Udo Erasmus has lived enough versions of himself for 20 lifetimes.  He has held brief jobs in various trades: fruit picking, dairy farming, logging, mining, carpentry, house painting, clearing land, burning brush, growing food, gardening, and finally pesticide spraying. He spent a year in medical school and several years in science research. It was in medical school that he realized you don’t learn about healing people.

Psychedelics, music, even marriage and children are all part of what makes Udo the kind of guest you want at the dinner table.

 It was that stint spraying pesticides that led him here, to the interest that would capture his very being, his health. Ironically it also led him to his commitment to pesticide free living and product development.

Our conversation zigzagged through his journey from sick with no hope of a cure from western medicine to realizing his health was his responsibility. He took it on obsessively.

And arrived at two essential nutrients found in oils from seeds.

“There's 42 essential nutrients, and two of those come from oils and none of them come from carbohydrates.” He went in search of the perfect source for these essential oils. Along the way he discovered the dirty seed oil industry secrets. 

These oils—mainly the ones that line supermarket shelves, found in clear glass or plastic bottles—are produced for long shelf life not health. Unless you buy organic oil they start with non-organic, pesticide laden seeds. 

“Then they treat the oil with sodium hydroxide. Very corrosive base. Then with phosphoric acid, a very corrosive acid. Then they bleach it with bleaching clays, which makes it rancid and smell bad. And then they heat it to frying temperature in a process called deodorization.” 

When he found that out, he realized he I could not get healthy on oils like that and set out to answer the question, “how do you make oils with health in mind?”

Well, they're the most sensitive of all of our essential nutrients. Omega three and Omega six. Omega three is five times more sensitive than omega six and light oxygen heat damage them very rapidly, so you have to protect them from light, oxygen, and heat if you wanna make them with health in mind.

Fast forward to today and not only did he figure it out, he invented the equipment needed to preserve the nutrition in Omega 3 and 6s without the need to bleach or deodorize these delicate oils. 

Today, His Udo's Choice product line still sells all over the world. 

Udo doesn’t eat like most of us and he’d like us to get rid of our frying pans. You’ll have to tune in to hear his argument.

Don’t do shots of olive oil no matter what you see on TikTok or Insta. It’s very hard on the liver and not at all a super health bio hack. He does recommend pouring your omega 3, 6, 9 oils over your food when it’s either raw or off the heat. 

Here’s a caveat for anyone looking to lose weight and plans to incorporate some of Udo’s oils into your food plan. “The one thing you have to be careful of omega threes turn on fat burning and turn off fat production in the body.

But if you eat too many carbs, they block that effect, huh? And so when you decide to take more oil as you fuel instead of carbohydrates, then you need to also lower the carbohydrates so that they don't interfere with what oils do exceptionally well if you give them the space to do it.”

Udo will be back to talk about his other passions, the heart, the planet, and living fully.

He’s the author of The Book of Total Sexy Health and Fats the Heal, Fats the Kill.