Take 5 minutes out FOR YOUR HEALTH...

     The following transcript is from an interview between anchor Susan Blake and food oil guru Udo Erasmus, who appeared on Bay TV cable channel 35 here in the bay area on October 17, 1997.
   [onscreen graphic subtitle for Mr. Erasmus was: ~author, educator~ ]

Susan Blake:  What's better for you, how many times have you wondered this?  Butter or margarine?  Why are fish oils good and animal fats bad?  Well, we read ads, we hear rumors, we listen to health reports, we hear all of the latest diet secrets, but what is the real truth about fats and oils?  Well, Udo Erasmus is a nutritionist and an internationally recognized expert on the subject of fats, he has a book out; it is called  Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill.   
     Welcome to you.  I'm a confused person.  We hear all this low fat, no fat, olive oil, cold pressed, all of this stuff, and I am truly very confused, so you've kind of researched this and come up with your own formula?

Udo Erasmus:  Well, I think the really important thing to understand is there are two stories on fats.  That's why it's confusing.  There are fats that hurt our health, like there are fats that'll kill us if we eat enough of them; and there are fats that every cell in our body requires to function, so we have to know the difference .  We obviously have to avoid the one and we have to make sure that we bring in the other one. A low fat diet doesn't work, because it deprives you of the things you need from fats.  A no fat diet will actually kill you, because these things are so important, you have to have them.

Susan Blake:  OK, what are the fats we want to avoid?

Udo Erasmus:  Well, there are five of them.  
The hydrogenated, margarine, shortening, shortening oils, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils: double risk of heart attack, interfere with liver function, interfere with insulin function, make platelets more sticky, correlate with low birth weight in human babies and cause a whole bunch of other problems.

Susan Blake:  So those are some of the fats that we really want to avoid; what is it we want in our diets then?

Udo Erasmus:  Well, they're called essential fatty acids because the body can't make them, but it  has to have them  so they have to come from foods.  There's two of them: one is omega 6 and one is omega 3.

Susan Blake:  And what are the sources of that?

Udo Erasmus:   Omega 3 comes from flax, which is a grain that grows in North and South Dakota, and in the Canadian prairie. Not that well known but extremely good for health ; and my favorite source of omega 6 is sunflower seeds, although there are quite a few sources of that.

Susan Blake:  Is the sunflower oil, then, a good alternative to sunflower seed?

Udo Erasmus:  It depends.  You know I brought these two oils because when you get an oil [lifts bottle of brand X oil- Ed.] in the supermarket: the colorless, odorless, tasteless oil.  Those they squeeze out of the seed.  Then they're treated with sodium hydroxide which you know as Drano .  Then with window washing acid .  Then they're bleached , and that turns them rancid.

Susan Blake: Literally?

Udo Erasmus: Yeah!

Susan Blake:  Why, why, do they put the seeds through that process?

Udo Erasmus:  Well, it's called, "Better Living Through Chemistry".  They want a pure oil.  But they actually take out many ingredients that are very good for health , so you end up with an unbalanced oil that has some toxic ingredients, and that oil has been heated to above frying temperature before you even take it home, and frying is correlated with cancer and hardening of the arteries.

Susan Blake:  You actually even talk about in your book that cooking oil is not healthy for you?

Udo Erasmus:   That's correct.   Every oil in the supermarket except for extra virgin olive oil has been treated with those four processes:  Drano, window washing, acid bleach, then fried.

Susan Blake:  Now what are these two glasses here?

Udo Erasmus:  So, this is the colorless, odorless, tasteless oil that has gone through these four processes.  They start with non organic seed so there are pesticides in them.  One of the reasons they say they have to do this is to try and get rid of the pesticide.  "So I asked them, 'well, why didn't you start with organic seed ?'   You know, then you don't have to do this."  And I got dead silence on the phone for about two minutes.

Susan Blake:  Is it because it is more expensive?

Udo Erasmus:  No.  No.  It's because-- it's supposed to be more convenient, but it doesn't make sense.  You poison the environment, then you eat the poison ; because we keep eating the environment, so you pollute the environment, you pollute your own body.  So what we do is we start with organically grown seeds.  And there are nine ingredients in this.  It's an oil blend.

Susan Blake:  So you do make your own oil?  After going through your own personal experience with this, you decided to make your own oil?

Udo Erasmus:  Yeah.  And develop machinery for making oils with health in mind.  This has never been made with health in mind.  We started making this in 1987.  You can see the difference in color.  This is made from organically grown seeds.  We protect it from light and oxygen because they destroy the essential fatty acids very rapidly.  We put it in brown glass bottles, we put the bottles in a box, we put a shelf date on it, and we store it in the refrigerator.  It is very different from the way oils are put in supermarkets.

Susan Blake:  You mentioned olive oil...is olive oil a good alternative?

Udo Erasmus:  It's a poor source of essential fatty acids, but the minor ingredients that have been removed in this oil [referencing brand X 'poison' oil- Ed.], are still present in extra virgin olive oil, and those are good for liver function, gall bladder function, digestion, and cardiovascular function.

Susan Blake:  How do you get to this point?  Because I'm wondering why hasn't the industry-- and we've got a pretty active health food industry right now-- why hasn't the industry come up with this...?

Udo Erasmus:  The health food industry has, because I pioneered that in the health food industry.  And why didn't they?  Most of them don't have the scientific training.  I have it.  I have eight years of life sciences behind me.  But I got poisoned by pesticides, and I knew that-- and I had cancer to look forward to, and I knew that cancer often involves fats, but I didn't know how.  So, I went back into the journals for six years to dig up that information.

Susan Blake:  OK.  You've got your oil that is available and you also say an a lte rna tiv e to that as well is actually eating the seed ?

Udo Erasmus:  Yeah.  The cheapest way to get it is to eat the seeds and nuts that contain the oils, so flax and sunflower would give you the basics.  There's more in there [referencing his brand of oil] than that, but that would give you at least the essential fatty acids.  You get the product in health food stores, or you can call an 800 number to find out more.

Susan Blake:  OK.  Actually we do have that number that we can pass along to our viewers, and it's 1-800-446-2110.  (Do we not have the screen up?)  OK, you can contact Udo...and also get the book and the oil through this number as well?

Udo Erasmus:  Yes.

Susan Blake:   Once again it is

1-800-446-2110

.  Thank you so much.  Very interesting.

Udo Erasmus:  Thanks.

[end of transcript]

to find out  much more about Udo Erasmus and his discoveries
go to his webpage at
http://www.udoerasmus.com/

...nothing new here in this part of the Universe since
11:55  A.M. P.S.T., Thursday, December 11, 1997