Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill: The Complete Guide to Fats, Oils, Cholesterol and Human Health by Udo Erasmus.
Do not fear fat. Proper use of fats and oils can reverse cancer, diabetes, PMS, asthma, addictions and more. Fats can even enhance athletic performance, improve longevity and increase energy. On the other hand, mistreated healing fats become killing fats.
In Fats that Heal – Fats that Kill, expert Udo Erasmus takes an in depth look at the oil industry. Until 1987, most oil in North America supermarkets had been manufactured with shelf live rather than consumer health in mind. Good oils were processed to the point where they were damaged. Some substances were removed, and some molecules were changed from natural health supporting to unnatural and toxic. Udo Erasmus developed methods for making oils with human health in mind. Learn about modern healthful oils like flax, evening primrose and hemp.
This extensive subject is of constant public confusion and misinformation to the extent that it is harming people’s lives. To convey the truest message to the largest number of people, Udo has written the book with 15-year old readers in mind. But, the book also includes some chemical diagrams for those with science background, insatiable curiosity, or those who simply like to challenge themselves.
A bestseller since it first appeared as Fats and Oils in 1987, this book is authoritative guide to fats, oils, cholesterol and general health. Read it and you will be shocked by what you learn. Now in its 12th printing!
Book Review by Larry Grindstaff:
A few years ago, a popular notion emerged that in order to lose weight, all fats should be eliminated from the diet. … many tried it and lost weight; (“Oh, happy day”) but, they gained weight after two years on this diet and kept gaining (“Horrors”). Interestingly, when they ate the right fats, they lost it.
Confusion has ensued. Are fats good, or are fats bad? What are the “right” fats? Udo Erasmus, in his carefully researched, organized and well presented book, “Fats that Heal Fats that Kill” explains the latest scientific findings in a simple, highly readable “laymen’s textbook.”
With patience and clarity, the chemical formulas for numerous fats and oils are integrated into the text to create a base of understanding about health and nutrition in general. In fact, it is the only book that I’m aware of that not only shows the chemical formulas; but, also, explains them so you can actually pass the information along to someone else and have them understand.
This book is a “must read.” An excerpt from the back cover is enough to convince: “Healing fats are required together with other nutrients, to prevent and reverse so-called “incurable” degenerative diseases: heart disease, cancer, and type II diabetes. Healing fats also help reverse arthritis, obesity, PMS, allergies, asthma, skin conditions, fatigue, yeast and fungal infections, addictions, certain types of mental illness, and many other conditions.”
Book Review by Helene Meurer:
The cover of this book resembles that of Fats and Oils published six years ago, and while it is considered to be a new edition of that same book I find it to be revised, updated and expanded to an impressive degree. With publication of the original work Erasmus sparked much controversy and activity with the edible oil industry. Since that time, and largely due to Erasmus’ influence, many advances have been made scientifically, medically and nutritionally in the field of fats, oils and cholesterol in human health. And where all newly published health books now deal more with this subject than ever before, not one of them comes close to mastering the subject in a way that both presents the overall picture and educates the reader into a personal understanding of his/her relationship with Fats that Heal Fats that Kill – this does.
I was stunned to read Erasmus’ work. His in-depth look at the oil industry and processes that turn healing fats into killing fats is unequaled. Learning about these processes is essential to understanding why we must make certain food choices to prevent and even reverse certain degenerative diseases, that include heart disease, cancer and diabetes. There is much needed chapter on infants and oils, help for athletes, pets, and sufferers of arthritis, allergies, asthma, addictions and more. Equally fascinating is a scrutiny of modern, healthful oils, including snake oil, flax, evening primrose and hemp oil.
Erasmus shies away from nothing. He looks into all aspects of fats and oils, from the way our bodies assimilate these to the politics of health and everything in between. I found a small note about the “nicknames of fatty acids” which alongside many illustrations is included to guarantee our comprehension of a sometimes daunting subject. Understanding the simple roots of terms used in this book helped a great deal in clarifying the subject matter. In Fats that Heal Fats that Kill Udo Erasmus has by far surpassed his original work. The book will further enlighten an audience of concerned readers, students and professionals, who since Fats and Oils, have deserved to know more.
Comments from other experts:
“A tremendous amount of hard-to-find information – the first book to actually make sense out of the role of fats in health. A welcome relief from the one-sided approach of our current health authorities, who espouse the low-fat diet as the panacea for all health problems. The informed and balanced presentation will help to take the fear out of fats.” – Richard A Kunin, MD, author: MegaNutrition and The Listen to Your Body Diet; President: International Society For Orthomolecular Medicine
“A monumental piece of work… it will make a distinct contribution.” – E. Cheraskin MD, DMD, author: Vitamin C: Who Needs It?
“No one in the world understands the connections between fats, oils and health better than Udo Erasmus. Listen to and talk with him – this could be the most important two hours of this year for you.” – Fred Rohe, author
“I have never been so delightfully surprised by a book that should be boring and pedantic. Udo Erasmus has put together all the current information about fats and oils and laid it out for all the world to see.” – Lendon H Smith, MD, author of the best-sellers Feed Your Kids Right and The Encyclopedia of Baby and Child Care.
“Udo Erasmus has taken a complex topic and made it understandable. In fact, he has gone far beyond the scope of the title and also given a broad insight into nutrition and health in general. I highly recommend it.” – John Matsen, Naturopathic Physician, author of the best-selling book Eating Alive.
“An excellent guide to a subject which is proving of the greatest importance for human health.”
– David Horrobin, MD, editor of Clinical Uses of Essential Fatty Acids.
“I have gone over the manuscript very carefully, and I think that Udo Erasmus has done a marvelous job of summarizing almost everything one needs to know about fats and oils.”
– Abram Hoffer, MD, Ph.D., researcher, editor of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, author of Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians.
“Udo Erasmus has written a very timely and important book…filled with interesting and accurate information concerning…fatty acids in nutrition and health. An excellent contribution to the field of clinical nutrition.”
– Jeffrey Bland Ph.D., President Health Comm
The Truth About Fats! This is a magnificent piece of work by Udo Erasmus, a true pioneer of health! If you’re looking to be informed and educated about fats and many other components that relate to nutrition of the human body, this is the book for you. What I really enjoyed about this book is that Udo exposes the manufacturing processes that turns healing fats into killing fats. He also explains the effects of these damaged fats on human health and discloses information that enables you to choose health-promoting oils. Healing fats are absolutely required, together with other nutrients, to prevent and reverse all degenerative diseases including heart disease, cancer, and Type II diabetes. – Dr Matthew Loop (Author of ‘Cracking the Cancer Code’)
Who is Udo Erasmus?
Udo Erasmus is an international authority on fats, oils, cholesterol and human health.
Udo received his B.Sc. (Hons) in Zoology from the University of British Columbia and followed this with graduate studies in Biochemistry and his life took a significant turn when he was poisoned by pesticides. When conventional medicine was unable to provide help, he concluded that his health was his own responsibility and turned his attention to nutrition. Several years of research culminated in his Canadian best-selling book, Fats that Heal Fats that Kill which earned him a PhD in nutrition.
In 1983, he began to pioneer technology for pressing and packaging edible, fresh oils made with health in mind, under the exclusion of the three main factors which can transform nutritious oils into toxic ones – light, heat, and oxygen. Until that time, oils were highly processed by destructive methods, sacrificing health benefits in order to attain long shelf life.
Over the past fifteen years, he has appeared on nationally syndicated radio and television shows and has given thousands of media interviews and lectures, educating audiences across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Australia on the components of good health. Presently, Udo continues to develop steps towards optimum health and to work on his next book. Visit Udo at www.udoerasmus.com.
Readers reviews:
Some fats and oils are required for the proper functioning of the body. Udo Erasmus argues that proper use of fats can even reverse cancer, diabetes, PMS, asthma, addictions, and more. This book takes an in-depth look at the oil industry and the politics of health.
This is a very good book, which is clearly thoroughly researched and contains a lot of fascinating information. It gives you the science behind all the “magazine diet” info on fats. The book goes into the biochemistry, how fats are produced, history (including how the corrupt food giants misguided the public about certain fats and oils), fats in your food and how they affect your body or can lead to disorders.
There are quite a lot of grammatical errors, but I was willing to overlook them because the information is presented in an easy to understand way. The most interesting aspects were about the oil manufacturers (another example of how industry created urban myths to boost their sales) cholesterol theory and the most nutritious oils available for consumption: hemp seed and oil flax seed oil. I would have liked more detail on the therapeutic use of fats, for example how much of what type of oil for how long to see a difference etc. But clearly more research needs to be done, especially into the therapeutic benefits of hemp and flax.
Udo Erasmus spent 6 years researching the nutritional and industry literature to properly understand the effects of oils and fats on human health. Udo’s book presents these findings in clear English, so allowing all of us to understand what the scientists and nutritionists have been discovering but but not telling anyone!
Udo writes that oil and fats have a profound effect on health, with highly processed oils, such as those commonly found on the Supermarket shelf, being highly detrimental – leading to long term degenerative diseases. Udo also explains that two oils are essential (i.e. humans cannot manufacture them they have to be taken in as part of a healthy diet), these being Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils. When the body has enough of these (an essential oil mix of a least a tablespoon a day or equivalent in crushed seeds or oily fish)there are a whole number of good things which allow the body to function properly and healthily.
Udo presents a well rounded picture by including the role of vitamins and minerals in helping essential oils to do their good work. If you know someone who suffers a degenerative disease and wants to get back to full health, this book provides useful guidance on appropriate and drug free diets and (vitamin / mineral)supplements.
Udo is perhaps at his most entertaining when he damns the medical profession for being being uneducated in the realms of health (they are educated in the realms of disease), and their propensity to dish out drugs which deal with symptoms instead of using nutrition to deal with the cause.
The edible oil industry gets a scathing review, as they seem intent on pumping out millions of gallons of nutritionally questionable fats and oils, knowing that their manufacturing processes damage the product.
At his most profound level, Udo discusses the effects of poor nutrition leading to criminal behavior, uncontrollable children, moods and poor temperament. When the diet of these disturbed people is re-orientated towards being balanced and healthy, including in particular the provision of Omega 3 oils, their behavior transforms away from their previous antisocial activity. One wonders at the benefits of transforming school and prison kitchens to centers of healthy food to help create healthy and well adjusted people – read the book if you think this too far fetched.
If there is one thing which is surprising, if not shocking about the Udo’s book, it was published in its current updated form in 1993. Shocking because all the issues of big edible oil business, ignorant Doctors, chronic disease and people behavior problems are as relevant today (if not more so) than in late 80’s and early 90’s when the book was being put together. This is a book politicians should be forced to read, so as to better help the populations who voted them into power.
Udo’s book is an excellent read. For those of you serious about good nutrition and excellent health, then a good companion book is ‘The Optimum Nutrition Bible’ by Patrick Holford. Patrick covers Vitamins and Minerals and their relationship to health in more detail than Udo, but both books work well together.
Foot Note: Udo got fed up of poor oils on offer and set up with an edible oil manufacturer. Look out for ‘Udo’s Choice’ oil in good health food shops. Its expensive but worth it. Use your coffee grinder to mill the seeds that Udo mentions and sprinkle this on your breakfast cereal (preferably non wheat) to have a really healthy start to the day. Here’s to Good Health!
I work half-time as a teacher in chemistry. In the other half-time I am a researcher and I am trying to understand in what way experiments contribute to student’s learning. I am also extremely interested in finding the areas within chemistry that makes students really interested. I have found that for example cosmetics and food chemistry are such areas. This book is a gold mine. I attended a course in applied lipids in may and now I have found all the facts about omega 3 and omega 6, about gammalinolenic acid and which oils are good to eat. I changed my own diet and make an oil mixture that does all the difference – it gave me a lot of energy. My husband suffers from diabetes and heart trouble and this book gives us a lot of help with his diet. Thank you so much Udo Erasmus, you did an excellent work doing all the research and the book is so well written!
When I first saw this book, I thought food was essentially carbohydrates, protein and fats, plus of course minerals and vitamins. My “knowledge” of fats was “avoid them!” plus “eat cod liver oil for omega-3”. So why anyone would bother with a whole book on the subject was beyond me. Yet, one idle day I opened the book in the bookstore, and behold – by the time it had left my hands I had somehow gone through the cash registry, paid for it, gone home, and had put it on the bedside table.
This book explains deep dietary issues in a straightforward manner. After reading it, you feel you KNOW how different factors in the diet work. You will not only know what to eat and what to avoid, but also why you are doing so, and which replacements you can use if some items are temporarily or permanently unavailable. Most of all – you will know how to eat healthy, to minimize risks of cancer, heart disease and other diseases down to dry skin. Read it!
This book could change your life. Udo’s book is an answer to health and nutrition issues present in developed countries today. His comprehensive presentation of what exactly happens at the molecular level with foods that we (inhabitants of developed countries) typically consume puts a unique perspective on what our bodies need. His detailed treatment of trans-fats, essential fatty acids, and other fats and oils makes perfect sense from when it comes to analyzing the claims of the thousands of diet proposals one finds in print and on line. His is a common sense approach, with the premise we are what we “eat, drink, and breath.” The acknowledgment that nutritional deficiencies related to consuming “white grain, white sugar, and white fat” is enough to stop and make anyone think about what they are actually putting into their bodies, and what the effects are. With the rise of diabetes and other disease related food consumption on the increase, the warning is stated clearly. Having had grandparents, who ate in a way paralleling Udo’s recommendations, that live well into their 90s with minimal health issues, acts as a “proof of concept” for me. I don’t want to sound pushy by saying that everyone should be reading this, but give it a try and draw your own conclusions.