Udo Erasmus is a pioneer of the health and wellness industry having created FLAX OIL and the Healthy Fats Movement. He is also the co-founder of the UDO’S CHOICE supplement brand and a global leader in cutting edge health products, having sold tens of millions of bottles of healthy oils, probiotics and digestive enzymes. Udo is an accomplished author including Fats that Heal Fats that Kill that has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide.
Udo has extensive education in Biochemistry and Biology, a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Adler University and has impacted over 5,000,000+ lives by passionately conducting 5,000+ live presentations, 3,000+ media interviews, 1,500 staff trainings and traveled to 40+ countries with his message on how to achieve perfect health.
Udo Erasmus’s Life Experience
I came out of the 2nd World War when I was 4 years old as a refugee fleeing from Poland into Germany. The beginning of my life was very chaotic and because I saw how bad it can get, there’s always been this impulse in me to see what I can do to make something better.
When you don’t make an effort when things are good to make it better, you’ll begin to drift and drift is always downhill.
With this drive in me to figure out how to make things better in chaos, I got into science, then bioscience, then psychology, then medicine and health.
** Prefer To Watch? Check Out Our Livestream, The Power of Flaxseed Oil with Udo Erasmus, Creator of Flaxseed Oil Here!**
What led you to the interest in oils?
I had gotten married, had 3 kids and eventually got divorced. That divorce caused a lot of anger in me and with that anger I went on to use my pesticide license and became a full time pesticide sprayer. After 3 years I got poisoned by the pesticides I was spraying.
The doctors had no answers for me so I first off stopped spraying the pesticides and then I went on to study about my poisoning since I had the background in biosciences.
The self help I was thinking could help me was regarding food because 98% of the cells in one’s body renews every year, so if I were to raise my intake standards, I would raise 98% of my body to a higher standard.
While I was studying I got stuck on the topic of fats because they were so confusing. They said that omega-6 fatty acids were an essential nutrient meaning it is essential to live but your body can’t make it on it’s own. If your body is declining because of a lack of an essential nutrient but you’re able to bring enough back into the diet before you die, then all your symptoms would likely reverse. Life knows what to do when you take responsibility at your mouth; with your intake. When you make sure all the essential building blocks life needs to do its job land in the body so it can do it.
The contradicting studies I found on omega-6 fatty acids being such an essential nutrient also stated to be something that could kill you. This got me to look deeper and look into how oils are made. The truth is that omega-6’s are essential for every cell but the omega-3 and the omega-6 essential fatty acids are the most sensitive of all of our nutrients. They’re damaged very easily by light, air and heat. The oil making process that all of these manufacturers are selling involve all three of these steps with many other additives. Meanwhile, you’re adding these oils to your salads, to your baking and frying recipes, and causing EVEN MORE damage to these ESSENTIAL nutrients your body needs. When you do these things such as frying oils, you are changing the molecules from natural to molecules that never existed in nature, causing your body to not know what to do with them causing them to pile up in your body, slowing your body’s natural processes.
Many might argue that these processed oils are only 1% damaged so what’s the big deal? Well, that is equivalent to more than 1 million damaged molecules to every one of your body’s 16 trillion cells from only 1 tablespoon of oil (AKA A LOT of damaged molecules). To change gene expression, you only need 1,000 molecules and you are getting 1 million.
The Oil Vision Udo Erasmus Had
What that sparked in me was to create an oil with health in mind. Creating a tight system where from the time the oil is in the seed, through the pressing, the filtering, through the settling, the filling – the oil is being protected from oxygen, light, air, and heat. If you make that system really tight, you can make oils that aren’t damaged by processing. 
99% of the population doesn’t get enough omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids for optimum health and every cell needs them. When I found this out I started to think, if we could bring this essential nutrient and optimize it, we could help almost everybody and that lit me up. It was the enthusiasm from that inspiration that drove this business from the ground up.
We went on a tour in the U.S without air conditioning for 101 days in the hottest time of the year, we ate nothing but raw vegetables for maximum energy, worked all day, drove all night, went to 35 states, 85 cities, 17,000 miles…all to start talking about flax.
Why Flaxseeds?
Flax is the single richest source of omega-3’s that is easily available to us. At the time I began researching flax was only being used commercially and not as much as a dietary product.
Because flaxseeds are so good in omega-3’s but less in omega-6’s, I decided to then go on to create a product blend that has a sufficient amount of essential fatty acids.
Carbs, fats and proteins are known as the basic building blocks of nutrition. What is your take on the debate of ratios between these three for the average person?
It can be different for different people. For people that workout more, it makes sense to want and naturally need more proteins since muscle is made out of protein. On the other hand, there are no essential carbs, meaning if you had zero carbs in your diet you could still live. Though, if you had zero fats, you would die eventually because of the essential omega 3’s and 6’s. For that reason, oils are more important than carbs, as they increase energy levels, increase oxidation rate, and increase energy production.
We did a study with athletes where each athlete took a tablespoon of the oil blend per 50lbs of body weight per day and did their sport to exhaustion. Within 30 days they had on average, 40-60% increase in stamina. There is no training program that gets you that.
If you look at carbs, they are the least important food but they do provide energy. If you burn them they are good fuel and if you don’t burn them, you’re going to wear them because they’ll turn into fat that become stored into your cells. Don’t be mistaken – saturated fats don’t get the energy omega-3’s do. The good fats are better fuel than carbs because carbs will turn off fat burning and turn on fat production. When you eat too much carbs, your blood sugar goes up, you get high insulin, you get high mood changes, and the insulin drives the excess carbs into the cells where they’re turned into fat.
How do people typically take the oil?
The oils are compatible with all foods. You can put them in your breakfast, lunch, dinner. Just don’t fry it because the oil is sensitive, like we mentioned.
**Looking for a trusted plant-based omega-3 supplement? Click here to check out PureForm Omega Natural!**
Udo’s Tips for a Good, Balanced, & Healthy Diet
What we first say to people is to dump the carbs and use good fats. Keto can be a good diet only if you make sure you include in that diet the omega-3 and the omega-6 that are essential. The essential fatty acids increase metabolic rate and fat burning. Omega-3’s are the fat burning fire starter.
When you bring the good oils in and take the bad the oils out, you then need to dump the carbs. If you don’t dump the carbs, they’ll override the fats and you’ll put on weight.
Protein is great for fuel but you need it for muscle.
I eat largely plant-based whole foods in an 8 hour window during the day. I eat seeds, nuts, nut butters, my oil, and lots of vegetables. I rarely eat grains or starchy vegetables.
Do you have a life changing experience that has been a big part of your career?
Growing up, my parents didn’t enforce any religion on us children and allowed us to figure that out on our own. I got to a point where I began to get really curious on why no one in the world knew my grandfather’s name yet there were all these masters still being talked about 1,000’s of years later. My question was, why were these guys still being talked about 1,000’s of years later when my grandfather had already seemed to be forgotten not too long ago? I decided to try to understand that. I got the red letter edition of the Bible so I could know what the Master had to say and began to put things to the test that He talks about. 
During this, I had some really incredible experiences and insights. This group came up from California to Vancouver called the “Jesus Peoples Army” which should’ve been a warning to me since I didn’t have good experiences with armies. Anyways, I went to one of their coffee houses and said to one of the guys, “It must be possible to see God and live” – having grown up thinking the opposite. And one of the guys yelled at me saying I was the anti-christ and to get out.
At that point I got really confused because I walked in with my heart completely open wanting to learn and I got dissed. I decided to spend time in nature and laid down on a beach, ending up falling asleep and suddenly waking up in the middle of the night to a human-being in a robe made of light standing on a cloud made of light. I didn’t know what it was but it embodied a message to me without saying anything. The words that I pulled from that embodiment was, “I am come not to judge but to love.” and my confusion and my desperation instantly evaporated. Since that day I have never had a question of the central message of the Master’s was. Coming out of the war, this experience literally reset my whole being.
I know now that it’s not about me anymore – I’m taken care of. It’s about where can I help? The question I ask myself is, “What’s the biggest splash for good that I can make in the time I have on this planet?”
***For gut health, try Eat Anything Rx. It is designed to aid people with digestive problems, helps with fructose malabsorption, and a source of dietary fiber. More profound details explained on the video. Check it out!***
Websites Mentioned
Fats that Heal Fats that Kill Book
