mean they're they're extremely important to inner organs, but you can live with dry skin. So nature sets it up. You know organs get at first. If your skin is soft and velvety you know that you've tanked up and you have enough oil in your body. That's usually about a tablespoon per per 50 pounds or 25 kilograms of body weight per day. And the tablespoons we use are 15 milliliters I think in in England they're 20 mils I don't know what they are in Australia.
Arwen Bardsley:I'm pretty sure that that ours, well I think we have some both as we do with most things, some from the UK some from the US. Yeah, so but yeah,
Udo Erasmus:that would be 14 grams in a tablespoon 15 militetres, 14 grams. And so I weighed 200 pounds, not quite 180 pounds. I use four tablespoons in winter in summer two or three. We need less than summer in winter more of it is burned for energy to keep you warm. Well that obviously then won't end up in your skin because it ends up you know it ends up being burned. So yeah, so that's, that's
Arwen Bardsley:so that's so the main thing people noticed
Udo Erasmus:Oh yeah. So that's, that's the biggest rant. Energy levels. We did a study with athletes, and both in strength and endurance sports, that we measured their performance to exhaustion in their sport. And then we put it in my new oil. But now we're not talking about flax oil we're talking about Udo's Oil which is a blend that we created because I became Omega six deficient on flax oil. It's not it's poorly balanced, right. So we get they took a tablespoon per 50 pounds of body weight per day, mixed in food and their intake spread out over the course of the day. And within 30 days, on average, they had a 40 to 60% increase in their performance when they did their sport to exhaustion. And there's not a training program on the planet that gets you those kinds of results. So that's a huge one. And that happens. So it happens within 30 days. The skin some sometimes people notice within within hours. We usually say try it for a month. Because for it's not everybody sees it immediately. Brain Function. Probably six months, you will notice you process things better. There's research that says your IQ will go up by three to nine points. We could use that. Well. We live in stupid times. And we need more smarts.
Arwen Bardsley:Yes, I agree.
Udo Erasmus:hair and nails grow about 25% Faster, you don't get the split ends and you don't get split nails or crack cracking nails, as much. Pregnancy huge, huge, because every time a woman has a child, the child depletes her brain of omega threes. Because a mother has to maintain her brain and then build a new brain for the baby. So when women most women, like most men don't get enough, don't get optimum intake. So the research says every child depletes the mother further, and each child gets less than the previous child. And that's the reason why oldest children on average, there are other factors involved. But on average, the oldest children have the highest IQ. And the IQ goes down with birth order. Isn't that interesting, right?
Arwen Bardsley:I'm an eldest child, that's okay. You can say that!
Udo Erasmus:Yeah, yeah, I'm the youngest of four. And I'm smarter than the rest of my siblings, but they're not here to to defend themselves. So I can say that without consequences. And they also think that's the reason why women get more chronic fatigue, collagen diseases, autoimmune diseases, depression. And men do they get those conditions two to 15 times more frequently than men. And the depletion of essential fatty acids during pregnancy, sets them up for those conditions. We've worked with animals who, like dogs, particularly litters, they have litters of sometimes 13 pups, they don't have the energy to look after them. When we gave them the oil at a tablespoon per 100 pounds of body weight per day. They had sometimes had even bigger litters and had lots of energy afterwards. So the baby brain is an essential fatty acid deficiency symptom of postpartum depression. The omega threes elevate mood and lift depression. Good research on that. They make both keep bones stronger, because they inhibit the bone breakdown cells, the osteoclasts. And they don't affect the osteoblasts. So the bone growing cells stay normally active, and the bone breakdown cells slow down. I mean, and last time I looked, there were like 160 conditions where omega threes helped, which is you what you would expect if every cell needs them, and hardly anybody gets enough. Right. And that's why it was so exciting to see oh my god, we could help so many people and sometimes they dampen the overall response of immune of the immune system in autoimmune diseases. They they are, they lower most of the cardiovascular risk factors, like high triglycerides, high cholesterol, sticky platelets, CRP, which is C reactive protein and inflammatory. They they decrease inflammation, the body actually makes a very powerful anti inflammatories out of Omega three essential fatty acids, and also very powerful antioxidants. And also immune enhancing molecules and also mood enhancing molecules. And there's lots of things that are made from the essential fatty acids in the body. You know, this? You know, there's research that I saw just recently, this cytokine storm that people have talked about in from, from virus in from a modern virus infection, let's put it that way. Right. is made from arachidonic acid, which is an Omega six, essential fatty acid derivative. And they increase inflammation and they increase they, they have negative effects, which are good for healing sometimes, but when they're chronic, it's not good, and most people get too much Omega six in their diet, but too little Omega three, well the Omega threes block those reactions, and inhibit them. And so omega threes undamaged, made with health in mind play a role in the not just in the in the cardiovascular issues, but also the immune immune function issues and the lung issues of some of the modern viruses. And again, and then digestive enzymes take a load off the off the immune system because they you know, when when digestion isn't working, then the immune system has to get involved in digestion, then it's not free to do its other jobs. And probiotics are helpful. And of course, Vitamin D is super helpful. Because the the poor outcomes are very strongly associated with low vitamin D status. Our problem is we don't run around naked in the sun enough. Right. Or we live too far north of the equator, where we're for a, you know, one of the seasons at least, probably two or three, three of the seasons. We don't get enough sun. And then we live, you know, clothed up to, you know, up to our neck. Right? Our hands and our face are exposed to the sun, but nothing else in your body in our body. And then we live indoors a lot. And so, the vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin requires sunshine. That one's made out of cholesterol. And, and we're not. We're not living in line with nature enough to get them made appropriately. So we should be taking vitamin D. I take 9000 international units every day. And I have not had a cold for two years. I start I only learned this when when when the when this modern craziness began. And. And then vitamin C, of course, that comes from green plants. If you don't eat green plants, there's not much vitamin C in your steak. Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys. I'm just telling you, right and Zinc you know, 60 to 70% of the population doesn't get enough zinc. Zinc is extremely important for immune function. You know, and so it's almost like we've set ourselves up for for these situations by living so far out of line with nature, in all the different ways in which we live out of line with nature.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah.I totally agree. And so is it possible for somebody to get enough? I mean, I'm sure it's possible. But, too, I'm just thinking, rather than having to feel like you've, I know that you would suggest that you're taking this oil within your food, so you're having it on your salad or whatever. But do you think most people need to make sure they're getting additional omega threes? Oh, you've already said that the most people don't eat enough but so I guess what I'm trying to ask is, what would be the diet that you'd need to eat to get enough omega threes and balance them with your omega sixes without having to consciously go okay, I need to take another tablespoon of oil today.
Udo Erasmus:Right? So the reason we made the blend after I became Omega six deficient on flax oil. I got dry eyes skipped heartbeats. Arthritis, like pain in my finger joints and thin papery skin. Classic Omega six deficiency symptoms. I fixed them by eating sunflower seeds which have a lot of omega six and no Omega three. Bring the balance back, right. What we that reason? And people say that oh, this is complicated is there one thing I can do that gets us all the good that I need?
Arwen Bardsley:What's the magic pill?! Yeah!
Udo Erasmus:That's why we made the blend. Blend has nine ingredients flax for omega three sunflower sesame for omega six. It has Evening Primrose, mainly for the antioxidants in it. Rice germ, oat germ for the minor ingredients that have major benefits. A little bit of coconut GMO free soy lecithin, we have to get that from Europe because we can't get it in North America and vitamin E. And you'd take a tablespoon per 50 pounds of body weight per day. That's pretty much an optimum. You know that by skin feel. If you need more, you take more if you need less to get that you take less, because there's a little different people are a little bit different. And you mix it in food, you spread it out over the course of the day. Oils are compatible with all foods, fruits, vegetables, starches, proteins, and you can put them in hot soup and on steamed veggies and in hot sauces. But you put it in those as your last ingredient after you've taken whatever it is you're making off the heat source. So they're not damaged, but I put it on miso soup, for instance. You know, I like miso soup it has a nice flavor. The flavor is enhanced. The oil floats on top. You know, and I will I will drink it the way they drink it. You know, in Japan, they just drink it out of the bowl. And, and the flavors is beautiful. And oils do a couple of things other than all of their health benefits. They they Oh, yeah, they enhance flavors,
Arwen Bardsley:right? Yes, they do. Yes.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah. And they improve the absorption of oil soluble nutrients in foods. And so for instance, when you eat tomatoes, you know tomatoes, they say, oh, yeah, you most of the lutein in the tomatoes, lycopene in the tomatoes, just doesn't get absorbed. Well, yeah, if you eating the tomato without oil. That's true. So then they say, Oh, well, you should cook the tomatoes because then you get more of the lycopene. But you know what? You can also blend the tomato with oil. And the the lycopene which is all soluble is absorbed with the, with the oil into your body. Right. And that's true for all the other carotenes. And for all of the other oil soluble vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin A. Yeah, Vitamin K. They're all oil soluble right, so having oil with food. So the idea of saying oils are bad, and I don't want oil in my food. That's like really dumb. Because it's not true. You need oil. People were going on no fat diets when I when I started working with oils. And they always complained about low energy levels and dry skin. So I said to the Vegetarian Society in Vegas, when they invited me and I said you making two mistakes in your vegetarian diet. One is realy you're making one mistake. You're you're dumping the oils, you need those oils. And not everybody was willing to follow it. But the ones who did I got feedback. I said, you know, oh my god, I have energy to burn. And my skin is beautiful. You know, and oils, oils do that, you know, no carbs, or no essential carbs. So carbohydrates are the least important food. Kellogs doesn't like to hear that. But but but because there are no essential nutrients in carbohydrates. There's nothing in carbohydrates that you can't get elsewhere. But there are two essential fatty acids in fats and oils, mainly in oils that you have to get that you can only get from oils. So oils are more important than carbs. But in 1979, they made a food pyramid in America. 1980 actually 1979 the McGovern report on nutrition and health. They they said Eat less oil to put it on top of the pyramid, eat more carbs, they put them on the bottom. And in 20 years overweight increased from just making that change, because that's what they put out to the public in the overweight change from 25 to 60% of the population. And nobody pointed the carbs when that happened, except I did you know and we started the keto diet, but the keto diet works only really well sustainably. Only if you make sure that the foundation is omega three and Omega six because that's that's in the universe of fats and oils. Those are the only two Things You have to have. And they're a nightmare to work with. And people don't don't put them in the Keto diets, if they're not willing to take the care because they need care - they're perishable. Right. And when you want to have something that you can just keep on a shelf for 20 years, or stick under your bed, you know, and have it sitting there, then you can't use those oils, because they need more care than that. And it's like, Oh, my God, you got to to refrigerate it. Or you can't do too for frying, or you can't just do whatever, you know, you can just leave it somewhere like minerals, you know, you can put them on a shelf 20 years, bring them down, same mineral because they don't deteriorate. Oils. Oils are like perishable vegetables. They need care. The good ones? Yeah, if you have, it's all saturated fats, they're pretty stable. So most keto diets are rich in, in saturated fats, they have some mono unsaturated fats, those are also stable more stable, less stable than saturated, more stable than omega six, and omega six, five times more stable than omega three. And so when you get to the good stuff, the high energy molecules from oils, Omega three and six, some people call them the god molecule because there's so much energy in them. So they're the, you know, because God is energy, you know, way, way of talking about those you got to have, and they need care. If you don't get them, you go down. And if you don't give them the care they need, they won't work. So that's our claim to fame as we took the care that they need to make them unfold their benefits in people's bodies.
Arwen Bardsley:What's the brand that would be sold your brand that's sold in Australia?
Udo Erasmus:Oh, it's called Udo's choice oil blend?
Arwen Bardsley:And is it? Do you know what retailers? Is it like health, health, health food shops, as we would call them?
Udo Erasmus:Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the guy who brought it into Australia invited me in 1998 to a cancer conference. And he had read my book fats that heal fats that killed he bought 1200 books. And he invited me in to give a talk. And then he became the distributor for the oil. Yeah. Name Jen Roncie
Arwen Bardsley:Okay, but so basically, I mean, you know, people need to be buying an oil that is found, you know, you're buying it in one of these shops, and it's refrigerated and it's in a box as well as in the bottle.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah, yep. Yep. Yeah, we did all that We did did that all in the factory end right.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah. Um, so I know, we've already gone over time, but I'm wondering if you could give us a really quick version of your eight step. Process.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah. Okay. So if you look at nature and human nature, if health if health comes, you know, if life created health, in nature, and human nature, then you have to look at these five things. Five of them are human. Three of them are nature. So if you start from the core of your being, internal awareness, I call that that's where your peace lives. And that peace is connected to the peace that is the foundation of the entire universe, as well as your, your own existence. So you you need to do a stillness practice, you know, stop doing to get to being Right. So that's the foundation. And I call it perfect peace or perfect place. And so, what that means is, peace has always been everywhere. But only peace knows that. So if you don't see peace everywhere, it's because you're not in touch with your access to peace, which is in the core of your being. So you need to do a stillness practice. That brings your awareness inside self knowledge or meditation or whatever you call that. Mindfulness, whatever you call that, whatever allows you to bring your awareness inside into the space that your body occupies. So that's number one. The Foundation. Number two is solar energy, which is life energy. Solar energy goes in plants, you know, is stored in bonds between atoms to make molecules. We eat some of those for food. They're broken down, that energy is released. That's the energy that is our life. So we our solar gadgets, body is a solar gadget. And in that, that energy is all powerful all knowing and everywhere present in your body. That's the definition of God. By the way, right? omnipresent, omniscient, Omni potent, right. And that energy is unconditional love. And it loves you, your body unconditionally. 24/7 never takes time off. Maybe that one, you know, you need to sit still for and maybe you need to make friends with that, because all of your dramas and traumas and everything that's happened and all the things you got victimized by, and everything that should have never happened. But did you know something in you took perfect care of us through all of that stuff. And I didn't, I didn't figure that out until I was 26. The war ended when I was three, I was still bitching about it when I was 26. And one day, I was sitting there just in the sunshine, and it's like, Oh, my God, something is taking perfect care of me all through all this stuff. I was like, and I've never said thank you, I've never acknowledged it, I've never tried to get to know it. That was like a big turnaround for me. As you know, this has been so good to me, I ought to be in awe in gratitude, for just the energy of life, that comes from the sun through the plants through nature, and is my life. Right, and it's also the master in the body. Life is the master in the body. And life is my my personal essence is life. Human beings personal essence is not the body, but its life. That's why I call this my body, which means I'm not the body, I'm the owner, who's the owner of this body, well, life owns the body. So maybe if I need to get to know myself, then I need to get to know that energy. Again, it occupies the space that my body occupies the energy that occupies the space that my body occupies. Number three is inspiration that's to shine into the world of that unconditional love. And that's where inspiration and creativity and genius, and design and originality come from. And that's like life's gift into the to the world through my body. That's number three. Number four is physical body. And that's about food, fitness, digestion and detox. Those are the key parts of it. And that's what we usually limit ourselves to when we talk about health. But all of these are part of health. And then number five is survival smarts. And that's the protective part of mind. And that's about skills and, and calmness under fire. The calmness comes from awareness, the skills you learn, yeah, whatever the skills are, that you need to learn that to preempt the disasters that that are likely to occur in the place where you live, right? Could be earthquakes, or volcanoes or floods or droughts or when you know, or other people. Right? Whatever it is, right, that's number five. So those are the five that are part of human nature. Number six, a social group, obviously affects your health. And there the issue is how can you be fully present in your own being, and at the same time, in cooperation with the needs of the people on the planet? That's your group, right? Number seven, is natural environment. And natural environment is basically mainly a respect and gratitude for resources. And then you take what you need, and you leave what you don't need, and you share what you can, you know, and you live sustainably. And you know, you you have gratitude for the resources and respect for its power. Right. And then the number number seven, number eight, is infinite awareness. Infinite awareness is the extension of internal awareness is when you go inside into the core of your being and you feel that, that calmness, that peace, that, that awareness, and you and you follow it out, it's not limited to the dimension of your body. You're actually a center of that and it goes out to infinity. And the the big picture of the of number eight is basically here I am. I'm a terminal condition the body is a terminal condition. So here I am living in a understand, you know, I accept accepting the fact that my body will check out in an infinite universe and to be okay with that, and to not be going around I'm going to die. Yeah, everybody's going to die Body is the body is never life. You know, when the body and life part company, then the true nature of the body shows up. It's just a shell that was cobbled together by life in order to do physical things on a physical plane. And that's okay. But don't think you know, but if you think you're the body, you know, then you're going to always be full of fear. Because you don't know that your life energy is formless and indestructible. And your awareness is formless and indestructible. And you are that too. So when your body checks out, if you if you've gotten to know those while you're alive, then it's a it's an ecstatic transition, when your body checks out when you check out of your body. And so if you want to live the best life, you want to be fully present in all of your being, and your surroundings, and not lost in your in thoughts in your head. Because when you start thinking you go both blind and deaf. Right. So that's, that's the model, you know, and each one of those has a different nature and a different function. Each one needs a different kind of attention. On a regular basis, each one goes off in a different way. And each one responds to a different kind of intervention. You want to be fully whole and healthy. You've got to give each one its due.
Arwen Bardsley:Yep, absolutely. That was really beautifully put. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, really, is in alignment with what I say to people as well. So that's why you're my guest. I suppose
Udo Erasmus:I yeah, I read your stuff. I read. I read your what you have on the on the web? Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. I think the consciousness part I divided into three pieces.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
Udo Erasmus:But, but you're pretty much I mean, you also have sleep in there. Of course. You know, I like to stay awake when I go to sleep. Because I want to know where I go when I'm sleeping. And that's what you do it? That's what you do in the in the inner practices.
Arwen Bardsley:Yes, that's right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yours is a bit more defined and a bit more detailed and a bit. bit clearer probably.
Udo Erasmus:Well in a different way.
Arwen Bardsley:Yeah in a different way! And so yeah, thank you so much. For all your amazing wisdom today. Do you have any particular services or programs or anything you've got special happening at the moment that you want to let people know about? Other than your book, books, you've got more than one don't you?
Udo Erasmus:I've just two places where people can follow up. One is called Udoschoice.com. U-D-O-S choice.com. That's where we talk about the products and why we made them and how we made them and what they are and, and all of that, and then the other one is more educational? And we got some courses on it. And it's a work in progress. We only started that recently. And that's the Udo dot come, theudo.com. The Udo. And yeah, and I don't know what they told you whether they there's something that people can get,
Arwen Bardsley:I think it was mentioned that we'd be able to potentially get an ebook or a mini course that people could download.
Udo Erasmus:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think there's a happiness course. They didn't tell me what they're what they're giving away.
Arwen Bardsley:But yeah, yeah. They weren't specific. They just said that would be possible. So yeah,
Udo Erasmus:the book and the book, the book on total sexy health. That's what I called the overview that I just went over. Yep. And that those are usually we usually let people take them for free.
Arwen Bardsley:Oh, thank you. That's amazing. Yeah. Wonderful. All right. Well, once again, thank you so much for all of your time and all of your wisdom and brainpower. It's really appreciated. And I'm sure that my audience will get so much from it.
Udo Erasmus:And thank you for letting me go over and over and over.
Arwen Bardsley:Oh, no, no, no, I appreciate you doing that. Thanks so much.
Udo Erasmus:I'm you know, I'm also on Facebook, and I've got And I'm on Instagram, and I'm on LinkedIn, so I'm not really hard to find.
Arwen Bardsley:No, no, no, you've got an unusual name. So like me, you'll be super easy for people to find.
Udo Erasmus:If you punch in U-D-O I'm always on the first page. There's a few Udos around, but there's not very many. My name has become very useful now because even though because it's strange,
Arwen Bardsley:yes, as we were saying before we started recording absolutely it is a benefit. So yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much.
Udo Erasmus:Thank you. Thank you for having me. Your your your as important because if it wasn't for you being an amplifier for the message and asking the question, I'd be talking to myself in the bathroom mirror.
Arwen Bardsley:It would still be an interesting conversation.
Udo Erasmus:No, not to me.
Arwen Bardsley:Okay, thank you.
Udo Erasmus:Thank you. Bye bye.