The nutrition and diet coaching industry has grown into an enterprise valued at nearly $700 million as of 2023. The growth of this industry has given rise to a startling amount of nutrition related ideas, coaches, teachers, bloggers and health advocates, especially since social media became popular.
Recently, the seed oil industry has become a topic of discussion among alternative media health influencers and holistic doctors, who have sounded the alarm about the potentially damaging health consequences of toxic, adulterated and often unhealthy and/or genetically modified seed oils.
Campaigns positioning genetically modified canola (rapeseed), soy, cottonseed and other oils as “healthy” have led to financial windfalls for seed oil companies, and rapidly increasing rates of disease among the U.S. population, two current realities that some health experts believe are connected.
As the founder of the Udo’s Choice supplement company, health researcher and biologist Dr. Udo Erasmus has become an advocate and trend-setter for changing the way seed oils are produced, stored, and created.
Udo’s Choice has created a line of seed oils that are selected and formulated by Erasmus, who is considered as a founding father of the holistic and organic focused ‘clean’ seed oil movement.
It all started with a personal life crisis, followed by a personal health crisis that ended up as fuel for creating products for the greater good.
Erasmus’ Life Altering Health Crisis
Like most researchers and pioneers in the realm of holistic healing, Erasmus went through a crucible of spiritual, mental, emotional, life and health challenges before finding his path toward helping to heal others.
“I had a marriage with three kids and we broke up, I was really upset,” Erasmus said. “I wanted to kill something so I took a job as a pesticide sprayer.
Erasmus said he walked barefoot on lawns he sprayed with weedkillers, watching helplessly as the “skin peeled off the bottom of (his) feet.”
He even went as far as to spray himself with weedkiller in a bathing suit, adding that he “wanted to get a tan.” People in his life told him he was going to get sick, but he refused to hear it.
“Testosterone poisoning, we call that,” Erasmus joked.
Eventually the naysayers’ predictions came true and he visited health professionals, asking asking, “What do you have for pesticide poisoning?” to which they replied that they had “nothing.”
“I really knew it at that point, that health is my responsibility,” Erasmus said.
His health transformation began with the changing his relationship to food.
“The body’s made out of food,” he said. “If something goes wrong with your body you need to raise your standard of food intake because (the vast majority) of the atoms in your body are replaced every year and you don’t even notice, it’s so smooth, the body construction site (work) takes place so well you don’t even notice.
“So raise the standard, get a better body.”
Erasmus with health influencer Tony Robbins. Find more info on Erasmus’ website here.
Chemistry, Biology and Seed Oil
With his background in chemistry and biology, Erasmus began studying seed oils under a microscope and chronicling their properties for the creation of supplements based on the power of organic, cold-pressed seeds whose nutrients have been protected and preserved from outside damage.
Erasmus had a difficult time reconciling knowledge he had learned about Omega 6 fatty acids as essential nutrients as likely cancer causers with previous research show it was an essential nutrient.
“It was like, try and figure that out, my head exploded at the contradiction, it was unbelievable,” Erasmus said to AltHealthWorks.com.
“That drove me to look deeper, I realized Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids are the most sensitive of all nutrients, prone to being damaged by light, oxygen and heat.”
Erasmus said that he’s always ‘been a geek’ and decided to apply his knowledge to nutrition as a personal passion project.
“Out of insecurity I became a science geek,” Erasmus said.”
“I ended up in Biochemistry genetics, that’s my educational background,” the founder of Udo’s Choice Organic Oils added. “I love biology because everything that’s alive is fascinating.”
Erasmus could often be found studying seed oils and other substances, putting them to the test to see if their properties under a microscope matched up with what he had learned in the pages of science books and studies in national scientific research databases.
Erasmus was blown away by what he saw.
“I’ve had religious experiences studying biology, I was just in awe,” he said. “It’s unbelievable how things are put together.”
The Toxic Concern of Modern Seed Oils
Seed oils are highly prevalent in restaurants and homes alike as cooking oils, salad dressings and similar products.
According to Erasmus, these delicate plant based oils “need the most care,” but companies, chefs and home chefs “give them the least care.”
“You throw them in a frying pan and they get damaged all that the same time,” Erasmus said.
The Udo’s Choice founder said that seed oils are typically produced for the purpose of having long shelf life for the financial benefit of the companies that product them, regardless of potential negative health outcomes for customers.
“In order to have a long shelf life they have to treat the oils with harsh chemicals like phosphoric acid, or bleach the oils,” he said.
“They originally smell bad and they have to deo-orodize them at frying temperatures for half and hour before they go into a plastic bottle, (the plastic of which) leaches into the oil.
“Before you even buy it it’s already been fried, in the process, and there are also pesticides in the oils (if they are not organic).”
Erasmus discovered that damage is caused to the molecular structure as a result, and many of the pesticide residues stay inside of the oils after the process is completed. It was a revelation for him that changed his outlook on diet forever.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know,’” Erasmus said. “Why didn’t we start using organically grown seeds, I didn’t have an answer for that.”
Erasmus called up the American Oil Chemist’s Society in Champagne, Illinois, getting a researcher on the line and telling him he wanted to talk about his seed oil related concerns.
The researcher told him that the amount of damage depended on what the oil is made out of and whether it has saturated or monounsaturated fat as its base.
He found that monounsaturated fats are 2.5 times more prone to oxidation damage than Omega-3 fatty acid rich products, and five times more prone to damage than Omega-6 fatty acid rich products.
According to Erasmus, oils are comprised of 60 ‘quintillion molecules,’ which is about ’12 zeroes too short.’
“We’ve underestimated damaged molecules by a trillion times,” he said. “The molecules are really, really small, and there are a lot of them in a tablespoon of oil.
“People are putting (rancid seed oils from plastic bottles) in their body and underestimating by a trillion times how much damage they’re doing to themselves.”
Udo’s Choice: Erasmus’ Antidote to Toxic Seed Oils
Erasmus’ company Udo’s Choice was founded in 1980 after his pesticide poisoning incident, which led him to ‘become serious about healing (himself) at a core level,” according to the Udo’s Choice website.
“Putting my science background to use, I learned a lot about health and nutrition,” the website adds. “Like all good stories, mine — thankfully — has a good ending: I’ve healed myself, and have turned what I learned into practical advice for anyone interested in health. This is why Udo’s Choice health products exist today.”
Udo’s Choice products can be found in the Udo’s Choice online store or in health food stores nationwide. A store locator is also available on the UC website here.
Products are made for the express mission of providing healthy oils to people who don’t get enough of them in their daily diets, including Omega 3s, Omega 6s, and Omega 9s from seeds like seeds like flax, sunflower, sesame, and evening primrose. Other components in Udo’s Choice products include MCT oil from coconuts, plant-based DHA from algae and much more.
Udo’s most popular product is the Udo’s Oil DHA 3*6*9 Blend, which is suitable for all ages from infants to children, adults and senior citizens.
Udo’s Oil DHA 3*6*9 Blend supports healthy cognition and eye health. It was designed by Erasmus to support optimal cell function, metabolism, hormone (eicosanoid) production and much more.
A healthy alternative to fish oil, Udo Erasmus has raved about the feedback he’s received from customers and clients including Tony Robbins, the popular author, health and life coach who has recommended Udo’s Oil DHA 3*6*9 professional athletes and other clients.
“We’ve developed a method for (preserving the oil’s integrity),” Erasmus said. “You have to protect the seeds and oils using pressing and filtering in a brown glass bottle, in a box to cut out all the lights (from reaching the seed oils and breaking them down in warehouses).
“The products are nitrogen flushed. The fridge keeps the temperature low to keep the oil fresh. We’ve built a super tight system for pressing the oil.”
According to Erasmus, the vast, vast majority of the United States popular and world population do not get enough Omega-3 acids for optimum health, which he says ‘every cell needs for essential functions.
“It’s super important, it has to be in balance with Omega-6,” Erasmus said.
“We’ve doubled the intake of Omega-6 and decreased the intake of Omega-3 to 1/6th of what people got in 1850 because of these industrial made oils.
“Food habits changed, lifestyles changed, and Omega-6 we (get too much of in ratio to Omega-3).”
While researching these and other nutrient deficiencies in the population, Erasmus had his eureka moment. The result is a brand that is now ubiquitous on store shelves, typically the refrigerated section, nationwide and beyond, and a product that is helping millions of people restore their body’s supplies of a crucial nutrient for overall health and vitality.
“While doing my research and formulation I thought to myself, if we could make oils with health in mind and bring Omega-3s back into the diet and get them optimized, Oh my God!’ Erasmus said.
“We could help almost everybody!”
“This is a real purpose, this is a mission from God!”
*****
Learn more about Eramsus’ mission in the feature film ‘Eating Our Way to Extinction’ on Youtube shown below.
Narrated by Titanic actress Kate Winslet, it includes commentary from Erasmus, Robbins, Sir Richard Branson, Doctor Michael Gregor and others. The film chronicles the health crises human beings and the planet are currently facing, organic food, and the ‘Blue Zones,’ places across the world where human beings live in harmony with nature well into their 90s, 100s and beyond:
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About Nick Meyer
