Your Body Needs An Oil Change

Introduction: A Matter of Oil and Fat

Chapter One the Lay of the Land

How often do you change the oil in your car? If you care about your vehicle, you do it on a regular basis, right? You drain out the dirty oil, and you replace it with clean oil.

When did your body last get an oil change?

Your body needs an oil change just as your car does. Your body runs better on fresh, clean healthy oils. It requires good quality air and the right fluids in the right quantities. When your body “runs better", you’re healthier and have more energy. When you’re healthier, you have more comfort, more fun, and a longer life. I think that sounds like a good idea.

But what kind of oil change does the body need?

1981 was the year after I had been poisoned by pesticides, learned that doctors had no solution for my poisoning, realized that my health is my responsibility and decided, given that my body is made from food, that nutrition should be the first place to look for answers.

I began to focus my attention on nutrition research in the scientific literature, reading studies on nutrition and health as well as nutrition and disease. I earned my Ph.D. in nutrition, and I wrote my thesis on fats and oils.

Learning the precise definition of “essential”, the cornerstone of nutrition’s importance and powerful effectiveness to build health and reverse and prevent disease was game changing. I explored the world of research that had been done on food fats and oils (lipids).

But there were contradictions whose resolution forced me to delve into the way edible oils are processed by industry and used in food preparation in restaurants and our homes. I was shocked to learn of the damage done to edible oils. All of us were consuming these damaged oils and they were corroding our insides with diminishing return on performance just like a car engine trying to trudge along running with contaminated oil.

There’s a reason that when your mechanic changes your car’s oil, they change the fluids and the air filter as well. It’s not just oil that needs changing and it’s the same for your body. Even the water we drink is old and stale by the time we drink it after its long and arduous journey from the glacier to our taps. Our air—especially if you live in the city—is contaminated. To effectively clean out your system, I’m suggesting the full treatment. You’ve got to change your water and air as well.

The timing of my poisoning that got my attention and motivated my search for answers in the research literature couldn’t have been more kismet. Altogether, these events and findings led me to conclude that I could not get healthy on damaged oils,

and that oils should be made with health rather than shelf life in mind. Poisoned, I was just desperate and driven enough to decide to develop a method for pressing oils “with health in mind”, which would prove to be a rigorous undertaking.

I’ve got good news for you. You’re the beneficiary of the motivation and learning generated by my self-tailor-made pesticide poisoning disaster.

Did you know that ninety-eight percent of all the atoms in your body right now will have been removed and replaced by this time next year? This is great news. It is why healing is possible: By raising the standard of the foods you eat, you can rebuild ninety-eight percent of your body to a higher standard (better health) within a single year.

All you need to do is make better food choices: more whole foods; more plantbased foods; more fresh, organic, raw, local, sun-ripe, seasonal, uncontaminated foods; fresher air; more and fresher water; and more detoxification (sweating being the safest, most effective, least valued, and most under-used detox method). This means you literally can switch out your old oil for new just like your car.

Your body is a special instrument. To make your inner motor hum, it needs special kinds of oils. We call such oils “in their natural state”, or oils “made with health in mind”. These oils are rich in essential nutrients that are vital for your life and your health but are ones your body cannot make and can only get from the right kinds of foods. To build, sustain, and promote health, oils must be in their undamaged, natural state. The way nature made them is the way your health requires them.

Is your body’s oil change overdue? If you’ve not yet made the switch from damaged, toxic oils to clean, essential ones, the answer must be a resounding, “Yes!”

Although it might seem daunting, I’m here to assure you that if I could make the shift mortally riddled with pesticides, you can do it too. It is even my pleasure to be your guide via this book!

I want you to be familiar with clean oils in their natural state, so you’ll be able to fly down life’s highway with ease. In this book, I share with you what I’ve learned in a lifetime of observation and education. It’s been my passion to discover and my blessing to have a knack for it. It’s my privilege and joy to pass on to you what I’ve found.

This book was written for you—my gift from life to you—so that you can have better health and a better quality of life.

Human Nature in Four Main Parts

Before we get into the main story of the oil change your body needs, I want to give you a broader perspective into which to fit that story.

While oils are the most neglected area of physical health and therefore most important area to get a grip on, they are only two of about 50 necessary building

blocks for body construction, maintenance, and repair. Each of these 50 building blocks needs to be accessed and its intake optimized to support health of the body. I listed and described them in slightly more detail at the end of the book in Appendix 1, 2, and 3.

So, good oils are 2/50th of physical health. But there’s much more to health than that. Physical health is only 1/10th of Total Health. In other words, 9/10th of Total Health is not based on the body (physical). Each one of these does, however, affect your health.

Six of these 10 parts of Total Health make up human nature. Three other parts of health originate in our surroundings. The last part, emotions, consist as composites of the other nine parts of Total Health based in nature and human nature.

We will enlarge on the topic of Total Health closer to the end of the book. Here, like I said, I just want to briefly introduce the topic to give you a larger perspective into which your necessary oil change fits.

Human nature consists of four distinct and separable main parts. To live a whole life, you need to give each part its due.

Each part has a different nature and a different function. Each part needs a different kind of attention on a regular basis. Each part goes off course in a different way and responds to a different kind of intervention.

Awareness is an undifferentiated, dimensionless, formless “container” that is beyond all, out of which all things and humans arise, within which all things and humans unfold, and into which all things and humans eventually dissolve again.

Awareness is also the capacity to pay attention, to perceive, to notice. And awareness is also where peace, wholeness, contentment, equanimity, ‘observer’, witness, and fulfillment live. Awareness is like the space (or container) within which the entire universe unfolds. Awareness has two aspects. One is internal awareness. The other is infinite awareness. In truth, they’re both the same, but your access to infinite awareness is through internal awareness.

Internal awareness is your access to infinite awareness. You get there by bringing your focus deep down into the core of your being, where you find your personal unshakeable peace as the innermost part of your being. You, like every other creature, are a center point of a peace without inside or outside, which radiates from your core out to infinity, not limited by the physical dimensions of your physical body.

It is not likely to be a surprise that peace, experienced, has positive effects on health.

Life is the necessary energy or power that runs the mental and physical shows. Life is both the power that empowers us and unconditional love for the body. In its essence, it is solar energy which, within your body space, is called life or life energy. Subjectively experienced, life is also the master of your body that is also called spirit.

Life weighs nothing but runs everything. It is the power that empowers you. It is unconditional love for your body. It is omni-present, omni-potent, and omni-scient in your body. It is your built-in expert on how to live in your personal ‘trench’. Life is the master in your body. It is also your body’s CEO, ruler, benevolent dictator, sovereign (king), and leader.

You can imagine that feeling the unconditional love that powers and empowers you is beneficial to your total health.

Mind consists of three arbitrarily created, learned, thought- and belief-based (symbolic; not real) programs of instructions that have distinctly different functions. The first is Creative Mind. The second is Survival Mind. The third is Habitual Mind. The usefulness of mind is that it determines your directions, limitations, and outcomes of our life-powered physical journey. Depending on your mental content, mind is a gift (supportive of life) or a curse (life-hostile).

Creative mind is the shine of life into the world. It is inspiration, genius, originality, design, purpose, intention, will, and positive contribution. Its visions light up the world and, manifested in practice, raise quality of life for both you and others. Some call it ‘thrival mind’.

Survival mind, also knowns as survival smarts, consists of courage, and learned skills that enable you to avert or deal with crises and take necessary action while remaining calm under fire. Survival mind at its best pre-empts crises (working with creative mind) that can be anticipated, and takes care of protection, procreation, parenting (food, water, air, clothing, shelter), and basic education for living successfully in the world.

Habitual mind is all the stuff we’ve learned that is not helpful to either thriving or surviving. It’s the collection of thoughts, ideas, concepts, and beliefs you’ve picked up that you could easily survive or thrive without. Like algebra. Unfounded opinions. Facts that are plain wrong. All the thoughts and beliefs that neither help us to survive or to thrive. All the mental stuff we don’t need that can interfere with the quality of our life journey. The mental clutter that we don’t need, can let go of, and lighten up when we dump it.

Body is your physical vehicle for physical action. It includes the physical genetic DNA instructions for body construction and repair.

This separation of the human being into distinct parts is not applicable only to humans. It also applies to cars and computers which, other than not being selfaware, are constructed similarly.

Life, mind, and body of a car, a computer, and a human being unfold their functions: creation, maintenance, and dissolution.

Car: The “life” or power of the car is its fuel. The “body” of the car is its chassis, wheels, motor, etc. The “mind” of the car is the driver’s intent, which gives direction toward the goal by means of turning the steering wheel and appropriately pressing on the gas and brake pedals.

Computer: The “life” of a computer is its power source (battery or wall plug). The “body” of the computer is its hardware. The “mind” of the computer is its software program.

Human: Life is solar energy. Body is oxygen, water, and food. Mind is thought, memory, and belief structures that set direction for action as well as limitations to attain specific goals and outcomes.

Life makes and uses DNA genes as its blueprint for making mRNAs. mRNAs act as templates for the construction of proteins. Proteins determine the shape and functions of bodies made from nature, food, essential nutrients (no poisons), water, and air. Every year, life removes and replaces close to one hundred percent of the atoms in your body. That is what makes physical healing possible. Links:

Automatic

Tune-Up:

How the Body Rejuvenates Itself

How long does it take for most of the atoms in your body to be replaced by others?

For those who are interested in more on the distinct and separable parts of human nature, a bit more on that topic is found in Appendix 4 at the end of the book.

Energy Trumps Matter

In all of creation, energy precedes matter. No one knows what was prior to the Big Bang (I think of it as a super-concentrated point of awareness), but space, time, energy, and matter began to exist after that. Energy preceded matter. Matter appeared later, as a condensation or crystallization of energy. Here are a few observations of energy preceding matter.

Solar energy touching Earth preceded the excitation of electrons on atoms (or energy of activation) that resulted in the chemical reactions that led to the development of molecules, complex molecules, microbes, plants, and animals.

Energy excites atoms. Atoms don’t excite themselves. Without energy, there is no chemistry.

In reproduction, long before the physical embrace, there is perception and attraction; both are energy phenomena. When two people say they have chemistry with each other, that chemistry consists of a quickening exchange of energy, which is the realm of physics, not chemistry.

The energy of life precedes and is required for the construction of physical form.

Enhanced energy helps healing happen. Energy moves atoms and molecules around the body in healing activities. Atoms and molecules do not move themselves.

When you are physically sick, life can rebuild almost all your body bits to a higher standard in a year if you:

• Raise the standard (quality) of the food, water, and air you take in, and enhance the availability of energy needed for healing

• Ensure optimum digestion with digestive enzymes, probiotics, prebiotic fiber, and bitter herbs

• Balance action, activity, and exercise with rest, recovery, healing, and sleep

• Avoid poisons and detoxify.

What role do good oils play in healing?

As part of food, fifteen percent of your body weight is oils and fats. In an adult with a normal weight, that’s 22.5 pounds or about 10kg or oils and fats. Omega-3 and omega-6 EFAs make up about ten percent of the weight of the wet brain (more than sixty percent of the dry brain). They make up a smaller amount of the oils and fats in most of your body’s other tissues. One of their functions in body construction, activity, and repair is that they serve as structural building blocks within cells and tissues. But they also store a lot of energy that drives the chemistry of healing.

Water makes up about seventy percent of the weight and ninety-nine percent of the molecules of the body. Oils and fats, at fifteen percent of your weight, are the most abundant and energy-richest nutrient molecules in your body. Proteins are about ten percent. Minerals are about four percent. Free oxygen is about one percent. Vitamins are less than one percent of your total body weight. Light, of course, is weightless. All are necessary parts of body construction, function, and repair.

EFAs are the most sensitive, easily damaged building blocks. Light, oxygen, and heat, as well as water and minerals, can easily damage these highly sensitive oil molecules. Of all the nutrients from foods, the oils you use in your foods have been most harshly treated, are most destructively used, and have thereby become the most toxic foods. The oil change that your body needs, from damaged oils to good oils made with health in mind, enables profound improvements in physical health to take place.

Within a matter of two years, healthy oils may have replaced all the damaged oils in your body. That change improves your health. Additionally, good oils remove oilsoluble toxins from your body through your lymphatic system, and through your skin when you sweat.

In other words, a total oil change is possible!

Blocks and Interference

Life and its DNA can only create physical health if you live in line with your nature and the natural system within which and for which life developed this genetic program. Living in line with nature consists of exposing your skin to natural light, breathing fresh air, drinking fresh water, and eating fresh, whole, raw, organic, local, seasonal, mostly plant-based foods. You’re healthiest when you do that, unless they’re contaminated by disease-carrying microbes, in which case you must wash and cook the food to kill the pathogenic microbes. If your foods contain unnatural, toxic, industrial chemicals, that’s more difficult to know and still more difficult and slow to clean up.

Life did not make DNA or mechanisms to remove, break down, or otherwise neutralize molecules that never existed in nature. Such “foreign” molecules can interfere with health when they get into your body. Molecules foreign to nature often have toxic, poisonous, negative effects on health. Why do pharma-made synthetic drugs have so many unintended toxic side effects? Because they are unnatural. To be patentable, they must be unnatural.

In addition, the detox mechanisms that life (nature) developed in your body can sometimes work against you. Some unnatural toxic molecules become even more toxic in life’s attempt to detoxify them in your liver. So, avoid unnatural molecules as much as you can.

Toxins

Industry developed unnatural, synthetic molecules only recently. They include:

Pesticides, made with the sole purpose of interfering with biological processes and thereby killing creatures.

Plastics, for which life made no breakdown methods, and which, when they get in your body, can lead to low-grade chronic systemic inflammation as your immune system tries in vain to neutralize them.

Pharmaceutical patented drugs, many of which have toxic side effects because they are not natural and merely suppress symptoms without curing illnesses; illness has never resulted from a deficiency of any pharmaceutical drug.

Industrial chemicals, thousands of which are dangerous to delicate natural cells and tissues; last time I checked, there were about 84,000 such chemicals.

Household chemicals, which, with powerful toxicity, have warnings to keep them out of the reach of children.

Beauty products & Cosmetics, many of which contain unnatural toxic molecules that persist for many years in your environment; they don’t belong on your skin because they’re absorbed into your body; and there are few regulations regarding their use and side effects.

Food additives/preservatives, which prevent bacteria from living on and rotting foods, also therefore keeping foods artificially “fresh” longer than normal.

Damaged food molecules, which your body recognizes as foreign, but may not know how to get rid of, produced by industrial food processing and by restaurant or in-home food preparation.

Toxic metals, which are concentrated by industry and include lead, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, and mercury, have many health-damaging properties.

Radiation, whose power from atomic bombs, reactors, power lines, and X-rays can wreak havoc on delicate molecules and the bonds between their atoms in your body.

Radioactive elements like cesium, strontium, iodine, and plutonium, whose powerful gamma rays damage DNA, break molecules into fragments, create chaos in your cells, and can cause mutations, cancer, and birth defects.

Excess of some molecules also interferes with the conversion of vital omega-3 into useful omega-3 derivatives. This includes the presence of too many molecules of the omega-6 essential fatty (linoleic) acid, omega-9 monounsaturated fatty acids, saturated fatty acids, trans- fatty acids, starch, and sugar.

Deficiency of atoms or molecules that promote conversion of vital omega-3 into useful omega-3 derivatives, including the minerals magnesium and zinc; and vitamins B3, B6, and C.

Optimize intake of essential nutrients that promote conversion. Minimize your intake of factors that interfere.

Chapter Two: My Health My Responsibility

Inquiry: Personal Responsibility for Health

Even though I was not in charge of the timing, my poisoning by pesticides could not have been more perfectly orchestrated. It took place in May of 1980. The medical profession had nothing to offer for it then and still does not. Nor do the pesticide manufacturers. It’s an example of freedom without responsibility.

This is also true for governments. They make laws and impose “shoulds”. But they don’t know how to change the heart of the lawbreaker. They know how to judge and punish, but they don’t know how to love or transform. As a result, nothing gets better in the long-term, and over time, it gets worse. That’s why, through history, there has been a revolution every few generations.

The revolutions have also failed. The revolutionaries may have known how to overthrow a government they hated, but they had very little idea of what a good government would look like. After they won, slowly they began to create the same government that they railed against when they were not in charge.

The question needing a clear answer is what kind of a world do we want to build rather than how can we destroy the world we have right now?

It’s the same for your health.

Who’s responsible for the consequences of spreading poisons around our fragile planet and into the bodies of the living organisms on it? Who’s responsible for government complicity in this business of poisoning the planet? Who is responsible for creating a world that works for all at the expense of none? Who is responsible for righting the wrongs, solving the problems, and answering the unanswered questions of humanity?

Okay, maybe it is my responsibility. Why me? I did not start this poisoning and the other messes on our planet. But I have not stopped them, either.

This one is self-inflicted. In my 20’s, I became aware of and interested in the problems on this planet.

I’d ask, “Why do these problems exist?”

The answer was always the same, “It’s because of me.”

Strange. “Why me? I did not create all the problems on the planet.”

“That’s true,” something in me would say, “but what have you done to fix them?”

My answer, “Nothing.” That is why every problem in the world is “my fault”. It was highly motivating for me to think that way. It made me deeply examine issues and find root causes. It also made me ask what a solution would look like. It drove my study, search, research, and learning.

And yes, I’ve found practical answers to the foundational problems in the world. I’ll share snippets of them with you here and elsewhere. It’s a work in progress.

Here’s my view. Life makes this planet special. Life is the only thing that makes it so. Without life, nothing else can matter. Imagine a planet without life. You can’t because you would not be here to do any imagining. Sex, money, nations, cultures, religions, entertainment, travel, discovery, science, knowledge, soccer, dance, architecture, the arts, industry, nature, fossil fuels, hydroelectric dams, cities, the weather, laws, climate, human triumphs/tragedies, loves, hates, and losses would have no meaning. Even death would have no meaning without life. Nothing would matter at all.

Nothing.

That being true, your primary purpose is to look, listen, and feel into life, and to be present in, feel, know, enjoy, protect, and care for the gift of life that you’ve been given. Is it selfish to do that? Some people say that it’s selfish to enjoy life. Those are the people who want you to serve their agendas. And that’s not selfish of them?

It’s not selfish to enjoy your life, for at least two reasons.

First, no one else can enjoy your life for you, so it is a wasted gift if you don’t unpack it and have fun.

Second, the deeper your presence in life, the more gifts you can give to others.

Do you take time to get present in your life? Most of the time, most of us take life for granted. We treat it like it has no value. Most of the time, we’re distracted, with our awareness focused on the world outside, in our thoughts and emotions, or in our physical body. We miss the gift we are, and that life is.

In times of crises threatening our physical existence, we briefly remember life’s value. When the crisis is over though, we forget again. Lucky for us, our heart aches for our awareness to come back home to life. It nags us, until we attend to it. How do we attend to it? We sit with it in stillness. We accept, feel, acknowledge, embrace, appreciate, and learn to love it. The ache will not hurt us, but if we sit with it, it will take us home to our heart.

You discover the value of life in solitary stillness in which you practice an alert wakefulness. When you move the focus of your awareness inward to be in touch with the feeling of life, you experience wholeness. That feeling of wholeness is the source of your wisdom. Self-knowledge is the most important education, costs nothing, and is available to all who want it.

Insight and Philosophy

Ultimately, each of us works either for life or for the bank. Here’s how to tell. If you work for life, you’ll sacrifice money for life when necessary. If you work for the bank, you’ll sacrifice life for money when necessary. When you work for life, money is your

servant, and you’re its master. When you work for the bank, money is your master, and you’re its servant.

On this planet, life is the only true treasure. You live the highest quality life when what you feel, think, say, and do is in line with protecting and caring for life, body, and nature. When you live in touch with the life within you, you feel richly taken care of and whole. Then you become a giver because that is your core true nature.

When you live out of touch with life within you, you do not feel cared for. Then you are a taker, because your most powerful central drive is to feel cared for, and you’ll only do whatever you think will take care of you. That’s how human beings are. That’s how human nature works.

The truth is nothing on the outside can get you to feel cared for. People who are fully present in all their being, and who therefore know how human nature works, can point you in an inward direction, but they cannot do your inner reconnection work for you; they will be clear about this with you. Your inner journey is your personal journey. Others may be able to help inspire or remind you to take time to get to the core feeling of life within you. But you walk alone to the center of the universe you live in. Take time to practice feeling fully present every day.

With this practice as a foundation, you can live a fulfilling life, giving to yourself, to others, and to nature instead of destroying them by working for the bank, against life. Money can never be the highest priority on a planet where life is the true treasure.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. “Know thyself.”

You’ve heard his words, and you might have ignored them. Or you may have asked, “What did he mean by that?”

All masters, past and living, recommend that you take time alone to be with your innermost self; with who you are; your essence; life energy. There, you discover the magnificence of your being, your core, and your heart. Compare that to how you live in the world.

You do everything except enjoy being present in life. You don’t know what it feels like to be alive.

You don’t know how rich life is in its nature. You spend your time imagining, thinking, and then creating stuff, and then more stuff. You have forgotten to be a human being and have become a human doing. You miss the best life offers you. What is that best?

Life offers you the ability to be conscious of it. Life is your original, primal, basic, foundational gift.

Nothing else is needed. With life, you have everything. Without life, you have nothing. From that perspective, let us look at what we do with pesticides—yes, you see how I did that? We are back to the pesticides.

The only purpose of pesticides is to kill living organisms. Most of these poisons kill by interfering with energy production or with nerve transmission, conduction, and function. Most creatures on this planet, especially animals, have similar energy production mechanisms and nerve functions. Pesticides that kill one creature are usually toxic to many other creatures that you did not intend to target, including yourself.

There’s huge collateral damage in pesticide wars. The possible side effects of spraying pesticides include birth defects, cancer, fatigue, impaired brain function, problems with learning, mood, and behavior, compromised immune, skin, lung, heart, and artery function, and chronic inflammation that can be local or systemic. The side effects also include the destruction of soil organisms that plants need for their growth, which you need for your food. Add this toxicity to the soils that are being depleted by erosion and non-recycling back to the soil of the foods we take from them. One estimate of soil fertility loss estimates that we have only about sixty harvests left on most of the Earth’s food-growing places.

Industries make pesticides, governments allow them, churches accept them without question, teachers ignore them, and you bear the consequences with no recourse to a way to fix the problems that poisons create. Like atomic energy installations, which can pollute nature with radioactive plutonium that persists for tens of thousands of years, promoting mutations, cancer, and deformity, many of the pesticides you commonly use have no antidotes.

In my situation, I was looking for practical, effective self-help. Experts pooh-pooh self-help, because they make their money being helpers that cash in on your ignorance and insecurity. But when, through self-help, you find solutions that work for you beyond the limitations of your world of experts, it can be your life-saving godsend.

When I became interested in world problems and their solutions and took personal responsibility for them all, I got overwhelmed. So many problems! Responsible for them all, how could I address them all? Since there were too many, I felt that I needed to look for common denominators. To begin with, I realized that we humans are the only problem on this planet. That helped because it got me focused on human beings. But there were still far too many problems.

Is there a common denominator behind all human problems? Is there a single source which, when properly addressed, will solve all human problems? Good question. The answer? Yes! What is that answer? Give it some thought. See what you can come up with. If you make yourself responsible for every problem on the planet, then you, too, will find the one key central problem that once solved, will make resolving every other problem possible and remarkably easy.

With that, you will be very close to humanity’s highest common denominator that is the answer to all your problems. Oh, you are sooooooo very close to it. You are closer to it than you think. It’s closer than your breath. It’s right under your nose. It is more powerful than you imagine.

Effort

and Grace

In India, there’s a saying that grace follows effort. Nothing happens only by effort, but not much happens without effort, either. Grace will not act without your participation. Here’s a Western version of the same idea expressed by Eric Butterworth: “God can do for you only what God can do through you.”

Looking at the events of the past forty years, there’s no question in my mind that I made effort. But there is also no question that factors completely beyond my control conspired to make my efforts successful. Truly, the universe is a conspiracy to make me happy.

It took 4.3 billion years to create the moment of this opportunity. Perhaps it was even longer, like fourteen billion years. Perhaps it was measureless.

Are You Inspired to Love Life?

If you’re reading this book, you’re probably interested in health. You likely know quite a bit about what you should do to be healthier. You ask good questions and listen to experts. You’ve learned a lot. But do you put all that you know into practice? If you don’t, what’s holding you back?

Here is my personal experience. When I tune in to life’s love for me and feel loved by life, I feel inspired. Inspired, I have energy. Energized by inspiration, I will gladly make the effort necessary to have the best possible life for as longest possible time.

If I need to change a habit, it’s not difficult. If I need to alter the way I eat, it’s doable. If I need to rethink my activity level, I’ll do that. If I need to improve the way I think, I’ll embrace new ideas. If I need to modify the way I behave, I’ll practice acting differently.

All this effort is worthwhile because I feel loved, cared for, and lovable. When I feel loved by life, I feel love for life. Even though I know that one day my body will end, I want to stay on the incredibly enjoyable journey I’m on for as long as possible.

I think this applies to most people, including you. It’s based on how we feel about being alive. It’s based on how inspired we feel and how present we are, and it depends on the depth of our self-presence.

In touch with the feeling of life, you feel magnificent, because in your essence, you are magnificent. You feel inspired. Inspired, you’re energized and free to do what needs to be done; to do what is necessary to prolong the time and quality of life you have on earth. The more fully we experience (know) ourselves, the better we feel.

When you feel life’s care, you breathe, think, eat, drink, show up, and act with more care, which you then automatically pass on to other lives. Self-responsible health care does not precede inspiration. It follows inspiration.

Every one of you is a masterpiece created by the great universal power of nature. From the core of being, there’s never ever been anything wrong with any human being on earth. The essence of your being has always been whole, and can never be “un-whole”, no matter what your mental, physical, social, and environmental situations are, have been, or will be.

You’re on the ride of your life, and you’re here to enjoy it to the fullest of your ability, and to its fullest extent. Quiet or active, you can look forward to more of it.

Not every human being knows this. More importantly, even when you know the words, or read the books, you don’t necessarily feel them. You don’t experience yourself that way and that is where the trouble begins.

Not Feeling Loved

On the other hand, when I hate my dismal existence and feel depressed and miserable, I don’t feel like I have energy to do more than the bare minimum. Then taking care of myself is asking too much. So, I don’t take care of myself. Consciously or subconsciously, I might not care to live any longer than necessary. If I feel deeply miserable, I might even decide to deliberately destroy my body.

You can’t be inspired and depressed at the same time. Inspiration erases depression. Inspiration follows from direct, personal, experiential self-knowledge of life. All human beings live somewhere between the feeling of depression and the inspired feeling of love for life. Between them, you might feel numb, not much, or nothing at all. On either side of that nothing, you can experience a wide range of feelings.

Inspiration drives life-affirming thoughts and actions. Inspiration is the foundation of positive intent. To me, therefore, inspiration is nutrient number one in anyone’s program for optimum health and quality of life.

You discover the inspiration that exists within you by any practice that gets you in touch with the inner reality of your living presence. If your practice leads to inspiration, it’s a keeper. If it does not, you need to find something that does. When you commit to that one basic inspiring practice, everything else becomes much more manageable. It might even turn into fun and joy. Start there!

Why Should I Care?

Health is a precious and fragile gift. To unpack and enjoy this gift, you need to know and live by, or adhere to, its principles. To maintain this gift, you need to consistently take specific actions in line with these principles. When you don’t, you give up the gift of health. When you lose health, you get pain and suffering. You depreciate the

quality of your life. In addition to less enjoyment, you can also expect to speed up your checkout date.

Suffering is not pre-destined. It comes from not following the rules that life set for you in nature. The right kind of knowledge can prevent or end most of your suffering, and much of your pain. For me, sharing knowledge to help alleviate people’s pain and suffering, and even more important, to improve quality of life, is the most rewarding way to spend time. That’s why I do it. I love to do it, and I’m grateful that I get to.

Anything that can improve quality of life interests me. This applies not just to oils, not just to food and fitness, but also to air and water, mental and emotional functioning, self-knowledge, social issues, concerns about our natural environment, and the source that creates, sustains, and welcomes home all creatures when their time is done. Each of the above affects your health in different ways, and each deserves, needs, and requires a different kind of attention.

Life is interesting and precious. Our highest priority, as the wise ones have always told us, should be to cultivate awareness of the feeling of life; to cultivate full presence in all our being.

From that awareness come life-affirming thoughts. From life-affirming thoughts come life-affirming words. From life-affirming words come life-affirming actions. From life-affirming actions come life-affirming results and consequences. Then, everything works out for everyone concerned.

You create your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs out of your basic feeling of being content or discontent. When you feel content, you create thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that are positive, supportive, and helpful to life, body, nature, and others. When you feel discontent, you create thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that are negative, unsupportive, and hurtful to life, body, nature, and others.

Your beliefs set the direction for your actions. They also set the limitations—what you will not do—for your actions. And because they set your direction and limitations, your beliefs determine what goals, outcomes, destinations, and destinies will result from your actions. When you focus your thinking on serving life, your thoughts will be deliberate and disciplined toward the all-inclusive “us” globally. You’ll naturally strive to protect and care for life, body, and nature. You’ll gravitate toward “benefit for all at the expense of none” thoughts and actions.

That kind of thinking is sane. Every other kind of thinking is insane. By this standard, most of us are insane in our thinking a lot of the time.

In practice, that’s where all our personal, relational, social, and environmental problems come from.

What Should We Prioritize?

On this planet, life is the big deal. It’s the only big deal. Life makes our planet special in the solar system. Life makes our planet special in the known universe. The rest of the planets may all be lifeless. We don’t know for sure, but we know that lifeless is boring, and that life is exciting, amazing, and spectacular. With life, there really is never a dull moment.

Living Creatures

Life is power. Life is sunlight. Life is energy. Life energy weighs nothing but runs everything. Life makes you feel light. Life is so light that it can lift water and dust all the way up from the ground to the top of your head. Life enlightens you. Life designs and energizes the production of DNA, which is its blueprint and instruction program for creating the amazing array of molecules that make your body, all other unique creatures, and countless uniquely original members of each kind of creature. We call them species, and presently, an estimated 8.7 million different living species grace our planet. Of these, 6.5 million live on land, and 2.2 million live in the ocean. Adding a note here, we are in the process of destroying a million or more of these species of creatures by the careless, thoughtless, heartless, destructive ways we live.

Because of measuring uncertainties, it’s impossible to get exact numbers, so here are some estimates. Disagreement between experts shows up in the literature.

In total, between one and six hundred billion species have lived on Earth at one time or another over the past 4.3 billion years, most of them (99.9 percent) now extinct and replaced by others. A total of about two and a half trillion individual living trees grows on this planet right now (there were ten trillion trees ten thousand years ago), and all plants together, from about three hundred thousand different species, make up about fifty-five percent of the living biomass on our planet.

A total of about one quintillion (1018) individual insects from about one million different species, live on this planet, but all together they make up only about 0.4 percent of all Earth’s living biomass.

An unknown number of individual living animals, from about 1.3 million species, grow on this planet, and they make up about ten percent of all the living biomass here. Eight billion humans make up about 0.1 percent, and krill about 0.15 percent, three and a half trillion fish in the ocean account for about 0.2 percent, ants about 0.1 percent, and food animals about 0.2 percent of the total biomass of this planet.

About one nonillion (1030) individual living bacteria belonging to 1019 species grow on Earth, and these make up about 10 percent of all living biomass here. They include bacteria that make you sick and can kill you, rot bacteria that recycle the bodies of all creatures after they die, and beneficial bacteria that protect you from the sickening and rot bacteria while you live.

An unknown total of about individual fungi from one and a half million species live on this planet, and these make up an estimated 25 percent of all living biomass (some

estimates suggest 2.5 percent). Hard to tell precisely because most of this fungal biomass is underground.

Supreme Diversity

All these creatures were made and have been sustained by life generation after generation for about 4.3 billion years. We’re not talking about something trivial here. All the creatures that lived over all this time, and all creatures that will ever live here, including all microbes, plants, animals, and humans of today, exist courtesy of life. You’re here, not by your own effort, but courtesy of life energy, nature, and big picture consciousness.

Living microbes, plants, animals, and humans adorn the surface of this planet in the world of nature. Life makes each of them beautiful, unique, and interesting. Life creates and animates the trillions of creatures by combining sunlight, air, water, and dust in spectacularly precise designs. They dance and break down, then life repairs them.

After a time, life lays each individual body of each creature permanently down. That includes me, you, all of us, and all of them. The energy, air, water, and dust from which they’re made are constantly recycled, and the dance continues.

Life Runs Everything

Life makes everything possible. Without life, your body is a handful of dust scattered on the ground, three buckets of water in the salty sea, and a few burps dissipated in the thin, windy, gassy envelope of atmosphere around our planet.

Without life, there are no thoughts you can think, consider, accept, hold to be true, disagree with, argue over, or kill and get killed to impose, defend, or enforce.

Life invented the rules of wholeness and health, on which high quality living depends. Life invented nature, food, and health. And life is rich, loving, content, full, steady, light, formless, and indestructible. Life is even endless and beyond death.

The ancestors are always present. What was alive will always be alive. The body is never life. When life and body part company, the true nature of the body shows up. This is a deep, light, and hope-filled, heart-to-heart conversation that we can continue at some future time.

What is Normal Health?

Health is the natural state. It is what is normal in nature and in human nature. Life created several different parts of the natural state of health, one for each of the parts of nature and human nature.

Life itself is perfect health because, being formless, it can never break down, get sick, deteriorate, or die. What has no form can never lose its form. Something in you is indestructible, because formless is indestructible. Only form can be destroyed.

Life created mind, which fulfills two kinds of functions that define mental health. One is the source of creativity, and the second is responsible for survival (protection and procreation): I call them Mental Health One and Two. These two have very different functions.

The first invents new possibilities. It is a function of wisdom that comes from life, light, or intuition. It’s the territory of dreamers, inventors, and sages. The second protects against harm and ensures reproduction. It’s a function of calmness under fire, protection of life, courtship, mating, and raising as well as educating the brood. This is the realm of protectors, first responders, lovers, parents, and teachers.

Some people suggest that there is a third kind of mind, which is involved in the exchange of value. It is used to make deals and agreements. It does the math, calculates equivalencies, sets down terms of exchanges for goods and services, and makes business deals. To me, it’s an aspect of the second part of mind.

Life creates physical health. Physical health is based on a set of principles and components which, when you live aligned with them, result in a body that works optimally in the natural setting of planet Earth. Made for activity, physical health also involves rest, recovery, sleep, healing, and detoxification. Fresh, whole, raw, organic food, fresh water, fresh air, and sunlight creates bodies that are fit for activity. Digestion is also key to physical health.

Life creates social health, a matter of connection, contribution, and play. It’s about membership, belonging, cooperation, and social celebration of individual uniqueness.

Life creates environmental health, which revolves around our dependence on and relationship with nature. It’s about being grateful for, respecting, and taking care of the natural planetary resources, on which our existence depends for long-term sustainability.

Then there are internal and infinite awarenesses. These two are in truth the same, but as a practical matter, internal awareness is your access to infinite awareness. Both are beyond health, and so I call them Beyond Health One and Two. They are the formless foundation from which perfect health or life and everything else arises, within which it exists, and into which it dissolves at the end of its cycle of existence.

Then there’s emotional health, which is a composite of all the different kinds of health.

Each of the different parts of health has its own definition, its own nature, and its own unique functions. Each of the different parts of health needs its own specific kind of attention. Each part of health needs attention on a regular basis. Each part of health goes off in a different way and responds to a different kind of intervention.

Total health results when you give each part of health its due. Health deteriorates when you fail to give one or more of the different parts of health its due. You regain

health when you realign awareness one and two, life, body, minds one and two, society, and environment with their nature and their functions. When all parts of nature and your nature are aligned, your emotional state becomes one of calm presence, clear purpose, or serene passion.

If this comprehensive topic is of interest to you, you can obtain more information on my WEBSITE

Chapter Three: Hard Beginnings

When I came into the world, I had no clue I was destined to do work with oils. It wasn’t my childhood dream to pioneer something and yet I became the pioneer of a new industry of making oils with health in mind. A winding path led me to this work. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was about to star as the protagonist in a story to save oils.

Not something anyone could conceive. We grow up wanting to be doctors or astronauts, not oil enthusiasts. But once I uncovered the truth that the oils of the world were in trouble and no one knew about it, if I didn’t do something to save them, who would?

Early History

When my family and I were fleeing at the end of the second world war from Poland to Germany with the communists chasing us from behind, and the allies using us refugees for target practice, shooting at us from planes, we were terrified and hungry. I was two years old. I’m still slightly bow-legged from rickets (vitamin D deficiency) from that time.

Even after we got to West Germany, food was scarce. On several occasions, I ate more than my share of sandwiches. I remember that those who got less than their share did not appreciate my penchant for eating.

When I’d tell my mother that I was still hungry, she’d say: “Tomorrow, you get more.” Great answer. And I’d dance around the room, singing: “Tomorrow, I get more fooood! Tomorrow, I get more foo-ood!’ My intensely positive and joyous relationship with food goes way back.

Education

I love learning how things work. In university, sciences and biological sciences taught me about the principles and rules that run the biological world. Literature, poetry, and the written expression of ideas were just as, and sometimes more, interesting to me. But sciences were more “practical”, so that is where my course choices went.

I began with physics, mathematics, and chemistry, which led me to become interested in organic chemistry, the chemistry of life. This in turn got me into studying the life sciences, which I found totally fascinating. Learning about how we think and act—our psychology—was also super-interesting to me and became my second major.

Brain, natural history (evolution), genetics, and environmental studies (ecology) were the specific topics in life sciences for which I had the greatest passion, and biochemistry was the necessary basic tool for understanding all of these.

Various cultures and traditions around the world have collected healing folk wisdom from nature. Some of my knowledge comes from trial and error, driven by my own pain and experiences with both health and illness.

For about twelve years, I worked in trades: carpentry, painting, farming, logging, gardening, and many other jobs. My reason for doing those kinds of jobs was I thought that a citizen should know what it is like to be in the shoes of the different people doing different jobs. Socrates may have set me up for this with his notion that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Asking bold questions in unique ways led me to unique answers and new understandings. Some of my knowledge about and insight into human nature comes from my deep fascination with life, living, and self-observation. To sit still in voluntary solitude, and look, listen, feel, and learn the profound inner richness, wisdom, love, power, and genius of life ranks high for me.

My deepest understanding, insight, and knowledge comes from the experience of self-knowledge, which includes having made calmness and contentment a priority in my life. Why is that important? When I feel life’s care for me while involved in the world of dramas, traumas, stress, and changing circumstances, I’m not fearfully scheming and trying to find ways to get taken care of.

Then I can calmly take time to be, to see, to hear, to feel, to know, and to understand the nature of life on every level. Then, I can share with others what I’ve discovered and come to know in my quiet moments in the inner classroom, about the kindness, care, and healing power of life.

But I was also looking for self-knowledge a la Socrates’ “Know thyself!” This turned out to be rather elusive because no university offered courses in self-knowledge.

It’s been said that “In silence, everything reveals itself to you.” Einstein once commented, “I think ninety-nine times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”

In silence, there’s clarity. You find your deepest insights into your life in deliberately cultivated silence.

Wanting to study health so that I could help people have a better quality of life led me to apply for and enter medical school 1964, but the study of medicine proved disappointing, as I learned only about disease, which I’m not interested in, and nothing about health, which is what I wanted to know.

I even had a conversation with the dean of medicine.

“What is health?” I asked him.

His answer? “We don’t know. We’re working on it.”

It is hard to describe how disappointing his answer was to me. That, and the fact we were told a doctor should always sound as though he knows what’s going on even when he doesn’t, ended my career in medicine by 1965. I couldn’t see myself making a living as a medical doctor who lies to his patients or makes up fictitious answers to their genuine concerns.

My interest in medicine evaporated before the end of my first semester, but I stayed to the end of the year to complete the human anatomy course. We got to dissect a cadaver to see and learn first-hand about the inner physical architecture of the human body. This was more than fascinating to me. It was awe-inspiring to get to know how life puts together the shell of molecules in which we live for a lifetime of seventy plus years.

The following year, I returned to the study of biological sciences, biochemistry, and genetics. I left university after close to eight years of studies in 1968, not having obtained knowledge of the essence of life, which is what, deep down, was what I was truly after.

In that educational journey though, I had acquired a lot of useful information about how body, mind, and nature are constructed and how they work. As Buckminster Fuller once said: “You can never learn less.”

More Education

I have six years of a thorough education in science, biological science, biochemistry, genetics, and psychology from the conservative, mainstream University of British Columbia. To that foundation, I later added an MA in Counseling Psychology and an MS and PhD in Nutrition in 1986. My revised, updated PhD thesis is the book called Fats That Heal Fats That Kill. It has sold more than 250,000 copies and is widely used in nutrition schools. I’ve met several researchers at scientific lipids (fatty acids, fats, and oils) conferences who told me that reading this book inspired them to dedicate their professional life to doing research with fats and oils (lipids).

I had been offered and had accepted a full scholarship to study for my PhD in Genetics at the University of Chicago. After a change of heart, I wrote to the professor and turned it down, because I wanted to get involved in more relevant (to me) social issues.

In his letter back to me he wrote, “I understand. Many people here are thinking the way you are thinking. If you ever change your mind, and want to get back into genetics, let me know. The door is open.”

I thanked him for understanding my position. My life took a new and different turn, and I never got back in touch with him.

Why do I tell you this? In biological sciences, genetics was my first love, and I was good at it. In the nucleus of the cell—its control room—are all the chromosomes and genes that govern and regulate what goes on inside cells and between them. It

fascinated me to no end, and I had experiences of religious wonder and awe studying genetics. Was I proud of myself? You bet. But are there any other issues more important than a glowing personal academic career? You bet.

My Date with Destiny

The inciting event on the road to creating edible oils made with health in mind was being poisoned by pesticides. It happened like this. I came across a practice of selfknowledge, got married, fathered three beautiful children, and officiated their home births. The marriage ended when my youngest was one year old. All this happened in only six years. As you can imagine, I was seriously upset. To tell the truth, I was raging and wanted to kill something. Offered a full-time job spraying pesticides, I jumped at the chance.

I already had a government license to do so from a previous gardening job. I got 99.5% on my exam and was sure that the person who marked my exam had marked it wrong. I knew my stuff. Talking with him, it turned out that I had circled the wrong answer in one question, even though I knew the right one. Clearly, I knew everything there was to know about pesticides.

Given my attitude, I was super-careless with my safety. I walked barefoot over lawns I had just sprayed. The skin peeled off the soles of my feet. Then I took to wearing rubber boots.

It was a summer season job and I liked to get a vanity-driven good tan, so I sprayed pesticides wearing only a bathing suit. I would feel the wind drift spray on my back.

I sprayed insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and soil “sterilants”. I sprayed lawns, trees, shrubs, and weeds. I sprayed home gardens, commercial properties, and vegetation surrounding industrial installments. I sprayed wearing a backpack, driving a tractor towing a big tank of pesticides, or using a hose-pressurized spray “gun”. I was good at my job. Got lots of accolades for my efficiency.

Someone I worked with asked me, “Aren’t you concerned that you might get poisoned?”

My reply was, “Nah, I’m immune.” I wasn’t. I got back what I had put out. I reaped what I sowed. Karma caught up with me. After three years of careless work with these poisons, they poisoned me.

The day I got poisoned, I experienced cramps, nausea, dizziness, and no energy. Also, when I turned my head, it felt like my head turned but my brain didn’t. A superstrange feeling.

Thirty-eight years old and poisoned by pesticides got my full attention and focused me on health. In the clinic I visited seeking help for my ailment, the doctor and I had a very short conversation.

“What do you have for pesticide poisoning?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

Medicine has no cure for pesticide poisoning…? That’s right. We make ‘em and we spray ‘em, but we can’t fix the problems they cause. The governmental agency that licensed me to spray pesticides would not allow me to peruse any literature they had on the effects of poisoning and what to do about it. They tried to convince me that I just had the flu, because the flu and pesticide poisoning have some symptoms in common.

“It’s going around,” their spokesperson told me.

Angry at their irresponsibility regarding my irresponsibility, I went to Greenpeace, where I met two great ladies who had a stack of research papers that described symptoms of pesticide poisoning and the carcinogenicity of more than half of them. I had not learned anything about the negative effects of pesticides in the material I studied to get my license. I, Mr. Naïve, was shocked.

The ladies also spoke to me about what I could do to help get over my symptoms. On their advice, and now very interested in health, I began taking nutrient (multi mineral/vitamin) and antioxidant supplements.

On that day and at that hour, I realized super-deeply what it means that my health is my personal responsibility. I went to the research journals in the university library and searched out studies on two specific topics: nutrition and health, and nutrition and disease.

Creating an oil with health in mind would be my destiny, but I didn’t know it yet.

How did I get to do what I do? I was in the right place at the right time, with the right questions about the right problem that needed solving. Also, with the right character, the right background, and the right kind of passion for knowing what is true. Ultimately, these things led to Udo’s Oil 3, 6, 9 Blend, but it was not an outlined and structured process, nor did I know when the oil would come to fruition. Life happening for me, and I was being tugged along, a willing participant in a grand plan.

Leading Edge

After my pesticide poisoning in 1980 and absent any medical solution, I looked for nature-based answers to heal myself. Given my strong university background in conservative biosciences, the work of professionals that were pioneers in natural health care was a perfect next step for me and led to my PhD in Nutrition. Fats and Oils, the book I authored and Alive Books published in 1986, was my thesis.

This period was also when I learned what I needed to know to create a whole new field in health care—the use of good oils made with health in mind. It rounded out beautifully what I had learned from sciences, life sciences, biochemistry, genetics, psychology, self-knowledge, and the arts.

I’ve always trusted nature more than industry, and my avant-garde style of learning about natural treatments came from all the books that are now considered to be the classics in natural health care. My expanded book Fats That Heal Fats That Kill has since joined the ranks of that list of classics in nutrition.

Natural medicine is often called “alternative” health care, but the truth is that natural medicine—the appropriate use of sunshine, air, water, and food (the components of body construction) to prevent and reverse physical illnesses—has been this planet’s original, conservative, primary, traditional health care for all living creatures for the past 4.3 billion years, including humans for all but the most recent few centuries— not much more than one thousand years.

Drug and radiation-based medicine has been practiced for only the past few decades. When we put that into context, modern medicine is a fad that casts many shadows in the form of side effects, toxicity, and commercial greed that bankrupts many patients and their families. A life lived in alignment with nature and our nature has always been the most effective health plan on this planet.

More than anything else though for me personally, is that the universe has been on my side, and that's something I cannot take credit for. A great deal of magic happened on my journey into health and making healthy oils. I was listening, and I did make effort, but many issues that were completely out of my control lined up to make the projects successful. Even the abilities to listen and to make effort are gifts that life gives us for free. Out of myself alone, I am nothing, have nothing, and can do nothing.

Credentials

What do you think about credentials? Are the schools you went to more important than your accomplishments? What if you did not go to school at all? What about inventors? They could not possibly have gone to a school to learn what they invented, because they invented something that was not known, and therefore no one knew or could teach it. What about pioneers? What schools can they go to learn what has never been done?

Inventors, originators, and pioneers may have credentials in some topics, but cannot have credentials in the specific area in which they bring new things into being. Mozart could not have studied Mozart’s music. He composed that music. Einstein did not write or pass exams on the theory of relativity. He originated that theory. Only people after him could learn that theory. Socrates had no degree in Socratic dialog. He created it. Buddha had no degree in Buddhist philosophy. Does that mean they had no credentials?

Does it mean they were not qualified to do what they did? Results speak louder than accreditations. Pioneers, inventors, and innovators may not be “credentialed” to do the work they do, but they are qualified. What they do qualifies as their credentials.

If what I do with oils is my credential, so be it. Many people have benefited from oils made with health in mind and the method I developed to make these oils. Help me get the word out, so even more people can benefit from them.

What my teams and I do improves lives. Ask people how what we do improves the quality of their lives. You can even get Internet feedback on my books and products.

Regarding more formal credentials, many educational institutions create curricula, provide teachers, set exams, and structure courses of study.

They impose these standards, and like trained monkeys, we follow their rules and do things their way. When we do that, they call us good boys or girls and give us good marks and a piece of paper at the end that states that we were obedient underlings.

The credentials that we obtain from institutions are not feathers in our cap. Rather, we are feathers in their cap. If we do good things in our life, or become famous, they’ll happily let people know that we attended their institutions and that they educated us.

Two Tracks: Personal Interests and Getting Good Marks

It reminds me of a story from my university days. I followed two tracks. My first and more important, intensely personal track at UBC was learning and exploring my personal interests, which were wide-ranging. Because I found everything interesting, and wanted to know everything about everything, I explored both the conventional wisdom and unconventional territory to satisfy my curiosity.

My second track was about getting good marks. This was a much narrower track, because it was about courses and information that my professors held to be important. Very early on, I learned an effective, practical, simple skill that helped me immensely. It was to write down, word for word, my professors’ oral lectures as fast as they could talk. I invented my own shorthand to enable me to record their words into exact written notes.

To prepare for exams, I just memorized the notes. On exams, I gave them back their wisdom in their own words. What do you think happened? They recognized the truth and wisdom of their own words that I repeated back to them. That made them feel like I had paid attention or was smart, and they gave me good marks.

Feeling Understood

We like it when people paraphrase back to us what we’ve said to them. We feel like we’ve been heard and understood. The upside of this is that we then trust them to have our best interests at heart. But that is also the downside. The downside of this is that people can con us by finishing our sentences using our own words, getting us to feel like they understand us, and then sucker us for whatever value they see they can extract from us. This is part of life in the trenches of the “real” world of smoke and mirrors.

Sometimes we’re also blinded by our social conventions regarding the reputation of schools and other educational institutions. We forget that all mental training can be used for constructive care for life, or for destructive abuse of life.

Information serves light as well as darkness, ethical as well as unethical behavior, and morality as well as immorality. Some graduates of esteemed institutions help rationalize practices that are poisonous or detrimental to living creatures and destructive to nature.

What exactly are your credentials? It’s something worth thinking about. Occasionally, I tell someone who doubts his or her competence, “You have a PhD in being you.”

In your life, you have seen, felt, heard, learned, and experienced a lot. You know a lot. When you become aware of it and appreciate the wealth of your knowledge, you’ll find it easier to create a way in which you can use what you know to help other people have less trouble and more richness in their lives.

Most people greatly underestimate the potential and power of the credentials they earned by living. In truth, it is more difficult to overestimate them.

Academic and Industrial

It is not common for those who are academically trained to get involved in the business of business. The writers and talkers are not usually the doers. Industry hires academics to put in a good word for industrial products and pays them honoraria or salaries for doing so. The industry makes most of the money. Often, this industry uses production procedures that don’t align with the truth about the issue as much as they do with convenience and the desired maximum spread between cost and profit.

Academic and industry circles tend to frown on anyone doing both. Why? As I already hinted, one reason is about who makes the money. Academics don’t belong in the kitchen, says industry. Give us the theory, but don’t judge what we do, says industry. By degrees, over time, industry tends to cut corners to decrease costs and increase profits.

Much modern food business, including farming, is more about making money than about health. Money, taste, convenience, cost cutting, maximizing profits, and painting pretty marketing pictures for prospective buyers take precedence over health considerations.

Health benefits simmer on the back burner or go in the freezer. That’s why we still did not have in 1986, after almost a century of oil manufacturing, oils made with health in mind.

Tempted by Profit

But there is another concern. In mixing truth and practical applications, there’s always the temptation to give up your integrity. That happens not only in the food industry, but also in many other industries, professions, politics, and religions. You are tempted to twist truth or lie for greater profit, control, or effect. You’re tempted to erode processing standards, accuracy, and veracity.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions derailed by sweet temptations. In the modern world, most of you are now savvy to lies and cover-ups in business. If you are not, listen to the daily evening news for a month.

Boredom on Fats

In my university biochemistry studies, I frankly found oils to be the most boring of topics. My professors at university all did exciting research with DNA, RNA, and proteins. Research had recently cracked the genetic code, and DNA, RNA, and proteins were the holy trinity where all the excitement was. My professors found fats and oils boring. They infected me with their boredom.

But it turns out that fats and oils (lipids) hold major keys to health and disease in our time.

Who knew?

Digging Through the Database of Facts

When I thought about having cancer to look forward to, my palms would start to sweat. Anxiety! What should I do? I voraciously devoured the studies published in the research journals listed on Medline, the largest science database in the world. Sixteen million studies were listed in this database at that time in 1980. Of these, about six hundred thousand studies reported on nutrition and health and disease. And of these, about thirty thousand were on edible fats and oils (lipids). And of these, about six thousand were on essential fatty acids, mostly on omega-6, which was known to be essential as early as 1929. Very little information on omega-3 was in the database.

Creating My Own Cure

In the meantime, I also tried various natural interventions that friends and others suggested to me—if they made sense. One was a fourteen-day fast that I broke with a subway sandwich. Another was a one-month master cleanse. Another was sauna and steam baths, to remove toxins from the body by sweating them out through the skin. I began to eat more fresh salads. I scrubbed my skin with loofa sponges to remove dead skin cells and toxic debris pushed out of my body onto my skin.

I also did some oil enemas to remove oil-soluble, toxic pesticides from the crypts inside the anus that are part of the lymphatic system. The first one stunk like all the chemicals I had worked with, and I believe that it was the single most effective action I took for removing the oil-soluble pesticides from my body.

Sweating is the second-best way to deal with both acute and chronic oil-soluble toxins. To make sweating most effective, a source of clean, undamaged, natural oils is required. I used olive oil, as there was no other “clean” oil made with health in mind easily available for driving oil-soluble toxins out through the skin at that time.

Narrowing the Focus

In my library search, I discovered a wealth of new, riveting information on fats and oils. The topic that I had previously found so boring in university now captivated my attention. They were the most difficult topic, the most damaged foods, and could boast the most contradictory results of all nutrient studies. To resolve the contradictions, I had to look deeper into how oils are made, and the effects of processing on oils that are sensitive to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat.

Industrial processing is needlessly careless and damages oils. The oil industry strives for a long shelf life (large markets), with little focus on the results of processing on human health. They simply aren’t interested in examining and addressing the negative side effects of their processing methods and explain away these problems when asked about them.

I also learned how often the research literature is contradictory, saying that omega-6 is necessary for health, but also that omega-6 causes cancer and kills us. That contradiction about omega-6 drove me especially nuts.

“How can something that is essential to health at the same time cause cancer and kill you?” I asked.

Eventually, I found resolution to this question, after learning how industry processes oils, and the damage done to omega-6 by that processing.

Groundbreaking Find: Omega-3 Established as Essential!

Something else happened that had nothing to do with my intent or my conscious decision-making control. In 1981, research established omega-3 as an essential nutrient. That was only a year after I got poisoned. The cosmic timing could not have been more perfect. That year, I also learned that Omega-3 is five times more sensitive to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat than omega-6. Therefore omega-3 is a nightmare to work with. Every cell in the body needs the newly discovered essential omega-3 and omega-6 (whose essentiality was established fifty plus years earlier).

Unfortunately, not much research on omega-3 was available at that time. Already knowing the precisely stated definition of “essential” as applied to nutrients, it came to me that since every cell uses omega-3, there had to be a wide range of problems that came from not optimizing intake of omega-3, and a wide range of benefits would result from optimizing intake of omega-3. If we could make them with health in mind, we could maximize their benefits.

Since we had the conceptual plans for doing this, it made sense that Omega-3 rich oil should be the first oil we make with health in mind.

Even though every cell in the body needs omega-3, ninety-nine percent of the population does not get enough omega-3 for optimum health. When I found this out, I got wildly excited. If we could bring optimum quantities of it back into the food supply in an undamaged form, we could help sooooooooo many people—almost everybody! The possibility gave more meaning and purpose to my life than anything I had ever done before.

Learning about oils enabled me to use undamaged oils rich in omega-3 to sweat out the oil-soluble toxins in my body in the best possible way, which is to drive them out through the skin. Why are these oils specifically so useful for this? Omega-3 oils flow more easily from the inside out through your skin than any other kind of oil. They carry oil-soluble toxins out of your body through your skin. You can then use soap to remove toxins and oils from your skin.

Wow. Delighted by the prospect of being able to benefit almost the entire population, we set to work.

Processing Damage is the Problem

Having been poisoned and seeking better health, what I learned shocked and amazed me. No one talks about the changes and damage that processing does to the plant-based cooking oils we all consume in large quantities. Here are two links to recent descriptions of the processes used to make colorless, odorless, tasteless mass market cooking oils:

Refining Vegetable Oils: Chemical and Physical Refining

A Revisit to the Formation and Mitigation of 3-Chloropropane-1,2-Diol in Palm Oil

Production

It’s written in the journals, but it’s not in the news. It’s not in the public awareness of citizens like yourself. It’s like a conspiracy of silence. Researchers know, but don’t express this information, likely because they fear that their grants from industry would dry up. But their silence is also complicity.

“Only one percent is damaged,” the researcher on the phone from the American Oil Chemists’ Society, the umbrella organization of the oil producers, told me when I asked if their processing damage is worth worrying about. When I subsequently did the math, I was deeply shocked, and had to totally disagree with his minimizing. The research that’s been done on these damaged oils and their effects on health supports my view.

In another conspiracy of silence, nobody talks about the damage done to fish oils by processing. Fish oils contain molecules that are twenty-five times more sensitive and easily damaged than the molecules in omega-6-rich cooking oils. They should get twenty-five times more care, but they don’t.

Sick as I was, it occurred to me that I could not get healthy using oils so damaged by processing.

The Cherry on my Recovery Cake

At the time of my pesticide poisoning, there were no oils that were deliberately made with health in mind available. I first had to develop a method for making them and then build out that method into an oil pressing facility. It took about six years before oils made with health in mind—a new industry—became available because I made it available. These oils, in other words, were not directly involved in reversing my pesticide poisoning. That was largely done by various other means I employed in my quest for health, and it took about two years.

However, when oils made with health in mind became attainable and I began to use them, they improved my skin, my ability to think, my stamina both physical and mental, and especially my energy level, which went up by at least an estimated thirty percent. So, the oil was the cherry on top of my recovery cake.

People sometimes suggest that I should say that Udo’s Oil saved my life. I would sell more oil if I said so. It has certainly enhanced the quality of my life, but the poisoning symptoms were mostly cleared by the combination of measures I took over the course of two to three years following my self-created pesticide disaster.

What I can say is that Udo’s Oil took me beyond even my pre-poisoning energy level and quality of life.

Making the oil change that I made and recommend ended the pain in my knees. At thirty-eight, I had the beginning of arthritis in my knees. Now, at eighty, I have no pain in my body other than when I bang into something, and I heal from injuries in about half the usual time. My skin is much smoother. My energy is through the roof. Yup, at eighty. My ability to mentally process both math and issues is quicker. My hair and nails grow about twenty-five percent faster. No cracks, splits, or split ends. My physical co-ordination is much better than it was even in my childhood. I think the usual “clumsiness” of my first forty years was at least in part due to insufficient omega-3 in my diet.

I build muscles faster and recover from fatigue much quicker than I did in my prehealthy-oil years.

My digestion is better than ever. The oil change I made is part of that, but it is also the result of taking a digestive enzyme blend and a blend of probiotics every day and eating more fiber-rich, raw, plant-based, organic whole foods.

So, you could say that, although the oil change did not specifically address the symptoms of my pesticide poisoning, it did so indirectly by being the trigger for learning about and then making changes in the most neglected, most difficult, and most important area of physical health care.

All in all, I’m glad I got poisoned by pesticides. This event triggered a search that led to profound changes in my knowledge base and behavior. In that way, one of my worst experiences turned into one of the greatest gifts in my life. It wasn’t fun at the time, but I am super-grateful for it now. Our worst disasters, properly responded to, can often turn into our greatest breakthroughs.

Looking for the cure was part of my cure, and it can be part of yours, too.

Chapter Four: Oils with Health in Mind

Can We Make Oils with Health in Mind?

A new thought came to me: We should make oils with health in mind! After all my reading and thinking, my practical conclusion was that oils will support health only if they are made with much greater care than they were currently getting. I began to conceptualize how that could be done.

My reasoning went like this: When we give good oils care, they retain their health benefits. Then, good things unfold for health when we eat enough of them. If we protect them, they’ll protect our body. When we don’t make a processing mess at the front end, we won’t need a chemical feast to clean up that mess at the back end and make another mess. If we supply the body with optimum quantities of good oils, the amount that life requires of these essential building blocks for optimum body construction and function, they will play their role toward optimum health. When we set higher standards for oil production, we end up with better oils. Better oils will have more positive effects on health than damaged oils.

Can we design or devise a better way to make oils? Sometimes, I’d think, “Who do I think I am, believing I could do a better job than a mega industry with an annual turnover of more than one hundred billion (sixty billion at that time) dollars? Can a little upstart guy like me accomplish something like this? If it were important, would they not have done it?”

But there it was. It wasn’t about little or big. It was a matter of giving oils more care. It seemed to me that I could invent a way to make oils better than they were being made.

In 1983, I put my design concepts on paper, and with the help of engineers, my team and I later converted my ideas for making oils with health in mind into machinery that makes such oils.

What is the secret sauce? Care. We give oils the care they need to retain their health benefits, by protecting the highly sensitive oil molecules from being damaged by light, oxygen, heat, minerals (metals), water, and harsh chemical treatments. It was a simple solution, but one that did require intent toward health, as well as care in its execution.

My Choice

The choice I saw for making oils with health in mind began with some questions, “Why not start with organically grown seeds and nuts?” Then we would not have to overheat the oil to try to boil off the pesticides since the oil would be free of them, PCBs, dioxins, or other industrial chemicals.

I thought, “Why not protect oils from damage done by light, oxygen, and heat?” That way, processing would not damage them. They would not contain damaged oil molecules.

I thought, “Why not omit using harsh chemicals?” That way, there would be no toxic chemical residues in the oil, and no damage would be done to the oil molecules by them.

I thought, “Why not keep the oils unrefined?” That way, the oils would still contain all the natural, oil-soluble ingredients present, some of which have major health benefits. That should be an improvement in health-related oil quality.

And finally, I thought, “Why not keep the oil in its natural state?” There would be nothing in it that could interference with body functions. It would take more effort, but it would pay off in better health.

Next, I developed a method for doing all this. It was not difficult for me because I understood the issues involved. I could finally use my background in science, biological sciences, biochemistry, and genetics to do something with practical value.

Oils made with health in mind would end up getting a lot of special care during the pressing, filtering, and filling processes used to make them.

A Book on Oils

It didn’t take long before I became impatient with the pace of my research, and the writing that was coming from what I learned.

My hope was to write a book on what I was learning about fats and oils, because I thought such a book could be helpful to other people in their quest for better health. After a conversation with my mother, in which I expressed my interest in reading and writing full-time, she invited me to move (back) in with her. She would supply room and board. I would give health my full-time attention.

Forty-one years old, I moved back in with mom in 1983 but it felt right to do so and turned out to be good for both her and me. The trade-off was that my mom had a stroke about three years later, and it was helpful to her for me to be there to assist her in small ways and provide some confidence in her situation.

When I began writing, I estimated that it would take about six months to get the reading and research on fats and oils done, and the book written. That guess turned out to be overly optimistic. It took almost six years.

At Mom’s place, with a calm and focused passion, I continued to reconcile contradictions in research, type notes and thoughts I had written down from library research journals (yes, before the internet), seek to bring structure to the topic of fats and oils, wait for the flow of writing to come, edit messy sentences, and throw out manuscripts because I realized that I would not buy the book I was writing, and knew that I had to start again from scratch to write one I would buy. On my third try

at it, the writing began to flow, and fifty-four of fifty-nine chapters almost wrote themselves, one after another, without interruption other than food, hygiene, and sleep.

Over the five years I spent reading the research and writing the book, I did occasionally have doubts about whether I could do what no one else had, in a field in which I had not been formally trained. My friends were drinking and partying, and a few times I felt tempted to join them, hindering my passion for making oils with health in mind. Each time, though, something would remind me that I was on the right track, re-inspiring me to refocus and continue.

Confidence in my ability to get it done carried me most of the time. Inspired in my core, I was on fire for what was possible. Living and operating in this state of being, the work meant more to me than either getting credit or making money. I’ve read similar reports from some of the most successful people during their pioneering of innovative years.

Time Off

In 1985, I took three months off from writing about fats and health to co-ordinate the Vancouver part of a live Global Spacebridge on Peace. Link:

Beyond War Award – 1985 – Five Continent Peace Initiative

I cried just now when I just watched it again. Peace is one of my great passions, hatched from my childhood experience of the terror of war and being a refugee in the chaos of it. In this Global Spacebridge, the first and only one of its kind ever done, the heads of state of six countries (Sweden, Greece, Tanzania, India, Mexico, and Argentina) spoke in a live presentation about their opposition to nuclear weapons, followed by a live cultural presentation from their respective countries.

The group that put it together was called Beyond War. The event was broadcast live from a hub in San Francisco to more than one hundred cities in North America and was presented on live television in Sweden. It was a huge event. Then, to my mother’s relief, I went back to work on the book, which was published in 1986.

At the time I was writing, I did not intend to make oils. My interest was more to educate people on this new, important topic for which I’d developed a keen interest and considerable knowledge: the relationship between fats and oils and health.

In mid-1986, Fats and Oils came out. Late that year, I developed the first flax seed oil with my then-team. Flax the most widely available and easily affordable seed containing the most omega-3.

Flax Seed’s Origin Story

This was also a chance to put my method for making oils with health in mind into practice. The most sensitive oil would need the most exacting processing method. If we could make the oil containing the most omega-3 by the method I had devised,

making any other oil thereafter would be a piece of cake. Flax, the super-rich source of omega-3, would be my first oil; the one to cut my teeth on.

At that time, flax seed was also called linseed. A refined, bleached, deodorized (RBD) version of oil made from it, called linseed oil, partially damaged by the industrial process used to make it, was used to paint furniture because its reaction with light and oxygen cross-linked its molecules into a protective coat on furniture. Sometimes, linseed oil was boiled with lead to make the oil cross-linking even quicker and more effective. It made furniture smell characteristically rancid for months or even years, but it did provide protection for wood surfaces.

Some of this linseed oil (not the one boiled with lead) had found its way into the health food trade for human consumption as a food oil, even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had classified linseed oil as an “unsafe food additive” because FDA was aware of its sensitivity to damage by light and air.

The fresh, health-enhancing version of this omega-3 rich oil should have a new name, I thought, to distinguish it from the damaged linseed oil version. Especially, I did not want there to be any confusion that could mislead someone to drink linseed oil boiled with lead because they had heard that linseed oil in general was good for health. So, I named the fresh oil made with health in mind flax oil, or flax seed oil. Linseed oil was old, damaged, and good for painting furniture. Flax seed oil was fresh, undamaged, for human consumption, and made with health in mind. The name stuck.

Later, I developed the formula for a better-balanced blend, because after using flax seed oil as my only source of fat for several months, I developed omega-6 deficiency symptoms. More on this a little later.

Educational Tours

My first tour, in 1987, took me halfway across Canada.

Flax oil made with health in mind is now a one-billion-dollar annual industry. Without business training, my power to build the business with help from others was based on raw enthusiasm for it. Developing the method for making oils with health in mind was my focus, and with the help of others, it got done. The pride I feel in my heart for what we achieved will be with me for the rest of my life. I did not think about what I wanted financially out of the “flax project”.

The next year, in the hottest months of 1988, a business partner (Rees) and I did an extensive US tour in his van without air conditioning, from mid-June to midSeptember. He was the driver and deals maker. I was the scientist and educator. The weather was scorching. We fried an egg on the asphalt in a parking lot in Phoenix. No, we did not eat the egg with all the tar on it. Man, it was hot!

Rees had built a bunk across the back of the van. I slept on the floor between the driver’s seat and the back. Our clothes hung on a broomstick inside the double

doors. Within two weeks of starting the tour, we had learned that if we ate meat, it made us feel heavy and sluggish. If we ate carbohydrates, they made us sleepy. Knowing this, we did the entire rest of the tour (eighty-seven days) eating nothing but fresh raw vegetables. They totally energized us.

On that tour, we visited thirty-five states and eighty-five cities. The tour took one hundred and one days. We traveled seventeen thousand miles by road. We worked all day and then drove at night.

Marriott Hotels

Every few days, we would get sweaty and sticky from the heat. What to do? Rees suggested that we should “walk into a hotel like we owned it”, go to the fitness area, take showers, wash and wring out our clothes, go for a swim in their pool if there was one, and then pile back into our van to continue our journey.

He had to show me how to “walk into a hotel like I owned it”. He walked fast, his arms swinging, military fashion, and his face looking fiercely purposeful. It was new to me, so I had to practice. No one ever stopped or asked us what we were doing, so his advice turned out to be completely effective. We chose Marriott Hotels along the route, although we called our van the “Omega Hilton".

Twenty-four years later, I wrote a note to Bill Marriott, thanking him for the part, unbeknownst to him, he had played in making flax seed oil a household word, and the improvements in people’s health that he inadvertently helped to create. He wrote me a sweet note back.

From Zero to Bestseller

We started on a shoestring budget. And we started from nothing. Not nothing, truthfully. We had a lot of enthusiasm. We were seriously on fire for making oils with health in mind. Even today, almost forty years later, I still have that fire in my belly, although my range of topics has expanded considerably. We can make life better for so many people on this continent and around the world. Within two years, flax oil had grown from zero to the second highest selling oil in the natural foods trade.

Chapter Five: Making the Oil

Starting the Company

There I was, equipped with knowledge and as many secrets to the fat universe as I could get my hands on. I was ready to tell everyone about all the problems with oils. I was qualified to explain why they needed fat, which kinds of fats they needed … but there was just one problem.

My oil didn’t exist yet.

There wasn’t an oil on the planet I could recommend that met all the requirements I had discovered were non-negotiable if the goal was optimal health and it bothered me.

Sisterly Wisdom

I used to be an excellent complainer. I spent the first thirty years of my life pointing out everything that was wrong with the world, without doing anything about it. I had a lot of practice because a lot is wrong in the world. I became exceptionally good at it. It was my favorite topic of conversation (pontification) in social gatherings of family as well as friends. I was quite vocal about it. I’m still good at it. But less vocal. Here’s a reason why.

One day, after I had launched one of my diatribes, my older sister took me aside. She said, “You know, Udo, we agree with most of the things you complain about. But the problem with you is that you only complain, and you don’t do anything to make things better.”

Ouch! That simple comment rocked my entire dark world. She was bang on with her comment. In that moment, I realized that I should work for solutions to the problems that I know exist.

If it weren’t for her stopping me with that comment, I would probably still be complaining without doing anything about it. Thank you, sis. Your simple comment changed my life. My work on oils would not have happened were it not for your courage to quietly point to my negative diatribes.

Brotherly Logic

My younger brother, a high school biology teacher who had helped and encouraged me to write the book on oils, talked to me about getting into the production of oils. His argument was, “Because you know how oils should be made, you should do it. You know the issues. You know what happens when care is not taken. You know how to protect sensitive oils from damage. You know that if you leave it to others, they’ll use your knowledge in their advertising, without necessarily putting the protection of oils in place.”

He added, “But mostly because you have a responsibility to act on what you know.”

I grumbled, but I did not have a good counterargument. Talking about making oils with health in mind was my original intent. Making oils with health in mind became my more mature purpose.

At the end of this conversation, I had to agree with my brother’s logic about being in the best position to put the newfound truths into practice. Thinking it over, I asked three questions:

Is it possible to stand in truth and be in business at the same time?

Is it possible to run a business that promotes health without compromising the health mission?

Is it possible to put truth and health ahead of profit?

All three, I concluded, are possible. And I had one more question for myself. Do I have the necessary integrity to pull that off? Yes, I thought, I do. Why? Life blessed me with good intelligence, clarity, and conscience. Life also blessed me with a stubborn streak.

When Fats and Oils came out in 1986, and with help from my small publisher, Alive Books, I began to give local author talks. A friend who read my book told me he wanted to make oils by my standards, with health in mind, and that he had a friend who could help us do it. We began a collaboration that resulted in a small oil production facility and company in Vancouver, Canada.

Creating an Oil with Health in Mind (1986-1989)

Over the course of 1986, we discussed the project. We looked at locations, examined my designs for the parts we needed to make for our oil presses to protect fresh oils from damage, acquired the press, hired engineers to custom-make the protective parts, and modified the press with these parts for our purpose of making oils with health in mind.

We were full of fire to make the business successful. Our crew was a total of five people, including me.

Rees was a business whiz kid who had previously masterminded and managed several large, successful, international business ventures.

My friend worked part-time as a window washer, loved new ideas and details, and got very excited about the possibility.

With my book, my educational background in sciences, biological sciences, biochemistry, genetics, psychology, and self-knowledge, my hope-for-health-driven inspiration, the drawings for machinery designed to make oils with health in mind, and a passion to help people live better lives, I was good to go.

We brought in someone who had worked in a health food store but was unemployed at the time.

Later, we brought in a carpenter with back problems who was collecting workers’ compensation.

We incorporated a company on April 17, 1987, in Vancouver, Canada. Our press was set up on the fourth floor of a building in Gastown in Vancouver, above a butcher shop. We started on a shoestring, without money, but full of infectious enthusiasm for the possibility of helping millions of people.

Some members of the team were on fire with the dream of making serious money with a successful company. Later, we got a small investment from medical doctor. My title was Director of Research & Development, but in fact I was the brains, the vision, the conceptualizer of the machinery, the author, the educator, the public face, and the inspired driving force behind this venture. I had no business training or experience.

Since we started without money, we agreed on a sweat equity deal, where each of us would be rewarded with a percentage of ownership.

Once the company was making flax oil, marketing became our most important focus. Our sales manager’s trust in his ability to sell oil was small, so one of my partners and I went out on an educational tour in 1988. We had lined up a US distributor and they sponsored most of the USA tour that we did in our van without air-conditioning in the heat of summer. That tour I already described before.

We had a credit card for gas and food, and the van was our hotel. Our US distributor picked up most of our expenses. By the end of the summer of 1988, the company had a falling out with my traveling partner and pushed him out. He left and built an oil pressing facility for making oils with health in mind for our US distributor based on the principles (with his own modifications) he had learned from me.

Convinced that the oil was so good that it would sell itself, my partners in the original company decided they also didn’t need me to do education and marketing anymore. A similar fate awaited another member of the team, and he set up his own oil pressing facility also, and then there were three. Still later, four.

In spite these glitches and a few price wars, the enterprise of making flax seed oil with health in mind became a multi-billion-dollar annual turnover enterprise. We estimate the total market size for balanced EFA oils made with health in mind, taken daily in the amount we estimate is optimum as about one hundred and seventy-six billion a year, wholesale, just in North America.

It would be good if we could get governments at federal, state, and local levels to mandate a bottle in every fridge of carefully made, balanced, natural, EFA-rich oils made with health in mind. Along with fresh, clean water, probiotics, digestive enzymes, vitamins B3, B6, D and C, and the minerals zinc and magnesium. Doing so would transform the health of America within less than a single year. To affordably transform global health by natural means, other nations could follow suit.

Pssst! Could you get them all to give me a call? Thank you.

From Summer to Bummer

It’s always super-disappointing when people make promises or deals and then break them. Being true to our word is a sacred trust between people. It’s all we have that’s real to go on in social interactions. Without it, we cannot accomplish anything big, and not much of even anything little.

Breach of our word (lying) is one of humanity’s greatest crimes. It wrecks everything. First, lying wrecks personal integrity, then relationships, then families, then projects, then companies, then institutions, then communities, then countries, and eventually continents and even planets.

Think about the problems in the world. All of them begin with a lie born of heartlessness. All of them involve people not being true to their word. I mean all of them. Is this too deep or too confrontative?

In 1989, my partners in the original oil-making company that was my brainchild pushed me out of the business. A big depression hit me. Having worked for sweat equity in the company, I was money-free (broke) for the next four years and went on welfare for three months because I couldn’t pay my rent.

When the agreement with my partners fell apart, I was devastated. My belief had been, “If I make it work for them, they’ll make it work for me.”

Apparently, not everyone thinks that way. That’s what I learned from this event.

Ripped Off and Depressed

Seriously depressed, I lamented to a friend. His reply was, “It’s just an idea that you’re depressed about.”

I was incensed. “What do you mean? I dedicated my whole life to this!”

A week later, I realized that what he said was true. An idea is what I was upset about. That did not, however, lift my deep depression.

Broke, Collecting Welfare

I was also embarrassed. “I’m an author,” I told the welfare intake worker. “I get book royalties three times a year and started a company that sold $1.9 million last year but I don’t have money to pay my rent.”

She kindly explained, “Welfare is intended for temporary situations like yours. It's not meant for people who chronically don’t want to work.” They wrote me checks for the next three months. I was grateful.

A Spark of Light

At that time, I wrote a letter about how I felt to a fabulous mentor of mine, who responded by telling me to continue working with flax. What? Flax was the cause of all my pain. Only years later did I realize the wisdom of his advice.

I already had ten years of experience with flax. Starting over with something new from scratch would have meant another long learning curve. But the fact that he responded to me with kindness made me feel loved again. My heart opened and began to heal, and that enabled me to move forward again.

Starting Over

I rewrote, expanded, and updated my book, Fats That Heal Fats That Kill. For a year, I developed marketing materials for a US company, wrote the product manual for a Canadian mineral and vitamin supplement company, and developed the formula for an oil blend that contains all the good oils and none of the bad ones.

In 1994, I began to work with a new company. First, I helped them bring their oil manufacturing facility up to the standards I had set for making oils with health in mind. Together, we began to market my better-balanced oil blend formula. I showed the owner how to improve oil quality and taste and made other suggestions for a list of improvements that could make even better good oils.

After a few name changes, you can find the oil blend in stores now as Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend.

Public Education

According to the owner, my primary role was public education and media. For him, these were marketing functions. “Anyone can throw a formula together,” he told me once, “but not everyone can get people to understand their need for it and inspire them to choose to buy and use it.” The four product blends we developed, labeled, and sold under the “Udo’s Choice” brand include:

• Essential fatty acids blends

• Probiotics blends

• Digestive enzymes blends

• Greens blend

In most categories, a blend of ingredients thoughtfully designed covers the basic nutritional needs for the health of all humans. Together with input from raw materials suppliers, we worked to make super-good blends formulas.

Why the blends? Blends have wider ranges of benefits than single product used alone. Molecules, enzymes, friendly bacteria, and greens work better in teams that alone.

Tours, Media, & Talks

With support from the company, I toured extensively to do media and public as well as professional education in more than thirty countries. For about fifteen years, I spent six to nine months touring, bringing the message of good oils made with health in mind and other health-promoting principles to millions of people. Some days, I gave four talks and did one or two media interviews. By the time I did the last talk for the day, I sometimes could not remember what I had said, because I had said so much that day.

Talking extemporaneously (without notes) was my specialty. That made for a “live” presentation, but I had to be super-concentrated to do it well.

Food Oil Foundation: Bodies Made from Foods

This oil blend is not a supplement. It is a plant-based food oil foundation. It is an edible oil. It’s a healthy alternative to the plant-based, damaged, bottled oils you find in every food store in the world. Adults use 2-4 tablespoons (28-56 grams; 1-2 ounces) of this oil every day. For best results, mix it in foods, and spread its intake out over the course of your day. Use it in hot, warm, and cold foods, but never fry it if health is important to you. The oil blend is compatible with all foods. It enhances flavors and improves the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients into your body.

Since the body is made from foods, I reasoned, if we get sick or something goes wrong, the first place we should look to make changes to feel better (by setting higher standards that promote healing) is in what we eat and the way we prepare what we eat. That was logical. Today, it is also obvious to me that we should look at the quality of our water, how we breathe, how we feel, what we think about, who we spend time with, and how we interact with our environment. At the time, I only focused on food.

You can add a supplement to that oil foundation made with health in mind, but a supplement cannot replace that foundation. Whatever is wrong with your food oil foundation cannot be fixed by taking a few capsules of an oil supplement. You can only fix a bad food oil foundation by replacing it with a better food oil foundation.

Travels and Improvements

Everywhere I went, I gave live presentations, interviews, and media appearances on the benefits of oils made with health in mind. On an ongoing basis, we improved the oil blend, from three organic ingredients at the start, to eight out of nine now. We removed wheat germ oil because of its low standards. We tightened our manufacturing method on a continuing basis and made several proprietary improvements.

We developed a survey and used it to collect feedback from users regarding the effect of the blend on their skin, hair, nails, energy, performance, weight

management, learning, mood, and many other body parts. We developed protocols and carried out two performance studies.

International Expert

Over the years of doing this, I became an international educator and expert. I have:

• Given more than 5,000 talks on fats, oils, and health

• Travelled to about 40 countries

• Completed more than 3,000 interviews in print, radio. and TV

• Written hundreds of articles on essential fatty acids and health

• Developed even better oils

• Created whole foods-based essential fatty acid products

• Worked with animals’ need for essential fatty acids made with health in mind

• Designed several products that support healthy digestion

• Enlarged and expanded the original book, and renamed it Fats That Heal Fats That Kill (1993)

• Expanded my work to include all of health, based in nature and human nature

• Done hundreds of podcasts on a wide array of topics in health, life, nature, and human nature

• And developed several other ideas that are still under wraps

The thirty plus years that I’ve spent educating and making products with health in mind have been nothing short of inspired, light-filled, magical, and purposeful, with a lot of fun thrown in.

Consulting

In the back of my book Fats and Oils, I decided to print my phone number. Oils made with health in mind were a new field that I was an expert in, and I felt that I should make myself available to people who needed help in wading through the complexities of fats, oils, and health. When someone needed to cut through the flagrant, rampant misinformation floating around in the market ethers, I could assist them.

I offered consultations on a fee-for-time basis. At first, I did not charge much, but people often stiffed me anyway for my ridiculously small fees.

After some time, I got tired of this kind of abuse, and raised my fees substantially. The intent was to discourage people who just wanted to chat with an author. The higher my fees got, the more promptly people paid. Who would have thought?

Later, when my modest financial needs had been met, I changed my practice. We would agree on the fee, I would do the consultation, and at the end they would ask me how much they owed me. “Nothing,” I would say. “It’s my gift to you. I hate making money on sick people and pain.” Eventually, I removed my number from the book, but I still get calls sometimes from people who bought the book in those early days, more than twenty years ago.

Consultations have always been a favorite way to spend my time. I get to be in touch with the challenges people face, the kinds of information and encouragement they need, the results they get, and the kinds of additional questions they have regarding the most effective use of oils for health support. I learn from them as much as they learn from me. And I get to practice better ways to explain a complex subject in street level, non-academic, practical terms.

I get feedback on how well I’m getting my message on good oils across. Over the years, I have become more and more effective by being more and more down-toearth. A brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning researcher once told me that when an expert cannot explain information in a way the listener can understand, then the expert does not yet understand the topic well enough and has more homework to do. If people don’t understand my message, I need to become a more effective teacher.

How can I make my point simpler and clearer? It’s a good question for educators to ask themselves. My listener’s inability to understand me may be the result of my failure to present it in an understandable way. This is an educator’s ongoing work in progress.

The Best Oil Supplement

We began to market a krill oil supplement in Europe under our co-owned “Udo’s Choice” brand around 2012. Krill oil is a healthy replacement for the highly damaged, often toxic, and completely unsustainable commercial fish oils that have been around for the past one hundred plus years.

Krill oil is low on the food chain, free of industrial poisons, tastes better, remains undamaged, is in a form that is highly absorbable and effective, contains its own very powerful antioxidant, and is sustainable because all these issues were addressed before the first harvest of krill began.

Krill is not a plant-based product, but it’s the most reliable, least damaged of the available supplements that provide the omega-3 derivatives EPA and DHA.

And More

There’s a lot more coming. My teams and I have turned the topic of total health into a teachable field based in nature and human nature. Our goal is to replace disease management that is misrepresented as health care.

It’s a work in progress to develop an all-encompassing consideration of everything that affects health, which is everything, and much more comprehensive than anything I’ve done before.

Chapter Six - Good Oils the Keys to Health and Disease

“We command nature by obeying her.” Francis Bacon

Fats and oils come in two completely contradictory forms. There are fats and oils that heal, and there are fats and oils that kill. To make good choices for better health, you need to know which is which.

Keys to Health and Disease

First, you may want to know, why do you want oils? What are the possible health benefits of an oil change from damaged oils to oils made with health in mind?

Good oils are super-important major nutrients. They’re one of the three pillars of nutrition, the other two being protein and carbohydrates.

Solid Foundations About Oils

The educational foundation for your knowledge, information, and understanding is unshakeable only to the extent that it is truthful. What is true will remain true longterm, for millions of years. Details can change, but foundational truths remain in place. Let me give you an example.

According to research, life began on planet Earth more than four billion years ago. In all that time, the amino acids (about twenty) involved in protein construction have been conserved; that is, they have not changed. This is important because creatures on every level, from microbes to humans, use these same twenty amino acids to produce widely differing proteins that are characteristic of each species.

In other words, the proteins are different, but the twenty building blocks from which many thousands of different proteins of all species are made are the same.

Here is another solid foundation: The solar energy from the sun is central to life for almost all creatures. This energy radiates from the sun in all directions, and a tiny fraction of it kisses Earth. Some of it is absorbed by chlorophyll in green plants to take part in a process called photosynthesis, which is the synthesis of molecules using sunlight.

That process began more than four billion years ago, and it will continue for another four billion years until the sun collapses and Earth gets fried by the energy from that very same process.

Here is yet another solid foundation: Human beings must get two essential fatty acids—omega-3 (ALA) and omega-6 (LA)—from food because they do not have the genetic equipment to make these two from scratch. Plants, on the other hand, can make them from scratch, and so these two fatty acids essential to humans are not essential to plants. Further, you depend on plants for them. How long will this remain true? Likely for millions of years. We will likely always depend on an outside source

of omega-3 and omega-6. Plants will likely always be able to make them. Lucky for us.

Here’s another solid foundation: The many specific genes that code for enzymes to convert ALA to EPA and to make eicosanoid hormones, DPA, DHA, protectins (antioxidants), resolvins (anti-in fl ammatory) maresins (immune enhancers), endocannabinoids (feel-good molecules), and other omega-3 essential fatty acid derivatives are coded in every human being’s genetic program. A copy of that genetic program is present in most cells in your body. Living in line with nature and your nature enables these genes and enzymes to do what they are designed to do.

And another solid foundation: All human beings need the same essential nutrients (18 minerals, 13 vitamins, 9 amino acids, 2 fatty acids) for body construction and health. While the amount of each of these for optimum health differs slightly for different people, no person is exempt from requiring all of them needing to be brought into the body from the outside, namely from food and/or supplements.

And yet another solid foundation: For every essential nutrient, there are five levels: too little, minimum, optimum, maximum, and too much. Optimum health requires optimum intake of all of them. Nobody wants to settle for minimum health.

Another solid foundation: The biochemistry of creatures—the biochemistry of life—is remarkably conserved from microbes to humans and every kind of creature in between. That’s why those who study this subject think that living creatures only originated once on this planet, and that all creatures are part of the same family that developed from that one original living ancestor.

More of the small details are being added to the solid foundations by ongoing research. But the core foundations, once discovered and confirmed, remain stable over long periods of time (millions of years).

Occasionally, though, researchers make errors that they need to correct. When I was in high school, we learned that the atom is the smallest (indivisible) unit of matter. Before I graduated, we learned that the atom had been split. Boom. Nuclear reactions. The world of sub-atomic particles began to bloom.

Of course, there are still vast areas in science and in biology that remain to be discovered. Life has been developing for several billion years. We have been here for a minuscule fraction of that time and have only been systematically studying the nature of things (using the scientific method as a tool) for less than one thousand years, which means we have a lot of catching up to do.

Surprisingly, we are least knowledgeable about our own nature. This territory remains mostly unexplored, but it is the territory that holds most of the answers we need to survive the twenty-first century, and to live in harmony (thrive) with ourselves, nature, and others without destroying everything.

Essentials

Guess what? You need essential fatty acids. No, not in the same way you needed that pizza last Friday night. They are a requirement demanded by your body to support health. You cannot have optimal health without enough of them in your diet.

Specifically, researchers call the two health-supporting nutrients from oils “essential fatty acids” or EFAs. There’s an omega-3 essential fatty acid and an omega-6 essential fatty acid in good oils made with health in mind. We’ll say more about them throughout the book, and I’ll define further what “essential” means. Both are sensitive to the damage done by light, oxygen, and heat. In fact, omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids are the most sensitive of all nutritional molecules. They need to be treated with more care than any other nutrient. To protect them from damage, you must shield them from damage that light, air, and heat can cause. Obviously, you don’t consume health-destroying oils to reach optimum health.

Oils are also damaged when industry uses harsh processing practices in the mass production of oils. They’re damaged in our homes and restaurants during food preparation when we apply bad habits such as frying, deep-frying, and other highheat applications.

Get, and use, only oils that are made to support your body’s physical health: oils that restore what health you’ve lost by eating damaged ones or not getting enough EFAs that help keep your body healthy. Use these beneficial oils in cold, warm, and hot foods, but never ever, ever, ever use them for frying or deep-frying, or even baking and sautéing.

Benefits

Last time I listed the benefits, over one hundred and sixty of them had been published in research journals, observed in clinical practice, seen in case histories, and reported by way of user feedback. Some people might say: “That’s a lot of benefits for just one little oil change. Are you overstating the case for good oils?” No, I am not overstating the case. And yes, indeed, those are a lot of benefits.

But you’ve been told that anything that sounds too good to be true is probably not true. You are also told to mistrust anything that appears as a panacea or cure-all. I agree, but “probably” does not mean “in every case, without exception”. Why am I so comfortable saying that a change to good oils can bring so many benefits?

I have several reasons. Good oils are essential. They cannot be made in your body, and you must therefore bring them in from outside of it. Good oils are necessary for the normal healthy optimal function of every cell, tissue, gland, organ, and system in your body. Most people get enough omega-6 from industrial cooking oils, but these oils include damaged molecules that can cause detrimental effects. Omega-3 intake, on the other hand, is lower than required for optimum health in ninety-nine percent of the population. Some think that as much as 99.9 percent of you do not get optimum amounts of omega-3 for optimum health. When you get your omega-6 molecules made with health in mind and optimize your intake of the inadequately

supplied undamaged omega-3, you can expect a wide range of benefits and improvements in every part of your body.

Given these facts, you can understand why optimizing your intake of good oils can improve so many conditions.

We can summarize the existing research on omega-3 in one sentence: Increase intake of omega-3 to improve the symptoms of virtually every major degenerative condition of our time.

The implication is profound. Every symptom that improves when you increase your intake of omega-3 must have been caused by too little omega-3 in the diet.

Omega-3 cannot improve symptoms of too little magnesium, vitamin C, or zinc in the diet. An essential nutrient can only reverse the symptoms caused by too little of that essential nutrient. Omega-3 can and does improve every symptom of omega-3 deficiency (except death which, by definition, is not reversible). That’s the power of essential nutrients. That’s the power of omega-3.

Every part of the body benefits because all cells need undamaged essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids When you get enough of each, get them both in the right ratio, get them both undamaged and preserved intact during food preparation, good things happen in every part of your body. What does this mean in practice? Almost everyone will benefit from the oil change that the body needs, which consists of getting the bad oils out, and the good oils in. Here is a list of benefits that have been shown in research, seen in clinical practice, and reported by users.

Note: I put the word “may” before all the potential health benefits that omega-3 (and 6-balanced) oils can have because these benefits depend on what the cause of the problem is. If the problem is the result of not enough omega-3, then omega-3 will reverse that problem. If the problem has another cause, omega-3 will not resolve it. Problems are only resolved when the actual cause of them is appropriately addressed.

Since omega-3 is an essential nutrient that we cannot live without, and since most of the population does not get enough of them, and since every cell requires them, a wide range of problems in most of the population should improve when they increase their intake of undamaged, non-toxic omega-3 (along with undamaged omega-6) in the right ratio.

How do you know whether good oil made with health in mind will help your condition? Take optimum amounts of it for a month or two (2-4 tablespoons per day, mixed in food and intake spread out over the course of the day). Don’t take it for any condition. Take it because both omega-3 and -6 are essential for health. Notice any changes. Know from your own experience. Anyone can tell you a good story. Let your body inform you of benefits, if any. If you notice no benefits, stop taking the oil.

The following list of possible improvements comes from twenty-five plus years of research, clinical practice, and user feedback in more than thirty countries.

Beauty:

• Skin: Helps form a barrier in skin against the loss of moisture

o May soften, smooth, make velvety skin when intake is optimal

o May lessen eczema, psoriasis, acne, dry skin, dandruff, scarring, cracked skin on fingers or heels, wrinkles (sugar increases wrinkling and aging of skin)

o May improve Sjogren’s syndrome

o May reduce ‘fish (scaly) skin’

o May reduce need for lotions, creams, makeup

• Hair: May grow healthier, stronger hair, about 25 percent faster

o May return natural color in some older people

• Nails: May grow stronger, faster

o May lessen cracking

Athletic Performance:

• May increase muscular development, motor coordination, explosive strength, endurance

• May increase stamina 40-60 percent within 30 days on the right dosage (15ml/25kg{50lbs} of body weight/day, mixed in foods, with intake spread out over the course of the day)

• May speed recovery

• May heal injuries in a third to a half the usual time

• May improve joint flexibility & mobility, as well as concentration & focus

• May reduce joint pain, tenderness

• May lessen temptation to use steroids and other illegal performanceenhancing drugs

Sleep:

• May improve ability to fall asleep

• May make for deeper, sounder sleep

• You may wake up more refreshed

• May decrease the amount of sleep time needed

• May lessen need for sleeping pills

Detoxification:

• May sweat out oil-soluble toxins by carrying them out through your skin in the oil part of your sweat

• May detoxify lymphatic system effectively through oil enemas, swishing oil in the mouth (oil pulling), sweating

• May increase energy by lowering the body’s load of toxins

Pregnancy:

• Fetus/child: Supports fetal brain development

o May nurture brighter, more active infants

o May increase intelligence in children

o May improve children’s general health

• Mother: May lessen eventful pregnancies, stretch marks (zinc also helps), depression, post-partum depression, memory problems, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, collagen disease, inflammatory conditions ending in “itis” (400+ of these are known, occurring in both genders), autoimmune conditions (80+ of these have been identified)

o May ease birth

o May improve energy

o May reduce allergies

Brain Function:

• May improve vision, eyesight in some older people to a level of good vision without glasses, ability to concentrate, mood (make endocannabinoids)

• May lessen dry eyes, hyperactivity, attention deficit, need for drugs and their side effects (SSRIs, Ritalin)

• May speed learning

• May increase IQ (3-9 points)

• May reduce dyslexia, attention deficit

• May calm

• May decrease symptoms in major mental disorders: Bipolar, Schizophrenia, OCD, Alzheimer’s, Depression

Digestion:

• May lessen gas and bloating, pain after eating, leaky gut, risk of cancer, immune reaction due to poor digestion, Candida overgrowth, constipation

• May reduce food allergies

• May slow movement of food, creating more thorough, complete digestion

• May soften stool

Bones:

• May strengthen bones

• May speed healing

• May increase energy for exercise necessary to build bones

• May slow down age-related bone loss

Joints:

• May lessen pain, tenderness, inflammation, acidity, damage from oxygen & other free radicals

• May increase flexibility, mobility

Muscles:

• May speed muscular development, recovery

• May slow muscle breakdown

• May restore fifty-year-olds’ workout capacity to that of thirty-year-olds’

Weight Management:

• May lessen insulin spiking, cravings, carbohydrate addiction, overeating

• May stabilize blood sugar levels, energy over the day

• May re-fuel better than carbohydrates for activity and brain function

• May improve skin tone

• May turn off fat production and turn on fat burning

• May lengthen endurance when good oils are used as major fuel instead of carbohydrates

• May reduce body fat more effectively

• May ease weight normalization

• May improve mood and reduce mood swings

• May calm, lessen frustration, lessen anger, tiredness after eating, chance of falling asleep in class (children, students), or falling asleep at the wheel and driving off the road (long drives, vacationers, truckers)

Hormones:

• May improve hormone function at cell receptor level: Pineal (melatonin), Thyroid (thyroxin), Parathyroid (improve mineral metabolism), Pancreas (insulin), Adrenal (stress hormones), Testosterone, Estrogen, Progesterone

• May blunt stress response

• You may deal better with stressful situations

• May extend normal hormone function while aging

Gene expression:

• EFAs regulate turning on, off, up, or down hundreds of genes in your cells; recent count puts the number between 700 and 900 genes

Inflammation:

• Make powerful anti-inflammatory molecules (resolvins)

• May decrease inflammation in more than 400 conditions that end in ‘itis’; there is one such condition for every tissue in the body; symptoms in other inflammatory conditions, including lupus, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, cancers, atherosclerosis

Antioxidants:

• Make powerful antioxidants (protectins) that protect tissues from damage done by free radical chain reactions

Cardiovascular System:

• May lower total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, blood pressure, c-RP (inflammatory risk marker for cardiovascular disease)

• May raise HDL

• May decrease risk of heart attack, stroke, embolism, blood clots, atherosclerosis

• May make blood slightly thinner without compromising clotting functions

• May improve circulation, temperature of the extremities (cold hands, feet)

Minerals:

• May improve mineral transport, metabolism

Immune System:

• May blunt over-response of the immune system in 80+ known autoimmune conditions that can affect many tissues in the body

• May keep immune system balanced

• May make oxygen bullets to kill bacteria; powerful immune function molecules (maresins); keep Candida from taking over (along with probiotics)

• May prevent immune system from having to get involved with digestion (along with enzymes)

• May enhance immune system competence (1 teaspoon of sugar can inhibit immune function for 5-8 hours; also feeds cancer cells and infectious organisms)

Reproduction:

• May improve lubrication, prostate function, shedding of uterine lining, stamina, mood

• May maintain sexual function into old age

• May beautify skin

Liver Function:

• Support essential liver function

• May reduce fatty liver

• May improve liver performance

Kidney function:

• Support essential kidney function

• May reduce fatty kidneys

• May improve kidney performance

Longevity:

• May reduce many factors that shorten life (omega-3 index)

Addiction/Crime:

• May help overcome alcohol, drug addiction

• May improve socialization in incorrigible, disruptive teenagers (in school system)

• May increase calmness; decrease tendency toward violence

Surgery:

• May lessen swelling, pain, scarring, tissue rejection in transplants

• May speed healing

In the Bedroom:

• May calm

• May improve mood, concentration, focus,

• May reduce stress

• May increase stamina, responsiveness

• May beautify skin

In the Boardroom:

• May calm

• May reduce stress

• May speed processing of information (mental stamina)

• May improve concentration

• May increase focus and ability to be attentive

• May lengthen staying power before getting tired

At Work:

• May improve mood, processing ability, strength, stamina

• May increase ability for kindness toward others, energy, focus, concentration

• May reduce stress, missed days because of illness

• May calm

Dogs: (carnivores: 1 tablespoon/100 pounds of body weight/day)

• May lessen stiffness in older animals, pain and swelling after injury or surgery, “doggy” odor

• May increase energy in working dogs

• May speed healing after accident or surgery

• May improve skin condition, hair coat

• May increase maternal care after giving birth to large litters

Cats: (carnivores: 1 tablespoon/100 pounds of body weight/day)

• May lessen pain, swelling after injury or surgery

• May speed healing after accident or surgery

Horses: (herbivores: 1 tablespoon/500 pounds of body weight/day)

• May improve coat condition

• May increase racehorse energy, performance

• May lessen pain and swelling after injury or surgery

• May speed healing after accident or surgery

• May calm, but can run faster and longer at the same time

Zoo animals: (tigers; zebras; monkeys; otters; wolves; many others)

• May improve skin, hair, nail growth

• May lessen stiffness in older animals

• May increase energy

Pocket pets: (gerbils; hamsters; rats; mice; mink; others)

• May improve skin, hair, nail growth

• May lessen stiffness in older animals, increase energy

Birds:

• May improve feather growth, general health

• May lengthen life

How Much Oil?

What’s the average human daily total fat and oil intake? You probably don’t know. Most people don’t. Take a guess. Write it down before you continue.

People give answers anywhere from five to seven hundred grams. The truth is, on average, every day you obtain about 100g of total fat and oil from foods, including food oils, plus supplements that account for about one percent of your total. This means ninety-nine percent of fats and oils come from foods. Foods are the source of materials for body construction. Fats and oils are one of the three pillars of physical health, along with proteins and carbohydrates (carbs are not ‘essential’ and are mainly used as fuel).

We’ll separate our discussion about fat and oil intake into Food Oil Foundation and Supplement Oils. It will bring you clarity. You’ll see.

Food Oil Foundation

How much of your daily total fat and oil intake comes from oils? Most people don’t have a clue about this. Take a wild guess. Write it down before you continue.

The truth is about 28-56g, which is about one third to half of our total fat and oil intake, or two to four tablespoons (one Canadian or US tablespoon of oil weighs about fourteen grams) per day, which is about one tablespoon per fifty pounds (25kg) of body weight per day for most people. It’s about twenty-five percent of daily calories. Some people take less than that, and some people take more.

Actives and athletes may take as much as double that, going as high as fifty percent of their calories. Those who know about our work prefer undamaged, omega-3-rich, omega-6-balanced oil as fuel. They find that such “good” oils increase stamina, recovery, performance, and healing by as much as a whopping forty to sixty percent within a month of starting to take our good oil blend! No training program or nutritional program in the world gets athletes that kind of improvement in performance within thirty days.

Occasionally, when an athlete gets busted for using steroids, they claim to be using flax seed oil. Maybe they put steroids in flax seed oil for better absorption? I don’t think so. Or maybe their coach or physician says it to take the heat and punishment off the athlete.

Athletes vary their intake of good oils depending on their level of activity, and smart endurance athletes use good oils rather than carbohydrates as their highperformance fuel.

Supplement Oils

What is your average daily total supplemental oil intake? Most people don’t know, but a few think it’s one to three grams per day. Take a guess. Write it down before you continue.

The truth is one gram total = 1/100th or one percent of total fat and oil intake. When they recommend supplemental oil, doctors suggest one to three grams per day, which is one to three percent of total fat and oil intake. But when I looked it up on Google today, only about ten percent of the population takes fish oils.

There was a time when fish and fish oils were prized for the health effects of EPA and DHA, the omega-3 derivatives that high-fat fish contain. But more and more studies cast doubt on the value of fish oils. Why this contradiction? It’s likely due to a combination of damaged oil molecules and toxic industrial chemicals present in fish oil supplements.

The quantity of processing-damaged molecules can be as much as three hundred thousand times higher in fish oils than the level of industrial toxins like PCBs and dioxins. You can take a krill oil supplement instead. Krill is low on the food chain (fewer toxins) and is made by processes that are less damaging to its omega-3 derivatives

Research from the past ten years suggests that fish oils today no longer provide the benefits they did as shown in older studies. Links:

Fish oil doesn't seem to prevent heart problems, studies find n–3 Fatty Acids in Patients with Multiple Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Fish Oil Supplements Prove Ineffective for Depression, Anxiety

Fish Oil Fears: Study Finds Prescription Strength Fish Oil Could Cause Some Harm

Are You Wasting Money On Fish Oil Supplements

Why is that? Over the past twenty years, industry has increased the processing of these oils. They have two reasons for doing so.

The first is to get the fishy rancid smell and taste out of the oil. That takes more high-temperature processing, which likely does more damage. Deodorization, molecular distillation, and wiped (thin) film evaporation that industry uses to accomplish this, all use high temperatures to boil off the offending molecules.

The second reason is to bring PCBs and dioxins from as high as 1,300 parts per billion down to ninety parts per billion, a limit that was set by government regulations. Even though researchers, based on studies, say that there is no safe level for these highly toxic molecules, industry acts as if more processing is all that’s needed. Heat is used to evaporate the toxins out of oils, and this does additional damage on top of that done by the damaging processing used before these government regulations were set. Today more extensive damage is done to the super-sensitive fish oils than was done to them in the past. That, in my view, is what has made such oils less helpful to health. Links to get you started:

Dioxins and Their Effects on Human Health

Learn About Polychlorinated Biphenyls

(PCBs)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs): routes of exposure and effects on human health

Why do I recommend a krill oil supplement instead of fish oil? Krill oil is not damaged, comes in a more effective form, and works better. You need less of it to get equal benefits.

The

Fish Oil Versus Flax Oil Lie

Let me make an important point to put food oil and supplemental oil in perspective. In the marketplace, you may hear conflicting opinions framed as the “flax versus fish” controversy. That argument is a vile misrepresentation of truth, told not to help you with your health, but only to win market competition. Let me make clear to you what is true.

You need to contend with two kinds of oils: 1) Food oil and 2) Supplement oils. Food oil is supposed to be your foundation. You should use an oil supplement to supplement that food oil foundation. The supplement should not replace the food oil foundation.

Using a fish oil supplement instead of improving your food oil foundation is like taking a mineral-vitamin pill instead of eating food. That does not work for health in practice.

Life makes whole foods in nature. When you remove nutrients from those foods, or when you want to increase your intake of essential nutrients to increase performance, you supplement your diet with one or more supplement capsules.

Taking a fish oil supplement while ignoring the quality and necessary quantity of your food oil foundation can be a recipe for serious health disasters.

Sources of Fats and Oils in Foods

Relative amounts of fats and oils in foods:

Plants: Nuts (20-60 percent) > Seeds (20-45 percent) > Soybeans (18 percent) > Beans, lentils, chickpeas (~4 percent) > Whole grains (2-4 percent) > Greens (0.1 percent) = Fruits (0.1 percent)

Animals Muscle Meat: Pig (35-60 percent) > Beef (25-40 percent) = Sheep, lamb (20-40 percent) > Chicken = Turkey (6 percent in muscle; more fat in skin, which is usually discarded)

Specific Animal Cuts: Bacon > Organs > Meat with fat on > Marbled meats > High fat (oily) fish > Wild meats > Low fat fish

Animal Body Parts: Adipose tissue > Brain > Bone marrow > Skin > Organs > Muscle

In animals, the amount of fat in body parts, except for the brain and bone marrow, depends on how much fat they get from their foods, what kind of foods they eat, and their level of activity.

Food Oil Foundation Sources (Plant-based)

Omega-3:

• Richest sources: Flax, chia; perilla (schizo)

• Medium amounts: Sacha inchi > Hemp

• Small amounts: Walnut > Canola > Soybean

Omega-6:

• Rich sources: Safflower = Grape seed > Sunflower = Corn

• Medium amounts: Soybean > Walnut > Sesame

• Small amounts: Almond = Canola > Peanut > Olive

Supplement Oil Sources

You do not need to take an omega-6 derivative supplement because you get enough of this essential fatty acid (linoleic acid, LA) from your food oil foundation—plant foods and oils, even if partially damaged—to make within your own body all the derivatives you need. A few omega-6 supplements exist, but their market is small and the need for them debatable. This includes the two GLA (gamma-linolenic acid) supplements evening primrose oil and borage (not recommended) oil, as well as ARA (arachidonic acid), which is found in animal products, but for which no serious supplement market has been developed.

In truth, supplementation of derivatives of either omega-6 or omega-3 may not be necessary, if you get enough of each essential fatty acid in the right ratio, undamaged and made with health in mind from the foods and oils you ingest.

Every cell in your body has genetic blueprints (genes) that code for producing enzymes that convert each of the two essential fatty acids into the useful multitude of essential fatty acid derivatives.

Making these derivatives requires only that you get enough of both essential fatty acids, undamaged and in the right ratio and eat foods that are not too high in:

• Saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids

• Sugar, starch, and digestible carbohydrates

• Omega-6 (in relation to omega-3)

• Trans- fats (zero is the recommended amount)

and eat foods that are not too low in:

• Vitamins C, B3, and B6

• The minerals magnesium and zinc

In other words, eat whole foods and take a multi-mineral and vitamin supplement. Then let your life make its natural decisions about the conversion of essential fatty acids (EFAs) into their many derivatives.

In addition to life-converting EFAs in your cells, omega-3 derivatives also exist in your foods, as well as in supplements. Here are some sources:

Fish: Highly processed; damaged; contains industrial poisons (PCBs, dioxins, pesticides); ocean harvesting is not sustainable. Researchers predict (and others argue) that at the present rate of harvesting, there’ll be no fish in the oceans by 2048. Link:

The World Counts: No More Fish in the Sea

Krill: Alcohol extracted; low on food chain; not damaged; low in poisons; environmentally sustainable

Wild algae: Plant-based; solvent extracted; lowest on food chain; original source of krill oil and of fish oils, low in fat (four percent); not available commercially

Commercial algae: Grown in tanks; turn sugar into EPA, DHA; mostly refined; damaged by processing that is similar to fish oils; may contain processing aids (dimethicone) not listed on labels; environmentally sustainable

Of these supplemental sources, krill oil is hands down, in my opinion, the best one. It’s low on the food chain, and so is low in industrial toxins. It’s in a form (~40 percent phosphatides instead of triglycerides) that is:

• More easily absorbed

• Better protected from being broken down for energy, which is the fate of 60-80 percent of triglycerides in plant and fish oils

• More effectively used in cell structures so that less is needed for best effects

Krill oil is alcohol-extracted from fresh material. It is not damaged by chemicals or heat. It comes with its own red antioxidant named astaxanthin. Finally, krill oil is a sustainable source for which catch limits were set before the first net went into the water. If you take a supplement of omega-3 derivatives, make it krill oil. Unless you are vegan, in which case add turmeric to your food to increase conversion rate, making a supplement less necessary.

Chapter Seven: The Good, The Bad, and The Damaged

Fats: Bad or Good? (the good, the bad, and the damaged)

Oils, specifically essential fatty acids, are the most sensitive of all your essential nutrients. Let me repeat something here that I wrote of before. To best unfold its powerful healing effects in a person with too little dietary omega-3, this EFA must not be damaged by processing, by exposure to light, air, or heat, or by food preparation, and it must be free of industrial toxins. Plants are low on the food chain, so they contain the fewest industrial poisons. Organically grown seeds are GMOfree, sustainably grown without industrial fertilizers, and free of pesticides. That’s why plant-based omega-3 is preferable to animal-based omega-3.

When you add poison to something good, you decrease its goodness. When you keep adding more poison, you will at some point neutralize the good in it. When you then add even more poison, you can end up creating health problems with something that is supposed to be good for health. That is why the sensitive omega-6 and the five-times more sensitive omega-3 must both be made with care, with health in mind. If you want health, this care is necessary.

Are fats bad? I get that question all the time. The truth is: Fats are like people. Some are bad and some are good, based on their behavior.

Bad fats are bad. Good fats are good. Bad oils are bad. Good oils are good. Some are super-bad. Some are super-good. To be super-healthy, you need the super-good ones. And to choose the super-good ones, you need to know fats a bit better.

Damage

Life makes super-good fats and oils in nature. You get pesticide-containing oils from the seeds and nuts that contain them if you don’t insist on eating organic seeds, nuts, beans, and oils. Industry damages oils by treating them with harsh chemicals during processing for the sake of longer shelf lives.

Industry damages them further by heating oils to high (frying) temperatures before bottling, before making them available for you to purchase. On top of that, restaurants damage oils even more in cooking, and you damage them at home in your own kitchen where you turn them into poisons by overheating during your high heat applications, especially when frying and deep-frying. If health were given high priority by lawmakers, all cooking with oils would be outlawed, and it would become illegal to own a frying pan.

In general, light, oxygen, and heat damage nature’s good oils. You expose them to the simultaneous effect of all three of these in your frying pans. When you use them to “cook” your foods, you extensively disfigure them. Then they disfigure you. They damage your health. Fried oils and fats fry health. Fried carbohydrates fry health. Fried proteins fry health. All fried, burned, and blackened foods hurt health.

Results

of Industrial Processing (Is it really that bad?)

When oils are processed as explained above, oil molecules change from natural to unnatural. They become damaged. Many of these damaged molecules can be toxic. Processing damages up to one percent of the oil molecules in omega-6-containing oils (even more if there are omega-3 fatty acids in the oil). That doesn’t sound like much. Why squawk? After all, ninety-nine percent of the molecules are still in their natural state. That’s what an American Oil Chemists’ Society “expert” told me when I asked why they use processes that they know damage oils.

Am I over-reacting? Is the damage done not a big deal? At the time I asked that question, I didn’t know. Then I remembered a saying I had heard in high school. “When in doubt, do the math.” It’s good advice because numbers don’t lie. So, I did the math. Do this example with me.

If you have a tablespoon of one percent damaged oil made by industry, how many damaged molecules will that single tablespoon contain? Guess! Write down the number before you continue. It’s important.

In talks, I ask people, and their answers usually ranges from ten molecules to one hundred billion. The truth is that one tablespoon of one percent damaged oil contains sixty quintillion damaged molecules. What kind of number is that? It’s a huge number. That’s because molecules are teentsy small. My audiences’ highest estimate of the damage done to oils is always at least one billion times too low. Their lowest estimate—the assumption that no damage is done—is about sixty quintillion times too low.

Here is a follow-up question that I also ask my audiences after we’ve done the math exercise.

“If you found out, on good authority, that your chances of crashing and dying on your next flight or drive home for the holidays was a billion times higher than you had previously thought, would you get on the plane or in the car?”

I wouldn’t. I’d walk from Los Angeles to New York. The pain of the long walk would be preferable to the risk.

In Ireland, I told one audience that I’d canoe back to Canada if I found out about such a risk in getting home. My chances of surviving a canoe trip would not be great, but better than a billion times worse than if I flew. We all laughed, but I was serious.

You underestimate the damage done to oils and the health risk that damage poses by a billion times. Does knowing this give you pause for thought? Is it enough to convince you to change the kinds of oils you use? Is it enough to get you to change how you use oils? It was enough for me.

It’s why I decided that oils should be made with health rather than shelf life in mind. It’s why I developed the method for making them that way. It’s why I no longer use a

frying pan in my home. It’s why I now choose and eat foods raw, steamed, boiled, or cooked in water.

It’s not nature that makes oils bad. Humans make oils bad by the way we treat them. Since light, oxygen, and heat damage oils, protect them from these destructive influences.

Do you treat your oils with care? No. Au contraire. Sadly, you probably treat your most delicate essential nutrients, which require the most care to retain their health benefits, with the least care since this is what is taught. There is greater awareness about oils now than there was when I began this journey, but the impact damaged oils have on health is still severely underappreciated. As a result, oils become your most damaged and dangerous foods.

Damaged Oils

1. “Cooking Oils”

Cooking oils fill food store shelves on every continent, usually packaged in plastic bottles, and sometimes in cans or large tins. Industry damaged these oils through its processing methods to extend their shelf life. It treats oils with a feast of harsh chemicals, and then bleaches and overheats them.

This is where the 0.5-1 percent damaged molecules come from. Your day’s normal supply of oil, about 28-56 grams (1-2 ounces; 2-4 tablespoons), comes mostly in the form of so-called “salad, cooking, and culinary” oils sold in food and grocery stores everywhere in the world. When health becomes seriously important to you, you stop using such oils, because they are not in their natural state, and are therefore incompatible with your natural state of being healthy.

Sixty quintillion damaged and potentially toxic molecules come into your body with every tablespoon of cooking oil. Multiply that by two to four, the number of tablespoons of oil you eat each day. When you fry your foods in such oils, multiply the number of the damaged molecules by another factor of three to six times.

When you repeat this daily for twenty or thirty years, what do you get? You’re likely to get chronic pain, inflamed, immune-suppressed, degenerated, tired, oxygendeprived, depleted, prematurely racked with terminal cancer, heart disease, and other lethal conditions.

This reminds me of a story. Forty years ago, North American stores sold a very popular corn cooking oil in metal cans called Mazola. Research showed two results from using it.

First, it lowered cholesterol. This was widely publicized.

Second, the use of this processing-damaged omega-6-rich oil showed a correlation with increased cancer. This was not publicized. Eventually, the word did get out to the public, and Mazola oil rapidly disappeared from North American store shelves.

The company had gone out of business, I assumed. Good, I thought. A few years later, I began to travel in Asia. Mazola oil was alive and well in Malaysia, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It was everywhere. I was shocked.

I realized that the manufacturer did not care about the danger their product could pose to health. When concerns about this oil became known in North America, they just moved into markets in places in which people were and remain less informed than we are in North America.

For those of you who like details, here’s a list of the kinds of damaged, unnatural, and property-changed fatty acid molecules created by the oil industry’s careless and destructive processing.

• Rancid (oxidized)

• Fragmented (broken pieces)

• Double bond-shifted (shape-changed)

• Cross-linked within triglycerides (your body’s enzymes can’t break down the cross-links)

• Cross-linked across triglycerides (your body’s enzymes can’t break down the cross-links)

• Cyclized (looped on themselves)

• Trans- (twisted)

• Dimerized (two fatty acids linked end to end)

• Trimerized (three fatty acids linked end to end to end)

• Polymerized (more than two fatty acids linked end to end in longer chains)

Because these kinds of molecules don’t exist in nature, life did not make a genetic program to break them down and render them either harmless or useful to the body. This means your immune system cannot disarm them. They interfere with natural processes and act as monkey wrenches into the biochemical works. They interfere with your health. They get you disease and a premature death.

Nature’s main sources of the vitally important omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids include fresh, whole, raw, organic seeds, nuts, and legumes. Among readily available oils, only two kinds are undamaged.

The first is extra virgin olive oil, which is made from the flesh of olives by a different process than that used to make seed and nut oils. However, some olive oils are treated and damaged the same way as your cooking oils. And there is now so much demand for olive oil that it has outstripped the supply. The situation is compounded by the fact that olive trees grow slowly, and the oils’ popularity has grown faster than

the orchards themselves. This has led some sellers to dilute expensive olive oil with cheap canola, soybean, and other processing-damaged oils, even though the label may not state this.

There may also be pesticides in olive oil. Olive trees used to not be sprayed, because olive leaves are so bitter that no self-respecting insect would want to eat them. But more recently, the pesticide industry has convinced farmers to spray their olive trees. So now you can no longer count on olive oil to be free of pesticides (and perhaps it’s also harder and harder to find self-respecting insects).

How do you know you’re getting real extra virgin olive oil? Buy only ones which develop flecks (crystals) that either float inside the bottle or the oil gets more solid in the fridge. Olive oils diluted with other seed and bean oils are more likely to stay liquid in the fridge. Going solid in the fridge is the simplest single indicator that it is one hundred percent olive.

Second, a few suppliers sell oils that have not been treated with the chemical feast common to industry. These oils will have the word “unrefined” on the label. When unrefined is not on the label, the oil has been highly processed, harshly treated, chemically feasted, and damaged. Unrefined oil may be rancid and have a high peroxide value (a measure of rancidity), but it will not contain many of the other kinds of damaged molecules, so it is less damaging to health.

But unrefined is not enough. Unrefined oil can still contain pesticides if it is not also labeled “organic”. It can contain quite a lot of molecules damaged by light, air, and the heat generated by huge screw presses. It may be in plastic and on the shelf, where it is subject to more light damage.

You can find oils made with health in mind in brown glass bottles, in a box, in the refrigerated case, in the supplement section, in health food stores, and at some health-conscious grocery stores, some natural pharmacies, and some “chemists” stores.

What about when “Cooking Oils” are “Cold Pressed”?

“Cold pressed” is a marketing term without a legal definition. Manufacturers can just make up their own definitions for it, and they do. It implies, and most people still mistakenly believe, that cold pressed means fresh or natural or healthy or good for us. It is complete whitewash. You’ve been cold-BS’ed by the term cold pressed.

2. Fried Foods and Fried Oils

In your frying pan, oils that have already been damaged by industrial processing as described above sustain even more damage by light, air, and heat acting on them simultaneously in the frying pan. This kind of damage creates even more unnatural molecules and far more health problems. You’ve already heard that foods become toxic when you overheat them. Most people don’t think clearly enough about this and still love their burned, fried, deep-fried foods.

Everywhere I’ve been in the world, people tell me that they love burned foods. But you really don’t! You’ve just become used to eating them. You just wolf them down without tasting the disgusting-tasting burned parts. You learned to like burned foods because you associated them with mother love. Your mother was deceived by industry for the sake of greater profits.

Overheating creates unnatural molecules in oils, which cause inflammation. Inflammation is your immune system’s response to unnatural molecules in your body. Life set up your immune system to alert you when you are under attack and trained it to deal with attacks. Many kinds of unnatural molecules trigger your immune responses. Plastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, synthetic preservatives, and cosmetics are on this list, as are all unnatural molecules created from natural molecules during food processing.

Life did not create a way for your immune system to handle the unnatural molecules that frying creates. Why can’t your immune system break them down? It’s not punishment. It’s just that unnatural molecules did not exist in nature. Life did not need to make a way to break them down. Because of that, they persist in your body and interfere with your natural, biochemical works.

Inflammation can lead to degeneration in many different tissues in your body. It’s the first step in the development of most major degenerative diseases (“of civilization”). This applies to both localized and systemic health issues. Damaged oils also disorganize oxygen metabolism and impair energy production.

Some people notice that every time they eat foods fried in oil, they feel tired and heavy. It’s a sign. Foods are supposed to give you energy, not rob you of it. Inflammation also increases your risk of cancer. Fried starch and sugar, fried protein, and fried oil and fat each raise the risk, independent of one another. Anything you fry will tend to fry your health. All this is due to changed molecules.

The more hours a person spends working in front of frying pans and smoking oils, the more lung cancer they can expect. The probable cause: Inhaling the fumes of overheated oils from their frying pans.

3. Partially Hydrogenated and Hardened Oils with trans- fatty acids (trans- fats)

A few years ago, the average intake of trans- fats was twelve grams per day. Since they were outed, our intake of them has decreased, but foods, especially snack foods, are not free of them. For instance, you can find them in snacks that don’t require labels. Some manufacturers use them in soft gels of herbal products.

According to labeling regulations, less than 0.5 percent trans- fatty acids in a product allow a manufacturer to proclaim the product to have ‘No Trans- Fats’, even though it contains trans- fats. High concentrations of trans- fats are still found in foods in countries where citizens are not yet educated to their dangers.

Trans- fats have become unpopular in North America and Europe. This happened after Dr. Walter Willett’s research group at the Harvard School of Public Health showed in several studies that they impair health.

Here are links to some studies. The first one is a good summary and contains a podcast and another video.

Shining the Spotlight on Trans Fats

A prospective study of trans fatty acids in erythrocytes and risk of coronary heart disease

Dietary fats and coronary heart disease

The Scientific Case for Banning Trans Fats

Long-term Intake of trans-Fatty Acids and Risk of Gallstone Disease in Men

New data on harmful effects of trans-fatty acids

Problems that were associated with trans- fats in studies carried out by Willett’s group include:

• Double risk of heart attack

• Correlate with increased cancer

• Kill thirty thousand Americans every year

• Increase diabetes risk

• Interfere with immune function

• Interfere with reproduction in both male and female animals

Recently, many state governments created regulations that require manufacturers to list these health hazards on labels. These warning on trans- fats have also become mandatory in some states. Many margarines and shortenings that contained 8-40+ percent trans- fats have been reformulated with more saturated fats. In my view, they’re still too low in quality because of the processing-damaged oils they contain.

Trans- fatty acids have not disappeared from our food supply. For one thing, dairy fats contain some trans- fatty acids. The ones in dairy might be less harmful than ones made commercially from sunflower or safflower oils, or ones produced by careless, high-heat processing, but dairy fats bring other problems that include their effects on climate change, on soil and water pollution, and on habitat destruction.

In addition, the mass production of meat, dairy, and eggs is a heartless industry that involves the super-abusive mistreatment of animals. You can look it up on the internet. If you see and know the brutality with which they’re made, and you know that these products lead to more sickness, shorter life, and negative effects on gut

function in addition to their large carbon footprint (more than all the fuel burned by all the cars in the world), you might want to put fewer of them in your body.

When you reduce eating animal-based foods, you may need to take a vitamin B12 supplement, because this nutrient, made by bacteria, is not reliably present in plantbased whole foods. However, many eaters of animal foods also lack vitamin B12.

Much worse than dairy fat is a product called CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), which is often taken by athletes and consists of seventy percent trans- fats. It is used in small quantities (three to twelve capsules per day), but really should be absent from a diet for health.

4. Saturated Fats

For years, saturated fats were blamed for heart attacks and other forms of cardiovascular disease. They make platelets stickier. They have also been shown to increase insulin resistance, which makes them bad news for diabetics. You’ve been told to eat less of them. But they are not the problem. The problems that saturated fats cause happen only when you have not paid attention to your intake of essential fatty acids. Let me explain how this really works.

For years, before the oil-processing industry began—which was at the turn of the century, only about one hundred and twenty years ago—people ate fresh-off-realfarms beef, lamb, and pork fats without much problem. The fats were not essential, but they were not lethal, either. Of course, these kinds of food were free of pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. But heart disease began to skyrocket in the late 1920’s.

People were more physically active before 1900, and saturated fats were part of the fuel they burned for energy doing all those activities. People ate more whole and unprocessed foods. People ate a lot more vegetables. They got more omega-3 essential fatty acids in their foods. Processing and frying decreased omega-3 in the food supply. Shelf-life considerations encouraged manufacturers to avoid omega-3 foods, because they spoiled rapidly and then the foods tasted bad.

The truth is saturated fats are not a problem when omega-3 intake is optimized. Why is that? Saturated fats increase platelet stickiness and interfere with insulin function by increasing insulin resistance. That’s half the story. What is the other half? Omega-3s make platelets less sticky and improve insulin function. They decrease insulin resistance and increase insulin sensitivity.

Omega-3 Actions Oppose the Actions of Saturated Fats

Ninety-nine percent of the population does not get enough of the omega-3 essential fatty acid. Saturated fats increase risk of diabetes and heart disease only when there’s not enough omega-3 in a diet to counterbalance their effect.

The key issue is not that you eat too much saturated fat, but that you get too little of the omega-3 essential fatty acid. When you optimize intake of the insufficiently

supplied omega-3, saturated fats cease to cause problems. Let me say it another way. Your problem is that you get too little of the omega-3 essential fatty acid, without which saturated fats can cause problems.

Let me say it one more way. When your intake of omega-3s is optimized, you can enjoy coffee made with liquid whipping cream instead of skim milk. Omega-3s protect you from the harm that saturated fats can cause in your body during omega-3 deficiency.

When you optimize your intake of omega-3 and omega-6—the only two molecules from fats and oils that are essential to health—you can eat as much saturated fat as you want. That’s what I do. The truth is that fats are better fuel than carbohydrates. But it is important for health to first optimize your intake of the two essential fatty acids. In fact, optimizing your intake of both essential fatty acids is the only fatrelated action you should always take to improve and maintain your health.

What Happens when Good Fats are Damaged?

As I said, these good fats are sensitive and can turn from good guy to bad guy in a blink or in this case, in a frying pan. Light, oxygen, and heat damage them rapidly, destroying their health benefits, and then they damage your body. To retain their benefits, they require more care than any other essential nutrient. In actual practice, though, they get the least care of all essential nutrients. This is true in the way we treat them when industry processes them, when cooks use them in restaurants, and when you use them in your home during food preparation.

More physical health problems come from bad (damaged) oils than from any other part of nutrition.

More physical health benefits come from good (undamaged) oils than from any other part of nutrition.

Of all your foods, oils are the most neglected, complicated, misunderstood, sensitive, and misrepresented. Most people are confused about their value to health and it’s no wonder with the current narrative. This must be cleared up. Two opposite stories must be told about oils and health. When you know which fats and oils heal and which ones hurt you, it will be easy to choose the ones for health. Until then, you won’t know which ones to buy, or how to use them.

Because of dishonest representation, you don’t know how your oils are made, and you don’t know how your oils should be made to improve and maintain your health. Most people use bad oils in bad ways that cause health problems, and they simply aren’t aware that this is what they’re doing.

Rules of Nature

In 1929, the researchers George and Mildred Burr established omega-6 as essential.

In 1981, R. T. Holman established omega-3 to be essential.

Researchers did not create these properties of oils. Researchers only discovered them to be as true as they always had been. For billions of years in nature.

Life created essential fatty acids (EFAs) in nature. Plants make them, so EFAs are not essential to plants. Plants make EFAs from water and carbon dioxide. They make them by means of enzymes, with solar energy as their power source.

Animals cannot make EFAs, so they depend on plants to make these for them. No one knows why it’s that way, but that’s just how it is. If you want to enjoy good health, you just accept these rules of nature and live aligned with them.

What rules do you need to accept? Plant-derived omega-3 is five times more sensitive to the damage done by light, oxygen, and heat than omega-6. Fish-derived omega-3 is five times more sensitive to damage than plant-derived omega-3.

The most damaging factors on oils are light, oxygen, and heat. Water and minerals also damage oils, albeit more slowly.

Sensitivity and Fragility

We talked about the sensitivity of fatty acids being damaged by light, oxygen, and heat; especially to essential fatty acids, and to omega-3’s even more than to omega-6’s.

What kind of damage are we talking about? Light damages oils by knocking electrons out of orbit, which thereby become highly active, unpaired electroncontaining, super-destructive free-radical molecules. In my book Fats That Heal Fats That Kill, I called them “molecular terrorists” in our cells. These molecular terrorists start chain reactions that damage thousands of molecules.

Industry does not measure free-radical reactions in commercial products. This means that for more than one hundred years, you’ve remained unaware of their presence and uninformed about the extent to which they have damaged the oils you consume. You’ll be blown away by the number of damaged molecules in a single tablespoon of oil when you see it later. For now, you should know that on average, university research shows that a free radical (produced by a single photon or ray of light striking an oil molecule) will go through thirty thousand reactions (busting thirty thousand molecules) before an antioxidant molecule ends the chain reaction or all the electrons find and settle down in stable pairs again. Every second, billions of photons hit oil molecules sitting in daylight in transparent bottles. Blue, violet, and ultra-violet light (shorter wave lengths) are more damaging than the longer wavelengths toward the red end of the visible light spectrum. Links:

Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health

Free Radicals

Mechanisms and Factors for Edible Oil Oxidation

Oxygen reacts with oil molecules to produce rancidity, which makes oils unpalatable. This is measured as peroxide value (PV), anisidine value, or TOTOX. To clean up rancidity, industry heats oils to very damaging high temperature that boils off the damaged and rancid molecules.

Heat twists molecules around their double bonds, producing trans- fatty acids. In oils, these trans- fats must be below 1 percent of total molecules. But here’s an interesting twist to these twisted molecules.

According to FDA regulations, we can round the trans- fatty acid content of an oil containing less than half of one percent trans- fatty acids to the nearest whole number, which in this case would be zero. That oil can be labeled “trans- fat free” even if it contains close to half a million trans- fatty acid molecules for every one of the body’s sixty trillion cells in a single tablespoon.

Recently, the damage that trans- fatty acids can do to health became public knowledge when their effects were published by Harvard School of Public Health’s research group led by Dr. Walter Willett. They can double the risk of heart attack, increase diabetes, interfere with immune function, kill at least thirty thousand Americans every year and interfere with reproduction in both male and female rats (no human reproductive studies have been done). Link:

Health Effects of Trans Fatty Acids Intake: Dr. Willett’s Testimony

The United States and other governments allowed them to be present unlabeled in food products for almost a hundred years before requiring them to be listed on food ingredient labels.

The processing of oils also produces other unnatural, man-made, fragmented, double bond-shifted, and cyclized molecules, and molecules that are cross-linked within as well as across triglycerides. In addition to these, usual industrial processing leads to dimerized, trimerized, and polymerized giant molecules. The levels of these in edible oils are not tested by industry, and you will not find them listed on food labels.

In fact, just about no one talks about them. It’s an information blackout. Most of you haven’t even heard about these processes that damage your oils.

Heat Damage

What kind of temperatures damage oils? Research provides two answers. In the presence of light and oxygen, every 10°C (18°F) rise in temperature, no matter what temperature you start with, speeds reactions with light and oxygen by two to four times. Links:

How Heat, Light and Oxygen Harm Olive Oil

The oxidation process in fats and oils

What does this mean in practice? Here’s the math. Let’s assume that the rate of reaction just doubles every 10° C. In comparison to the rate of damaging chemical reactions in an oil at freezing temperature (0°C), an oil at 180°C will react at a rate that doubles a total of eighteen times. That produces an exponential increase in the number of damaged molecules.

The damage at such high temperatures is huge. The oil becomes a toxic mess. The longer you maintain that temperature, the greater the number of molecules that change from natural to unnatural and/or toxic. No wonder then that fryingtemperature processing of omega-3 and -6 oils and frying during food preparation with these oils is associated with both increased inflammation and increased risk of cancer.

That’s why cold storage or freezing oil solid for long-term storage is important. But even more important is that you need to make use of less damaging processes if health is your goal.

If the rate of reaction goes up four times for each 10°C, the numbers become astronomically large. Multiply four by itself eighteen times and see how large the number gets. You’ll be surprised. Then multiply four by itself twenty-five times, and that is how much faster reactions are at 250°C than at 0°C. It will blow your mind. If you do this exercise with your children, it will blow their minds, too.

In the absence of light and oxygen, a temperature above 160°C (320°F) is necessary to twist molecules. As the temperature rises above that, this damage to oils goes up exponentially. Talk about the devil being in the details.

Water

Water can fragment oil molecules, especially in the presence of minerals, light, oxygen, and heat.

Minerals

Minerals can catalyze and thereby speed oil breakdown reactions.

Relative Sensitivity of Different Fatty Acids

How sensitive are fatty acids? Let’s compare them. The fewer double bonds a fatty acid has, the more stable it will be. The more double bonds are in a fatty acid, the more sensitive it will be to damage by light, oxygen, and heat, because double bonds are what make fatty acids sensitive, which means highly chemically active or reactive.

With no double bonds, saturated fatty acids are the most stable of the bunch.

With only one double bond, monounsaturated omega-5, omega-7, and omega-9 fatty acids are about 2.5 times more sensitive than saturated fatty acids to damage from light, oxygen, and heat.

With two double bonds, the polyunsaturated plant-based omega-6 essential fatty acid (LA) is about 2.5 times more sensitive than monounsaturated omega-5, omega-7, and omega-9 fatty acids to damage from light, oxygen, and heat.

With three double bonds, the polyunsaturated (sometimes called super-unsaturated) plant-based omega-3 essential fatty acid (ALA) is about 5 times more sensitive than the omega-6 essential fatty acid, LA, to damage from light, oxygen, and heat. One extra double bond increases the sensitivity of omega-3 ALA by 5 times.

With five and six double bonds each, respectively, the super, super-polyunsaturated omega-3 essential fatty acid derivatives from fish, algal, and krill oil, EPA, DPA, and DHA, are about five times more sensitive than plant-based omega-3 fatty acid, ALA, to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat.

In terms of sensitivity, fish, algal, and krill oil omega-3 are five times more rapidly damaged than plant-based omega-3, which is five times more rapidly damaged than cooking oil omega-6, which is 2.5 times more rapidly damaged than olive oil omega-9, which is 2.5 times more rapidly damaged than saturated shea, cocoa, or beef fat.

This means that fish oil omega-3 is:

• 156 times more rapidly damaged than saturated fats

• 62 times more rapidly damaged than omega-9

• 25 times more rapidly damaged than omega-6

• 5 times more rapidly damaged than plant-based omega-3

Krill, algal, and fish oils need five times more care than flax oil. Flax oil needs five times more care than omega-6 oils. Omega-6 oils need 2.5 times more care than olive oil. Olive oil needs 2.5 times more care than hard, saturated fat. When health is the focus, you must take this sensitivity and their need for protection into account when you make, fill, package, store, ship, and use oils.

This is the inconvenient truth about the damage that processing and food preparation can do to your most sensitive and yet most harshly treated essential nutrients, and the damage this can do to your precious and fragile health.

Buyer, be wary!

Oil Change

Dirty oil out, clean oil in! It’s simple, not complicated. At least not when you know which fats and oils to stop using, and which ones to use instead. Unfortunately,

most oil marketing ads hide the truth of their damaged products and mislead you by implying falsely that you’re getting something good by omitting or misrepresenting inconvenient facts that researchers have known for decades.

Where do you go to get the truth? Life and nature hold the truth you need. Observe life and nature. That takes time. Since I love and have a passion for it, I can help you a little bit. Get truth regarding health and nature here. Why do I say, “a little bit”? I say it because the big part is not the information that I can give you, but the actions you take to translate that information into better habits for health.

What have I learned from life and nature? Life and nature are your masters, and to be healthy, you must live in line with both of them.

Healthy

To be healthy, you must consume oils in their natural, health-supporting state. To be healthy, you must remove damaged, health-destroying bad oils and fats from your foods and your body and bring in good oils or the whole foods—seeds, nuts, beans, or grains—that contain them. When you do this, your health can improve in many significant ways. You’ll likely live substantially longer, and more importantly, you’ll enjoy a better quality of life during the time you have on Earth. Live longer and feel better!

An oil change for the body is a small price to pay for having both longer life and better health. What person in their right mind would not want that for the people and pets they hold dear? And who would not want these for themselves? Do you want these for yourself?

Chapter Eight: Dispelling Myths

Fats have gotten a bad rap. They have been villainized and accused of being the cause of heart disease and since it’s still the number one cause of death in humans, it’s no small accusation. Some members of the fitness and health industries have worked hard to scare you out of consuming fat because they say it will make you fat. What? Fat can kill you and ruin your hope of fitting into those jeans in the back of your closet? Talk about public enemy number one.

But I am here to tell you there’s been a misunderstanding. It’s vital that I clear Fat’s name. If you aren’t getting the right fats and you’ve been depriving your body of these essential nutrients, you might already be in a seriously poor state of health.

Myth 1: You Don’t Need Fat in Your Diet. The Less Consumed the Better

No. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Why? Some kinds of fats are essential, which means both that you require them for life and that your body will not make them on its own.

Myth 2: Fat Makes You Fat

I have good news for you. Fat does not make you fat. Let’s lead with that. Let’s shout it together. Join me. Blare it out the window if you’d like. “Fat does not make me fat!”

But something else can and you’ve traded fat for it.

Officer, You’ve Got the Wrong Macronutrient

I’m not much of a coffee drinker. Coffee, after all, is made from roasted (burned) coffee beans (by the way, neither coffee beans nor cocoa beans are real beans; they’re seeds). Burning changes molecules from natural to unnatural states. Any food that’s burned contains molecules that have been changed from their natural state to something that is not found in fresh, whole, raw, organic foods, and some of these unnatural molecules can hurt your health. In contrast, to sustain your health, nature’s standard for foods has always been the same: fresh, whole, raw, and organic.

Occasionally, especially when traveling, I like to get a latte. I like the coffee fragrance, and yes, I like both the buzz and the bowel regulation benefits. I used to ask for my lattes to be made with whipping cream (thirty-four percent butterfat) instead of milk. Or with coffee cream (eighteen percent butterfat), or at least with half and half (ten percent butterfat). I do this less often now. But I want to make a point about fat.

Sometimes this led to the barista and I getting into a short conversation on fats and on getting fat. We live in a world where most people still think that fat (or cream) will make them fat. “Eat fat, get fat!” Right? No! It’s not true. That idea, though it seems

logical, is completely wrong. It’s not how your body works. Your body has never worked that way, and it never will work that way.

For thirty years, I’ve been trying to correct that confusion, but despite my efforts, many of you still believe that carbohydrates are good and that fats are bad. Maybe I need to talk louder. Our knowledge is slowly changing but let me try here a bit more.

“Sugar in your coffee makes you fat, but cream in your coffee does not.” The buns and pastries you eat make you fat, not the milk fats.

Myth 3: Fats Turn on Fat Production

No. Fats do not turn on fat production. This does not make biological sense and your body really likes to make biological sense. Genes are responsible for orchestrating processes in your body. Let’s see what they do with fat.

Fat Burning Genes: Fat Burning’s Holy Grail

Yes! You have these. How cool, right? In every one of your body’s sixty trillion cells, you have several genes for fat burning, and you also have a gene for fat production.

When fat-burning genes are turned on, certain genes in your cells’ furnaces (mitochondria) use fats as fuel for energy production. Researchers and biochemists call this process of making energy from fats “beta-oxidation”. When they’re turned off, these same genes stop burning fats as fuel.

Fats and oils turn on fat-burning genes. The fats and oils you eat turn on fat burning in your cells. If you’ve got fats to burn, your body adjusts your genes to burn them.

It’s practical, logical, and necessary that the fats you eat turn on fat burning.

Excess carbohydrates turn off fat-burning genes. Yikes! Since consuming excess carbohydrates (eating more of them than your body burns) can cause many health problems, it is logical, practical, and important that your body makes sure you burn carbohydrates first. Here are some links:

Fatty acid synthase and liver triglyceride metabolism: housekeeper or messenger?

Fatty Acid Metabolism, the Central Nervous System, and Feeding

Hepatic fatty acid synthesis and partitioning: the effect of metabolic and nutritional state

The Fat Production Gene: How it Really Works

When you eat more carbohydrates, starches, or sugars than you burn, your fat production gene gets turned on and makes fats out of them. But when it’s turned

off, that gene does not turn them into fats. So, it’s clear you don’t want to turn on the fat production gene.

Fats do not turn on fat production. It does not make sense for fats to turn on fat production. Why make more of something that you already have enough of?

Fats keep the fat production gene turned off. That’s life’s body-regulating feedback mechanism by which no more fat fuel will be made as soon as there’s enough.

Because excess carbohydrates can be toxic, life turns on the gene that changes these superfluous carbohydrates into fats, which it then stores as a future energy source. This means carbohydrates turn on the fat production gene. Life doesn’t want to waste carbohydrates. In past times of feasts and famines, feasts led to more fats being stored in the body, which offered survival value. Extra fat lengthened survival time during famines. If survival is important, and it is, this is just simple logic.

Good-for-health oils turn on fat-burning genes in your body, and help you lose body fat. Eat more of the right kind of oil, and your body will burn fats all day long, provided you exchange carbohydrates for good-for-health oils, rather than taking these oils in addition to the carbohydrates. I call this “making a fuel switch”. Make a fuel switch rather than a fuel addition.

Why can carbohydrates make you fat? Carbohydrates above the amount that you burn in activity can hurt and even kill you. To prevent them from killing you, life turns on the fat production gene in your body. When that happens, this gene (it’s called fatty acid synthase, which means that its job or function is to make [synthesize] fats in your body) goes on merrily turning sugar into fats in seven easy steps.

Carbohydrates turn off the fat-burning genes (about nine genes are involved) in your body. When you eat more carbohydrates than you burn, your body must turn the unburned carbohydrates into fats.

Myth 4: Carbohydrates Will Not Make You Fat

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but yes, carbohydrates make you fat. It’s been them all along. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Though perhaps better referred to as the sweetest or most savory craving in your pantry.

The Real Culprit

How do carbohydrates make you fat? You make or order food and eat it. By habit, you may like one or more of the following: grains, bread, flour, pasta, potatoes, fries, chips, noodles, corn, muffins, barley, yams, squash, grain-based stuffing, and rice in your meals. If you have a “sweet tooth” you might like cake, cookies, ice cream, pastries, and other sweets for dessert. For drinks, you might prefer sweetened sodas, sugared coffee or tea, or fruit juices. You might like to eat a lot of sweet and starchy (carbohydrate-loaded) foods. A lot of people do.

What’s wrong with that? Most people eat more of them than they need for energy and survival. At the same time, most people don’t exercise enough. Most of those who are overweight or obese consume more carbohydrates than they need to as fuel—fuel is mostly the only thing carbohydrates are good for—to burn for energy.

Carbohydrates contain no essential molecules that life cannot make in your body or get from other foods, which makes carbohydrates the least important of all the foods you eat. This does not make carbohydrates bad, just not essential.

If you eat whole foods rich in starches, you’ll get useful prebiotic fiber (food for probiotics that protect digestive health and help with weight management) from them.

But nobody must have starchy foods or sugars for energy. Everyone can just as easily get energy from fats, oils, or even proteins. When you’re starving, carbohydrates can save your life, but most people in the Western world are not starving. We’re more likely to be overweight and overeating, rather than skinny because we’re starving.

And by the way, eating high protein diets can also force fat production. In this case, life will turn excess amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—into carbohydrates and then into fats.

Eating more carbohydrates (or proteins) than you burn raises your blood sugar (glucose). High blood sugar can lead to a high blood sugar coma or even death.

Life created a protective measure against this potential danger: In response to high blood sugar, life induces your pancreas to make and release insulin that drives excess sugar (glucose) molecules, those you didn’t burn in physical or mental activity, into your cells. This is a body-preserving survival response.

In your cells, something needs to be done with this excess, unneeded glucose. Life turns on (activates) that “fatty acid synthase” gene we talked about before, whose function is to make a protein enzyme that can do only one thing: Convert sugar into fat. It catalyzes seven steps that convert the excess sugar molecules in your cells into fatty acid molecules.

If you don’t use up all the carbohydrate molecules you eat to make energy, life turns those you didn’t burn off for the activities in your cells and muscles into fats that it then stores in your tissues as fat deposits.

The Carbohydrate Law in Your Body

This law in your body is important for survival. Excess carbs must be converted into fats, which get carried to and stored in your cells. Chronic overconsumption of carbohydrates must lead to fat deposits, then to being overweight, then to obesity, and then to diabetes, which eventually leads to cardiovascular problems. Most overweight diabetics die prematurely of heart disease. If you’re overweight, you can prevent this fate by making the right kind of oil change.

Carbohydrate overconsumption also causes fat deposits in your liver (fatty liver), muscles, and other internal organs. Excess carbohydrate consumption can also promote fat deposits in arteries, leading to poor circulation, which in turn acidifies your tissues and leads to inflammation. Inflammation is part of the cause of most major degenerative conditions, including diabetes, pancreatitis, atherosclerosis, cancer, arthritis, dementia, and osteoporosis. Inflammation also leads to water retention, which is the other cause of being overweight. We’ll get back to this later.

Define overconsumption of carbohydrates as eating more carbohydrate molecules than you burn in physical and mental activity. When you’re physically active, you can safely eat more carbohydrates without creating health problems than you can if you’re sedentary or inactive.

Other Issues with Carbohydrates

1. Efficiency to Craving

Life made the conversion of excess sugar into fat very efficient. Too efficient, some people say. That efficiency can create a second problem. At the end of the process of converting excess sugar into fat, you end up with low blood sugar. Low blood sugar is like running out of fuel. If you run out of fuel, you collapse. That too can kill you. Life must now prevent that from happening. How?

Low blood sugar triggers a strong craving to eat. “Eat or die,” screams your body. Then you stuff yourself with carbohydrates. It takes time to digest them into sugar and then to absorb the sugar (glucose). By the time your blood sugar is normal again, you’ve eaten more than you needed, which gets you high blood sugar again.

You’ve now started the next round of insulin secretion and cellular fat production, leading again to weight gain, low blood sugar cravings (blues), and overeating. This repeating cycle is the “carbohydrate addiction” merry-go-round. Sugar, according to researchers, is up to eight times more addictive than cocaine.

High-carbohydrate foods include bread, cake, cookies, corn, chips, flours, potatoes, fries, grains, rice, corn, cereals, pancakes, waffles, desserts, sweets, sugared soft drinks, corn syrup, sugar, honey, and even fruit. Any of these can make you put on fat. Why? We just learned it, but it’s worth repeating. Your body turns all carbohydrates that you eat but don’t burn in activity into fats for storage. It’s your body’s natural law.

Who created that law? Life created this law long ago. Stored fat was good for survival in times when you put it on during feasts, got skinny again during famines, and outlived those who were already too skinny when the famine hit.

In our modern times now, this survival mechanism works against you. You overeat and get fat, but famines are now rare—a thing of the past in the “developed” world. This important survival mechanism now reduces your quality and length of life by means of a long list of even more negative effects on health than being overweight,

including, cold hands and feet, tooth decay, infections, inflammation, water retention, poor circulation, bone mineral loss, impaired immune function, increased growth of cancer cells, and more.

2. The Curse of Glyphosate (Roundup)

There’s another compelling reason why you should limit your intake of carbohydrates. It has to do with pesticides. Farmers have been trained to spray many unripe grains, corn, and beans with Monsanto’s pesticide Roundup (glyphosate) to ripen them faster, desiccate the unripe kernels, and dry them out for more efficient harvesting.

This saves the farmer time. He gets an earlier and synchronized harvest; you get pesticides in food. But you won’t know that unless someone tells you. Glyphosate has been associated with serious bowel, kidney, and other health issues, and has been classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization.

Glyphosate and preparations that contain it are some of the most widely used pesticides in agriculture. The manufacturer of this poison, Monsanto, lied to the world for decades in its marketing, claiming that glyphosate is inactivated when it hits the soil. I know this because, on a job I had during the dark time in my life a long time ago, I happily sprayed Roundup. Only much later did I find out that Monsanto’s claim was never true.

No government agency charged with consumer protection ever took Monsanto to task for this misrepresentation. “Too big to take to court,” one might say. You pay a price in health to a giant company with lying ways to make huge profits.

But you may have heard about some of the individual lawsuits that have been won against Monsanto. Monsanto is now the defendant in more than three thousand court cases. It may be one reason why they recently sold themselves to Bayer, which is about five times bigger than Monsanto. It will be interesting to see what happens to these cases, but it is even more interesting to know that media still promote glyphosate and have reported very little of what goes on with glyphosate and the companies involved in it.

Chapter Nine: Processing/Misinformation

Marketing

In business, it is legally defensible to misrepresent facts to market products. You’re not allowed to tell blatant, bald-faced lies, but you are allowed to embellish the truth to gain market share. My view has always been that if you make the best possible product, you don’t have to lie about it at all.

When you don’t make the best possible product, the lying begins. No one wants to buy the second-best or a sloppy, poorly made, inferior product. Over time, many businesspeople let their product standards slide. But instead of applying more effort to make the best, they just try to fabricate the best story. Because we are all good storytellers, it can be difficult to know what is true and what is fabricated.

Suppose you honestly told customers, “Hi, I have the second-best product.”

You know what would happen, don’t you?

The response would be, “Okay, tell me which is the best one because that’s the one I want.”

In product creation, the question should be, “What is true to life?” That kind of integrity is often missing in manufacturing and promotion. I mean, just look at our state of health. Nothing in health and nothing in life works for long without integrity.

Truth is your greatest asset and power. It is not power over anyone. It’s the power to manifest from the truth within you something of value to life. When you lose integrity, you lose truth. When you lose truth, you lose power, because truth is your power. When you lose your personal power that is based on standing in truth, the quality of your life declines. When quality of life declines, you either catch yourself and change direction, or you sink lower and lower. Then you become a victim, complainer, liar, and thief, and you affect your entire sphere of influence in a negative way. There’s a good chance that you’ll lose any good friends you have, and drift into a life of relationships with other victims, complainers, liars, and thieves.

When you know truth, it frees you. When you live the truth, you can do great things and become a light that shines into and lights up your entire sphere of influence.

Bias and Reporting

Where does knowledge come from? It comes from observation. The word “science” means knowledge. All knowledge comes from experience and observation of what is. Observation is more important than double-blind, placebo-controlled study design, which is not as infallible as it’s made out to be.

Double-blind, placebo-controlled study design is necessary because most people do not observe what is from a calm, filter-free, agenda-free state of being.

How could you do that? You would need to be calmly present and feeling fulfilled within your own existence. Goal-free. Belief-free.

Is that possible? Yes. Ayurvedic medicine has many powerful and effective treatments for the whole gamut of physical and mental illnesses and conditions. Ayurveda has been practiced for more than five thousand years, yet it did not have a single double-blind, placebo-controlled study until less than fifty years ago. How did practitioners do it?

Part of their training was learning to be still and feel whole, with nothing on their mind. Whole, they could diagnose without getting their stuff mixed up with the stuff of the patient, by being in their calm state of being. In that state, they could observe what was going on for the patient, and then design a protocol to deal with it.

In Western medicine, there is no stillness practice is required. Medical students’ training is largely based on physical aspects of disease and on pharma products but largely ignores patients’ mental, emotional, social, and environmental contexts that also play roles in illnesses.

Diagnosis is based on the visible, testable aspects of the patient’s life, but leaves out the invisible, experiential aspects, specifically their life energy, internal focus of awareness and the big picture of their relationship with an infinite universe.

Learning requires open, honest, agenda-free observation based on genuine interest in what’s true to life. But over the years, science has become a lot like a religion, biased toward certain ways of speaking and explaining, and ignoring what doesn’t fit. We’ve created fads in science that limit our ability to effectively address what is going on for patients.

For instance, in our disease management system that is called “health” care, you follow the instructions of doctors who have studied disease rather than health. You ignore people who know biochemistry, biology, genetics, botany, physiology, psychology, nature, and the rest of the disciplines that study natural, normal cell and body functions.

Legality

Legally, medicine owns the sickness territory, and even if they get no results with the methods they use, no one else is allowed to work with a patient without running the risk of prosecution or persecution. And, because they virtually have a monopoly over a huge territory (most people have nowhere else to go), the medical profession is less open to other possibilities that might better serve patients.

Slowly, but not nearly fast enough, this is changing. Even though most people still trust doctors over anyone else, there are some alternatives.

How will it change? When their business walks out the door, their hearing will improve.

For now, the medical profession still calls a collection of observations made by a doctor of a patient “a case history” but disparages as mere “anecdotes” the equally valid observations made by other people whom they don’t want to acknowledge.

Unfair and uneven-handed treatment comes from the watchdogs of this and other self-perpetuating institutions, many of whose members have largely stopped caring about growth, new options, improvement, and contribution toward better lives.

Information Freedom

"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” New Testament

With all this information readily available to oil manufacturers and with the significance and impact on our health and planet, why aren’t more companies taking care of their oils? Why aren’t they taking care of you?

The chance of this information finding its way to you (outside this book) is low because the truth on oils is hard to come by.

Truth frees you from misinformation, doubt, confusion, wrong decisions you make, and actions you take based on the knowledge that turns out to not be true. “True to what?” you might ask. True to life would be my answer.

Truth makes you free for what? When you think about it, truth makes you free to choose. Without knowing what is true, you cannot make good choices. You require accurate information to make the best decisions for your life. It’s why democracy only works when citizens are educated.

You aren’t likely to be educated about the truth of oils and the old and incorrect dogma has a better chance of finding you because companies want to manufacture oil cheaply. If you know it’s killing you, you’ll probably be less likely to buy it.

Until today! I will set you free from oil damage with the truth.

The Sordid Tale of Oil Misinformation

It will come as no surprise to someone as smart as you that the tale of oil is wrought with fiction. Why? Why would anyone do that?

Misleading to gain an advantage in the marketplace is common. People lie about the quality of their own products. People lie about competitors’ products. People lie about the character of the people with whom they compete. Lies in the marketplace begin as soon as you’ve not made the effort required to bring the best product to market. Marketing itself often involves stretching the truth, which often qualifies as lying, or even blatant lying. In legalese, it is known as “huffing and puffing”, which is not illegal. Go figure!

Only with truth in hand can you improve your life. From a manufacturer’s point of view, taking the time and making the effort to come up with the best possible product makes lying unnecessary. That’s good for everyone. It also feels good.

Therefore, I proclaim, “If you make products, don’t make lousy products.” If you don’t know how to make good ones, find out how. Don’t buy lousy products either. Find out which ones are made with your health in mind. Vote with your dollars.

Misleading information robs you of your freedom and the capacity to choose beneficially.

This form of dictatorship is far more widespread than most of you know, and vastly more widespread than you can even imagine.

Quality of Industry Oils

Industry can make oils in two ways, with shelf life in mind or with health in mind. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too on this one. When health is your goal, you process and use oils with care. If oil shelf life is all you care about, processing and use will be less important, sloppier, and likely more detrimental to your health. Different goals create different methods to achieve them. It’s obvious. Your goal defines your journey. Your intent shapes the steps you take, and therefore determines your results and outcomes.

The bitter truth about oils is this. Bad (damaged) oils cause more pain, inflammation, and health problems than any other aspect of nutrition. Oils are the most delicate essential nutrients. Without special protection from light, oxygen, and high temperatures, they can be rapidly damaged. Then, instead of optimizing your health, they harm it. Because of their sensitivity, I consider damaged oils to be more dangerous to health than excess sugars, starches, and other carbohydrates, although excess carbs can substantially harm health.

Delicate oils should get more care than any other nutrient. In practice, industry treats oils more harshly than it treats any other food. It damages them by careless treatment with highly abrasive toxic industrial chemicals, including lye (sodium hydroxide) and window washing (phosphoric) acid. It then treats them with bleaching clays that remove color (chromophores) but increase rancidity. Then, it heats them to damaging temperatures to blow off the rancidity.

In restaurants and at home, cooks deliberately put oils in frying pans and can watch them break down and turn into smoke, which increases their risk for lung cancer. In case you did not know, the “seasoning” of frying pans consists in large part of oil molecules that have been polymerized into super-large molecules that your body has no way to break down.

Some of these unnatural giant molecules end up in your food, and then in your body, where they drive your immune system crazy, and increase your risk of inflammation and many degenerative conditions, including cancer.

Cooking foods in water takes a few minutes longer than cooking them in oils. But you are in a hurry and use oils at high temperatures to “cook” (fry) your foods. You do it for speed. You eat sooner, but you may also end up with “aging pains” sooner,

and your body may end up in the graveyard sooner too. It’s a trade-off, I suppose, but I’d rather die healthy. Decades ago, when I learned about the damage done to oils, I stopped eating fried foods. That is the single most positive nutrition-related step I’ve taken for my health.

When you fry, deep-fry, or char foods, you change health-supporting, naturally occurring food molecules (proteins, starches, fats, and oils) into damaged, unnatural, charred, inflammation, and cancer-causing molecules. Damaged, oils hurt your health. Any foods damaged by overheating them with oils also hurt your health.

All in all, you pay for the time you save in faster cooking with a sicker body and shorter life.

Who taught you to do that? Mostly, the oil industry promoted the use of oils for cooking foods. They hid from you the information on the damage done to your health by processing and cooking. Of course, we chose to accept their recommendations without doing our own due diligence. You can take responsibility for learning the facts. Then you can also take responsibility for changing your oil. Here are a few links:

Daily cooking duration and its joint effects with genetic polymorphisms on lung cancer incidence: Results from a Chinese prospective cohort study

The risk of lung cancer among cooking adults: a meta-analysis of 23 observational studies

Work environment factors and respiratory complaints in Norwegian cooks

Why cleaning the invisible in restaurants is important during COVID-19: A case study of indoor air quality of an open-kitchen restaurant

Epidemiology of lung cancer

How Industry Oils

are Made

Predictably, mainstream multi-billion-dollar industry oils are made with shelf life in mind. The industry has done this for about the past one hundred and twenty years. It makes commercial, colorless, odorless, tasteless “salad, cooking, and culinary” oils. These Refined, Bleached, and Deodorized (abbreviated as RBD) oils were treated with harsh chemicals and processed at high (frying) temperatures. This treatment with a chemical feast and high heat damages up to one percent of the oil molecules. This does not sound like much until you count how many molecules are in that one percent, which we now know from the previously explained math is a big deal.

It bears repeating that extra virgin olive oil is the only widely available undamaged oil because producers press it from the flesh of olives in a way that does not damage the molecules. Other oils, when labeled “unrefined”, may have been pressed or extracted by solvents but have not been exposed to the usual chemical feast that is industry practice.

However, industry could make oils with health in mind. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s that it takes more time, money, and love. Concern for health is among the first things to go when considering the bottom line.

In the early 1980’s, after learning how industry makes oils and how much damage results from the harsh processing used to make shelf-stable oils, I designed a method that is now used by those who make health-supporting oils. My team and I worked with engineers to translate my design concepts into super-protective oil pressing machinery in 1986.

We press nutritious, undamaged oils made with health in mind from organically grown seeds, under protection from light, oxygen, and heat throughout the entire process from seed through pressing, settling, filtering, and filling into nitrogenflushed, capped, boxed, refrigerated dark glass bottles. We use a method that required us to invent and develop custom-made parts for the oil presses that were not at the time (and still are not) available elsewhere in the world.

Why is the way we make oils so important? Because for optimum health you need food oils in their natural state, not ones damaged by their processing.

Mega Oil Industrial Processing

Are you ready for this? I don’t think you’re ready for this.

The mega oil industry treats oils with harsh chemicals in four steps. First is the sodium hydroxide, a very corrosive base that is used to break down material that clogs pipes, sinks, and toilets. Following this is treatment with phosphoric acid, a very corrosive acid used commercially to wash and de-grease windows. After that, it bleaches oils with clays that oxidize (rancidify) fatty acids and turns oils rancid, conferring unpleasant odors to oils. Finally, it heats them to frying temperatures (deodorize, distill, steam-distill, molecularly distill, or wiped film evaporate all refer to similar high heat processes) used to clean up the mess they made by their use of harsh chemicals and bleaching clays.

If that isn’t enough toxins for you, they begin with non-organic seeds that have been sprayed with, yep, pesticides. Poison.

One of the scientists at American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS), the manufacturers’ umbrella organization for the industry that makes salad, culinary, and cooking oils, told me on a phone call in 1984 that one reason for using high (frying) temperatures is to boil off and remove fifty percent of the pesticides in the oil.

I spoke with him soon after pesticides had poisoned me. At the time, I didn’t even know that pesticides were present in oils, and it really shocked me to hear this. Realizing that the other fifty percent of the pesticides remain in the oil and knowing I couldn’t heal from pesticide poisoning with more pesticides, I asked him, “Why don’t you start with organically grown seeds?” It’s a good question for you to ask the industry. The scientist had no answer. He got angry and yelled at me.

Industry uses non-organic, pesticide-containing seeds and nuts as starting materials for making oils with shelf life in mind. Right away, you have a problem. What’s the problem? The only point of making toxic pesticides is to kill living things. We use them to poison weeds and pests. But therein lies the threat. All living creatures have a lot of chemistry in common. When a poison kills one creature—plant or animal—it is likely to also be toxic for many others.

To remove oils from seeds, nuts, and beans, industry uses careless treatment with a chemical feast to produce a mess of bad-smelling, rancid oil. No one wants to buy bad-smelling, rancid oil so industry must clean it up. To get that done, industry overheats oils to frying temperatures (180-245°C or 356-473°F) to remove half of the pesticides, blow off the bad odor of rancidity, and clean up the mess made by using non-organic seeds and careless treatments.

All this begets oil with a long shelf life. Long shelf life is good for the industry, because dead oils don’t rot and thus can be pushed into a potentially very large, global market. They can make oil in the town in which you live, and sell that oil everywhere, around the globe: Johannesburg, London, Tokyo, Toronto, New York, Berlin, Athens, Madrid, Paris, Moscow, Riga, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Sydney. Geneva, Calcutta, Jerusalem, Seoul, Baghdad, Rome, Paris, Oslo, and Lisbon. And everywhere else, too.

Long shelf life is good for mass production and profits. But what effects on health does this have?

Results of Industrial Processing: You Pay in Health

The high-heat treatments of oils (deodorization, distillation, steam-distillation, molecular distillation, or wiped film evaporation) involve destructive temperatures that change natural oil molecules into unnatural ones. These can interfere with your body’s health chemistry. Don’t use or buy such oils. Vote with your wallet for better oils.

Why is interfering with the body’s health chemistry a problem? At the most basic level, all diseases begin with interactions between molecules.

Let me explain. Life energy never gets sick. Electrons, protons, and neutrons never get sick. Atoms can’t get sick. Molecules don’t get sick. Where does sickness begin? Sickness begins in the realm of interactions between molecules. Whatever interferes with nature-designed interactions between natural molecules in our body derails or blocks these interactions and begins disease processes that can eventually result in symptoms that can be diagnosed as illnesses.

But the detrimental interactions between damaged molecules and the body begin long before there are any visible signs of their detrimental nature. By the time you get the diagnosis, the damage has long been going on, and the diagnosable disease was a long time coming.

The unnatural molecules made by damaging natural molecules during industrial processing or food preparation are among the ones which most frequently interfere with your body chemistry.

Man-made unnatural synthetic molecules created by industry can also interfere. Such molecules include plastics, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. The toxic side effects of pharmaceutical drugs are proof of their interference with the natural molecular interactions involved in your body’s physical health.

Think of these like the contaminants that find their way into the oil in your car. Your body’s oil will have become a sludge that’s no longer able to lubricate the moving parts of your engine. In a car, this can wreck your engine and perhaps even require an engine replacement.

When oils are processed to obtain a long shelf life, it is done at the expense of health. It may have been inadvertent at the beginning, but that is the outcome, and now we know better. We’ve known better for at least sixty years. Research is clear about the damage done to health by burning foods in oils. But the industry has not changed its methods because we keep buying and they keep profiting.

Is this an indicator of their lack of care and even disdain for the consumers who buy their products? You may pay twice, first with money, and later with damage to your health.

“Essential” Defined by Research and Misused by Marketing

One of the most pervasive marketing lies in the arena of health is the use of the word “essential”.

Researchers define “essential nutrients” as those that life must have to build a body that is healthy and alive and can’t make inside the body itself from anything else. Therefore, you must bring in these “essential nutrients” from outside the body.

In research, “essential nutrient” also means that your health deteriorates if you don’t get enough of it. You get deficiency symptoms from not getting enough. Deficiency symptoms are degenerative in nature and get worse with time. You die if you don’t get enough of any essential nutrient long enough.

Finally, research defines “essential nutrient” to mean that if you bring enough of it back into a deficient body before you die, all symptoms of deficiency are reversed.

That’s because life knows how to make an optimally healthy body if you take responsibility for making sure that you take in optimum amounts of all essential nutrients.

This definition of “essential nutrient” applies to forty-two substances: eighteen minerals, thirteen vitamins, nine essential amino acids, and two (omnega-3 and omega-6) essential fatty acids.

The definition of “essential”, which scientists have agreed upon, is very specific and can therefore be very useful.

However, the use of the word “essential” is used quite differently in the marketplace. In marketing, it implies that the person who sees the ad must have it for their health, even though the nutrient to which that word is applied is in fact not essential by the researchers’ definition. Marketers use the term deceptively but effectively to drive sales.

You get fooled. They get rich on your lack of knowledge. You are one course in basic nutrition short of knowing the truth and being able to make effective choices. It bears repeating that lying is a form of dictatorship because it robs you of choice.

Bottom line? Remember that not everything advertised to you as essential is truly essential.

The Scientific Community

We put much faith into science, but science and the scientific method have become so well understood that it is possible to design a study that will give you any results you want to produce to help support (prop up) your marketing story. It’s all in the way you design the study. Yes, it’s dishonest. Yes, it’s unfair. And yes, science has become scientism, which imposes on you ways of thinking and believing to promote agendas other than truth. This is not much different from what some religious institutions did during the Middle Ages and still do in the present age.

Which means researchers are not infallible. They are subject to corruption by social pressure from those who grant them money and thereby have power to influence them. Let me give you a couple of examples.

A few decades ago, I had a couple of medical doctor friends who ran a weight loss clinic. They knew clearly that excessive consumption of carbohydrates plays a defining role in most overweight and obesity. They were part of a group of several hundred doctors also involved in weight management and told me about the annual conference they attend each year on the topic.

They told me there was consensus among these doctors about the role of carbs in being overweight and Syndrome X (also referred to as Metabolic Syndrome by some researchers), which is not a disease, but a myriad of problems associated with insulin resistance (a condition linked to prediabetes and Diabetes Type II) and diseases of the heart. But not a single presentation from the podium made mention of this fact. Why not? That was my question. Their answer floored me. The main sponsor for the conference was—you guessed it—Kellogg’s. None of the fine doctors in this organization was willing to tell truth about their main sponsor’s fixed commitment to selling carbohydrate-loaded products that help produce Syndrome X.

Since you can’t buy a new body, I suggest using cleaner higher-octane fuel. But you can only have better fuel if you treat it right to begin with. From start to finish, you must handle oils with care.

The methods my team and I developed for making oils with health in mind were designed specifically to prevent natural oil molecules from being damaged. Therefore, these retain their health benefits. They align with and support the natural interactions between natural molecules in your body that create the picture of physical health.

To retain their benefits, I reasoned, we must protect sensitive essential fatty acid molecules from the damaging effects of light, oxygen, and heat from the time they’re enclosed in seeds (in nature’s exquisitely designed tight protective package, which took millions of years to perfect), while we press them, settle, filter, fill into glass bottles, nitrogen flush, cap, box, and refrigerate. That way we protect fresh, undamaged, organic, natural oil in the factory.

I visualized, and we designed, developed, created, installed, and used new oil pressing machinery and new processes. We had to invent all these because no one had thought of or was doing this. It was a challenge and a lot of fun.

1. Protection

My thought was that if we avoid a mess with harsh chemicals at the front end of oil making, we won’t have that mess to clean up at the back end. Based on this consideration, the processes my team and I developed together don’t use any harsh chemicals. And we start with organically grown seeds. In addition, I decided that their sensitivity warrants cold storage and shipping to preserve the health benefits of these most sensitive of all our nutrients.

When it came to working with distributors and stores, we made it clear that we would work only with people who have refrigeration or are willing to get it, and who care enough to keep sensitive oils cool. I recommend that people keep our fresh oils made with health in mind in their fridge, and that they never use these precious oils for frying.

2. Exclusion of Light

A dark container cuts out the light. At first, we designed and worked with black plastic bottles that were thick enough to cut out all light. One day, I found research in the Encyclopedia of Plastics showing that plastics leach into foods, and especially into oils. Specifically, oils swell plastics, and make plastics as well as its unlisted ingredients (which are proprietary and therefore not disclosed by the plastics manufacturers) leach more quickly into oil than even water does.

Unlike oil, water does not swell plastic, but plastic still leaches into water. Oil is worse. When I learned this, I decided that a dark glass bottle is superior packaging material, and then put the bottle in a box to cut out all the light.

3. Shipping

Experimenting, we learned that non-refrigerated shipping of closed bottles is okay for two weeks maximum. We ship oil cold if it is in transit for longer than that, such as when it goes from North America to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, or Antarctica.

This is a very different way of treating oils. At that time, virtually all oils were in transparent glass (now transparent plastic) exposed to light, on shelves at room temperature, made with chemical feasts, and recommended for frying.

Ours were made with health in mind. Ours were protected from light, oxygen, and heat, and were further protected by keeping them cool. It was quite the accomplishment.

4. Home Education

Cooking in oils is not an old, traditional habit. Even olive oil, which has a long history of food use, was not traditionally used to fry foods. In Mediterranean (olive oil) countries, foods were cooked in water, and olive oil was added to foods after they came off the heat source. Until recently.

The mega salad and cooking oil industry began only at the start of the twentieth century with the mass production and processing of oils that made them colorless, odorless, and tasteless. And dangerous.

During my childhood, cooking meant using hot water to prepare foods. Foods cooked in oils were called “fried” or “deep-fried”.

The industry’s marketing has been highly successful. By appealing to women and mothers, they changed ways of cooking foods, and that, in turn, created their children’s association of burned food with motherly love.

Break that association. Mother love is one hundred percent good. But change that sickening, destructive habit because cooking foods in oil is a bad idea. Cook foods in water. Add oils made with health in mind after foods come off the heat. Healthy. Good for you.

No matter where you go in the world, today most people of all cultures cook their foods in oil. Most people think that they couldn’t live without eating fried, burned, charred foods. Many of you say you love the taste of burned foods. But that’s a marketing-hustled, acquired taste, because if you scrape the burned stuff off and eat it black, you’ll find that it tastes acrid, scratchy, bitter, and disgusting. This burned taste is always the same, and it overpowers the thousands of nuances of tastes and fragrances that fresh plant-based foods by nature have.

Life’s mandate for healthy eating in nature always was and still is: Fresh, whole, raw, organic. Every creature eats like that except for scavengers, which eat dead, raw meat; and human beings, which deliberately burn their food.

The sweet truth is that you do not have to keep living as though you have no choice. The sweet truth about oils is that more health benefits come from good oils made with health in mind than from any other aspect of nutrition.

Why? Oils support the healthy functioning of every one of your cells. When fresh and protected from damage done by light, oxygen, and heat to retain their essential health benefits, they play important roles in hundreds of different ways in your body, including in oxygen metabolism and energy production.

When you protect good oils with the care they need, they protect you with the care you need. When they get care, they give care. When you protect them, they protect you. When they are undamaged, they feed you good health.

What was industry’s incentive for promoting the health-hostile use of oils for cooking?

The short answer is: They don’t care about you. They care about selling oil.

Imagine this conversation in a board meeting:

"Consumers use water to cook their foods. They get the water for free. They use a lot of it. How could we get them to use oil for cooking instead?”

“How much oil would we sell if we could convince them to use oil instead of water for cooking?”

"Let’s run the numbers on increased sales.”

“These numbers look good!”

“Okay. Let’s do it!”

Next issue on the boardroom agenda: “How do we market this new way of preparing foods?”

“Let’s not call it frying. Let’s call it cooking.”

“Let’s tell them it’s the faster, easier, more convenient way to cook. Let’s target women and mothers who are super-busy, do most of the cooking and purchasing, and tell them it will save them time. Let’s tell ‘em burned foods taste better.”

This may seem outlandish and like a sketch you’ve seen on The Office, but that’s pretty much what happened. The rest was allowable marketing misrepresentation to promote sales and profits. We’ve all been had. In support of the ‘bottom line’. Our fats and oils are locked in a prison, beaten, and destroyed. Abused and bastardized for better profit margins. You, dear consumer, are the end point of sale. Once these oils meet you; industry can wipe them off their hands. It is of no consequence to them how they are scraping around inside of you. They save money and you pay the price with your health.

If it seems like there are a lot of barriers to keep us from buying and consuming good oils, I say, “You betcha!” When I was on my journey of oil discovery, the equipment to make the oil I envisioned didn’t even exist—I had to invent it! My team and I had to think of every detail right down to how the oil would be packaged, shipped, and distributed. We were battling forces greater than us, losing money, being pushed out, and having our ideas stolen.

But the protagonist never gives up, not until he takes his last breath.

And I was still breathing.

From my experience of working in the field for several decades, I have a lot of stories. Let me tell you a few.

Oil Tales

Story 1: Truth in Education

Fish oil is one of the most damaged products in the marketplace. Why is that? LA, the omega-6 essential fatty acid found richly abundant in corn, safflower, sunflower, and grape seed oils, is quite sensitive to the damage done by light, oxygen, and heat. The plant-based omega-3 essential fatty acid, ALA, the one that is present in flax oil, is five times more sensitive than LA; and the fish oil omega-3 derivatives, EPA, DPA(n-3), and DHA, are five times more sensitive to damage by light, oxygen, and heat than ALA.

With modest variations, the industry makes fish oils by the same destructive methods and processes it uses to make plant-based cooking oils. Fish oils are 25 times more sensitive to damage than cooking oils. Over the past two or three decades, additional processing, which has led to additional oil damage, has been applied to fish oils with two main goals in mind:

Improve Taste: To deal with the rancid burps and unpleasant taste of fish oils, industry deodorizes, steam distills, wiped film evaporates, or molecularly distills fish oils, heating them to frying temperatures to do so, which damages them even more than they were already damaged by the basic processing. Additional harm is done to the molecules. While fish oil tastes better (less awful) after that, oil molecules are altered into unnatural forms. You get better taste from worse oil.

Reduce Toxicity: The oceans are humanity’s sewers. Increasing levels of toxic PCBs, dioxins, pesticides, and other oil-soluble industrial poisons run downhill off the land, end up in our oceans, concentrate (increase)e up the food chain, and are prevalent in fish oils. Some fish oils had as much as 1,300 ppb. Governments mandated that the levels of these poisons in fish oils should be lowered to no more than 90 parts per billion (ppb). Research shows that there are NO safe levels of these cancer-, mutation-, and birth defect-causing industrial poisons. Links:

Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fish oil dietary supplements: occurrence and human exposure in the UK

Dioxins and PCBs in feed and food--review from European perspective

PCBs in Children’s Fish Oil Supplements

As a result of these additional processes, additional molecules are damaged. It is normal to find three hundred thousand times more processing-damaged molecules in fish oils than there are industrial poisons. Which is worse? The industrial toxins? Or the huge number of oil molecules that are damaged by processing?

Researchers have also determined that fish is now the most polluted food we eat. It is the dirtiest meat because our oceans have become our sewers and chemical dumps. Fish meat can also contain plastics, which find their way into our tissues when we eat fish, and these plastics, as expected, interfere with our tissue functions. Here’s a link:

Microplastics in Seafood and the Implications for Human Health

Knowing, since the early 1980s, the damage done to fish oils by processing, I have never used or recommended fish oils. Want an undamaged supplement? Use krill oil. But you don’t need a supplement of either fish or krill oil if you optimize your intake of ALA by taking 1 tablespoon/50 pounds of body weight a day of Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend, mixed in foods, with intake spread out over the course of the day. When you do that and clean up your food supply in other ways as well, life converts ALA into EPA, DPA(n-3), and DHA to cover your need for them. That’s what the research shows and repeatedly confirms.

Fish oil marketers deny this research. Why? To protect their turf. If people knew that with an optimum intake of ALA, they could make all the EPA, DHA(n-3), and DHA they need in their own body, why would they buy unpalatable, malodorous, damaged, toxic fish oils? People deserve to know the truth.

As I explain in more detail elsewhere, the human brain turns over only 2.4-3.8mg of DHA per day. Let me add a few facts.

Total DHA in the brain is about ten to fifteen percent of brain fatty acids, about five grams, which is fifty times higher than its content of EPA and two hundred times higher than its content of ALA.

The average adult intake of ALA is about 1,700mg (1.7 grams, which is a very small amount) per day, and yet only 0.14-0.22 percent conversion would be needed to maintain a brain DHA turnover of 2.4-3.8mg per day. Which means what? Even a low rate of conversion of ALA to DHA can maintain brain DHA requirements.

Steady state infusion methods of ALA show that the conversion of ALA to DHA is at least three times higher than the estimate based on the single dose tracer studies, which also neglect to take ALA already present in the body into account. Most of the conversion studies used single dose tracer studies.

Fat tissue in infants contains a store of 1-4 grams of DHA. Adult fat tissue contains 20-50 grams—enough to supply the brain with 3.8mg per day for 14-36 years.

About seventy-two percent of ingested ALA in humans is used for energy (betaoxidized) within six days.

More than half (fifty-seven percent) of orally administered, labeled ALA is transported to adipose tissue within one week, and the half-life of adipose tissue fatty acids is one year or even longer. One more link of interest:

Alpha-linolenic acid and its conversion to longer chain n-3 fatty acids: Benefits for human health and a role in maintaining tissue n-3 fatty acid levels

What does all this mean in practice? When you optimize your intake of ALA (we recommend about 10-20 grams, depending on body weight), you will have no problem converting enough ALA to DHA to satisfy your brain’s requirement. The suggestion that people must take DHA-containing fish or fish oil supplements to be healthy is simply not supported by research.

It appears that the liver may be able to convert ALA into some of the long-chain derivatives EPA, DPA(n-3), and DHA more effectively than the brain itself, and that different body tissues have different rates of conversion of the omega-3 essential fatty acid ALA into its longer derivatives.

If you ensure enough dietary intake of ALA, life knows what to do with it in your body to make sure that all the derivatives you need are made in the quantities necessary for good health. If you optimize your intake of both essential fatty acids, in the right ratio, undamaged by processing, life makes all the essential fatty acid derivatives that have health benefits for you. It’s nice to know that ongoing research continues to confirm what we’ve been saying for more than thirty years.

Story 2: Talk in a Health Food Store

About ten years ago, I gave a talk in a health food store that carried and promoted a lot of fish oils. When asked about fish oils by customers and staff, I told them my version of why those supplements are risky and unnecessary. After my talk, the staff asked the store owner why he was selling damaged fish oils. After all, he runs a “health” food store and is supposed to promote health, right?

He was embarrassed, for one of two reasons. Either he did not know the nature of oils and the damage done by processing them, or he knew but was making a lot of money on them.

He told the sales rep I traveled with: “We don’t want to see Udo in our store, ever again.”

At that time, fish oils were good moneymakers. Krill oil was not yet available. It is easy to give in to the temptation that leads to money trumping health. But my role was, and still is, to tell the truth about oils and health. It would be good if the

businesspeople involved make themselves accountable for truth in producing and selling too because it’s about your health. Because I love the possibilities that health provides, I am proud of my truth-telling role. Consumers love it. Industry sometimes does not love it so much.

Story 3: Another Health Food Store

I informed staff at one location of a large health food store chain in North America that CLA consists of seventy percent trans- fatty acids. Because we now know the damage that trans- fats can do to health, health food stores had removed margarines that contained 8-43 percent trans- fatty acids from the product lines they carry. Then they brought them back, as a very expensive supplement of encapsulated oil that contains seventy percent trans-fatty acids. People did not know. So, I let them know.

Shocked by what I said, store staff emailed their head office: “I thought we have a policy of zero trans- fatty acids in our stores. Udo says that CLA is seventy percent trans- fatty acids.” The head office replied, “CLA is not a topic for discussion.”

People appreciate the truth in education, especially those who want better health. Who takes responsibility to provide it? It may not be those who make good profits on bad products. Truth sets us free, but only when we know it. Truth enables better choices. Better choices lead to better lives. You can’t make better choices with misinformation. That’s why truth (on all topics) will always be important.

Those who care more about money than health, unhappy with my obsession with truth, say, “Udo is a fanatic.” It’s true that I’m firm about the quality of the products I make to support health. For them, it’s simply a cost issue for their bottom line. But for me, the commitment is to work for life, the true and only real treasure on our beautiful planet.

Lying takes away your freedom to choose wisely. It robs you of your health. Not knowing what is true and being misinformed, you can become a victim of the lies you’re told and fail in your pursuit of health. Long-term, this hurts everyone. When we give up our integrity, we lose the trust of others, and then we slowly lose our business. When health suffers because of lies, profits suffer because people lose trust in liars.

Truth in representation, education, advertising, and marketing is important for the entire industry, too. You don’t have to lie when you make good products. You can proudly tell the truth. Can you just agree to not cut corners and commit to make products that are truly good for health?

When the products are made right, they work.

When your products work, you build consumer trust and confidence.

When they trust you, they buy even more from you.

When they buy more, their health gets even better, and you make more money.

Consumer confidence built the industry. Everybody benefitted. It is shortsighted and stupid to cut corners and then lie about it. We can do better. I can help. It’s what I am best at.

Chapter Ten: Why Blends Rock?

Why Not Just Flax Oil?

When my team and I developed flax oil in 1986, we picked that oil because it is the richest and most easily accessible source of affordable omega-3, ALA, the essential nutrient too low for optimal health in ninety-nine percent of the population. It is also the most difficult (because it’s the most sensitive) seed oil to work with. The greatest help for the greatest number of people would be to make available a fresh, undamaged source of plant-based omega-3 oil.

To manifest that, we worked with several other people. We gave less thought to omega-6 because it was abundant in the normal foods most people ate in the form of bottled plant-based cooking oils. But something happened that got my attention.

The people I worked with advertised flax oil as the richest source of both essential fatty acids.

This annoyed me.

First, we knew it had fifty-seven percent omega-3, and only fourteen percent omega-6. It was quite low in omega-6, the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 being about 4:1.

Second, we had a fabulous product that we could proudly tell the truth about. I didn’t think we needed the extra hype.

Third, I knew the Inuit diet had a ratio of 2.5:1 and knew of no traditional diet with a ratio higher than that. The ratio issue concerned me.

It did not seem to me that flax oil was the best source of both essential fatty acids. But without proof, I was not one hundred percent sure, so I could not argue with them. What to do? I tested it on myself. For about four months in 1989, I used flax oil as the only source of fats in my diet. By the end of that time, I had dry eyes, skipping heartbeats, arthritis-like pain in finger joints, and thin, papery skin. These are classic omega-6 deficiency symptoms. How to fix them?

It's the obvious answer: take more omega-6. For the next few weeks, I ate a lot of sunflower seeds, whose oil contains about sixty percent omega-6 and less than one percent omega-3. All my symptoms cleared up. That’s when I got serious about putting together the blend that we now work with, in which the ratio between omega-3 and -6 is better balanced for long-term sustainable health.

Flax oil turns out to be, as I had thought, rich in omega-3, but too low in omega-6. It is, in a few words, an unbalanced oil that shouldn’t be taken alone. Its imbalance needs to be balanced with more omega-6. This experience convinced me that there was a need for a mixed oil formula.

My next obsession became developing a better-balanced blend of good oils that would have undamaged omega-3 as well as undamaged omega-6 in the most effective ratio, both made with health in mind, contain everything that is good, and exclude anything that is bad in oils.

When the oil blend came out, all the flax oil companies told customers (predictably), “Just take flax oil. You already have lots of omega-6 in your diet.”

From the perspective of better health, this was bad advice, given by people who did not know how to make a good blend, or were not interested in better health for their clients and customers. Omega-6 oils contain a lot of damaged molecules. Remember the numbers? In just one tablespoon of oil, there are more than one million processing-damaged molecules for every one of the body’s sixty trillion cells.

From the perspective of health, you need to get off those damaged omega-6 oils and get onto omega-6 oils also made with health in mind. That’s what good health advice would look and sound like. It’s the reason we add omega-6 oils made with health in mind to our blend. Here are some of our guidelines:

1. The ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 should be the ratio that provides the best balance from the perspective of health.

2. Both EFAs should be from undamaged, organic oils made with health in mind.

3. We wanted GLA in the blend.

4. We want lots of different minor ingredients from different kinds of oils.

5. We want extra lecithin (non-GMO, which we bring in from Europe) to improve oil digestion.

6. We want other antioxidants from oils, especially fresh coconut.

7. We want extra antioxidant strength in the form of vitamin E.

8. We want our oil blend to be the one source with all the good and none of the bad in it.

The feedback from people using the blend has been astounding. I’m glad we made it. Its performance in practice far exceeded our expectations. We knew it would be good but did not know it would be this good. Every time I hear someone’s story about how the oil blend helped them, it makes my day. It is an honor to play a part in improving people’s quality of life. Can’t think of a better way to spend my time on Earth.

Best Ratio

What’s the best ratio of omega-3: omega-6? Some researchers have suggested that 1:4 is the perfect ratio. Respectfully, I disagree. We don’t, and you won’t, get the best results with it.

Others claim that 1:1 is the historical ratio. That’s patently untrue because the ratio changes in the food supply going south from the North Pole and going north from the South Pole.

We call the 2:1 ratio that we use the practical ratio because in practical applications, it consistently produces the best results.

We know the opinions of the experts on the subject. But our experience over close to four decades in 30+ countries tell us different. And, after so many years of fulltime effort, we know more about the practical, real-life application of oils made with health in mind than just about anyone on the planet. We’re sticking by what we know and keep getting glowing reports from users as well as winning gold medals from the industry for the practical ratio oil blend that we work with.

Thank you all for your feedback. It helps many other people, and you are part of a noble mission.

15 Parts of Physical Health

The focus of this book is on the oil part of physical health. Oils are only one of fifteen parts of physical health. And physical health is only one of eight parts of total health. This means that, while oils are the most neglected and therefore most important part of physical health to address, it is wise to know the context into which to fit our oil change.

When we talk about physical health, here are the fifteen different areas we must address. I will list them here, but if you want a bit more information about them, you can get it from Appendix 1 at the end of the book. There are fifteen categories of physical health, based on the physical part of human nature. It’s what your body is made of, maintained by, and healed with.

1. Solar (Life) Energy

2. Oxygen

3. Water

4. Greens

5. Good Oils made with health in mind

6. Proteins

7. Fuel

8. Essential Minerals (and elements)

9. Essential Vitamins

10. Digestive Enzymes

11. Probiotics

12. Prebiotic Fiber

13. Antioxidants

14. Phytonutrients

15. Gene Modulators

It’s quite a list.

Physical health is the most complex part of total health, and you can best understand how to put together a total program for physical health if you know the fifteen categories that you need to address to build your total program.

Within this total program, let’s stay focused on the oil change that your body needs.

You’ll find the Fifteen Categories of Physical Health Based on the Physical Part of Human Nature described in a bit more detail in Appendix 1.

On with more details of the oil change.

Chapter Eleven: Barriers + Obstacles to Getting Healthy Oils to Those

Who Need Them

Barrier 1: Packaging and Leaching

The chemistry of oils and plastics is similar. Chemistry lovers know that “van der Waal’s forces” between non-polar, carbon-based plastic and oil molecules swell plastics with which they come in contact. When plastics swell, plastic molecules and other ingredients present in plastics can more easily migrate from the plastic into the liquid oils that are continually washing across the swollen plastic bottle’s interior surface.

A Change to Glass for Packaging

But oils don’t swell glass. The moment I learned this, I immediately wanted to make the change to glass for packaging. The team I worked with at that time did not want to do it. Glass is easier to break. Glass is heavier and costs more to ship. Plastic is light, durable, and cheap.

Since that time, research has shown that plastic leaches into food in direct proportion to how much fat and oil the food contains. The greater the amount of fat and oil in a food, the more plastic from the container or plastic wrap ends up dissolving in it.

I’m glad that I made that change. It wasn’t easier, but it is better for health. Research shows that plastics (like other man-made, unnatural, synthetic molecules) in your body can cause chronic low-grade systemic inflammation and lots of other problems. Links to studies on plastics leaching into water, food, environment:

The Problem with all the Plastic That’s Leeching into your Food

Plastic Products Leach Chemicals That Induce In Vitro Toxicity under Realistic Use Conditions

How do foods interact with their packages? You may not know much about it. You might not think about such questions. You hope for the best, guessing that “they” care about your health. You assume that “they” wouldn’t do anything that was not good for health. But you know better. You see the consequences of sloppy, uncaring, body-hostile human actions everywhere on this planet.

Many plastics contain several other unnatural ingredients. I didn’t know what kinds of other molecules back then, so I tried to find out.

Asking the Plastics Manufacturer

One day I called the manufacturer of the plastic bottle we used to package our oil in and asked him to send me its complete formula. He said the formula was proprietary.

“Here’s my dilemma,” I told the man, “I give public talks, and I recommend plastic bottles for packaging oils. I never want to be in a position where it surfaces that there’s something unsafe in this plastic that I have mistakenly recommended is safe.”

After some thought, he replied, “Okay, we’ll send you the formula, provided that you promise not to give anyone else that information.” I agreed, because if it was truly safe, I did not mind keeping their trade secret to myself.

But something wasn’t adding up.

When the amount of each component in a formula is listed, we have a complete accounting, and it will always add up to one hundred percent. But the formula the plastic company sent me did not add up to one hundred percent. In other words, they did not send me the complete formula. They left something out.

I suspect they didn’t want at least one ingredient in their plastic formula to be known. It was hard to say for sure, but it made me suspicious and was another reason why I’m glad I switched to glass.

Who knows how their mystery ingredient would affect our precious oils?

Glass Has Class

Of the possible kinds of packaging for liquids, including plastic, paraffin, paper, glass, and inside-surface-shellac-coated metal cans, glass is chemically the safest. Glass is safe for water. Glass is safe for oil-soluble foods. Glass does not leach anything into food. Glass has a track record of 2,500 years of safe use. Glass is made of quartz, which is just silicon dioxide plus minerals frozen into it. Glass has class. Whenever we eat at a classy restaurant or event, water is served in glass bottles and glasses. The same is true for alcoholic drinks.

Champagne and prosecco are served in glass flutes, not in plastic flutes. Classy wine comes in wine bottles and glasses, not in wine plastics. Whiskey is served in shot glasses, not shot plastics. Even beer is served in beer glasses, not beer plastics.

Many years ago, the beer industry tried to switch beer from glass to plastic bottles. They stopped because the plastic imparted a taste to the beer that no selfrespecting beer drinker would put up with. Courtesy of public pressure, beer went back into glass.

Once, while traveling, a fancy restaurant in Asia served us water in plastic bottles. My hosts were embarrassed. We complained to the manager, who apologized and brought us water in glass bottles.

Taste and Plastics

Without a doubt, liquids taste better packaged and served in glass because glass does not have any taste and therefore does not corrupt the natural taste of what it contains. Plastics add tastes and thereby taint natural flavors.

That said, the taste of plastic is not easy to detect in oils. It’s because the chemistry, and hence the taste of oils and plastics is similar. But just because you can’t taste it does not mean it’s not there. Plastics ingredients dissolve more easily in oil than in water. Being unnatural, plastics don’t belong in your body. If they do find entrance to your body, they can cause allergic, inflammatory, immune, and other reactions.

Plastics and Environment

Plastic has been used to package foods for only a few decades. It’s cheap, but as we now know not necessarily safe. It also poses environmental problems. Do you know about the “plastic island”? It’s made of plastic waste dumped in the Pacific Ocean. Currents collect and drift this mass into an area that’s the size of Texas and one hundred feet deep. Recently, plastic islands were also found in the Atlantic, Indian, and southern oceans. Link:

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Have you heard about small bits of colored plastic that kill birds? They eat it but can’t digest it. This plastic fills their stomachs, then they starve to death. Type the following words into your search engine: ‘photos of birds that died with a stomach full of plastic’.

Even whales have been found dead with a stomach filled with plastics.

We also know that marine animals get tangled and strangled in nets. Animals have caught their heads in beer packaging, and then choked to death because they couldn’t get their head back out. Plastic is cheap and convenient, but it can also be seriously hostile to life and to health. If we add the environmental and health costs, plastic is more expensive than glass, and makes one question the value we place on life and nature.

Paraffin, a petrochemical, can dissolve in oil, which makes it another unsuitable packaging material.

We’re back to glass.

Metal Packaging

Metals speed (catalyze) oil breakdown, so they’re not suitable for packaging oils either. Metal containers are often coated on the inside with shellac, but that contains even more chemicals, at least some of which can dissolve in oil. This creates a situation where more unnatural molecules can be present in oils. It’s better to stick with glass.

Committed to Convenience or to Health?

For a business, working with glass can be inconvenient. Glass packaging is heavier, can break, costs more to ship, is more expensive to buy, and can cut into profits in a competitive marketplace. But glass is natural, and better for both health and the environment.

You can use the packaging material that companies (especially those making and selling oils) use as an indicator of their commitment to health and the environment. Those who use glass take the high road on packaging. Support that commitment. Vote with your wallet.

Barrier 2: Storage and Cooling

We freeze ice cream to keep it from melting. We freeze meat to keep bacteria from rotting it. We cool perishable fresh foods. For some reason, we’ve not given oils this kind of deserved and necessary care to keep them fresh and prevent them from spoiling. Good oils are perishable foods. They, too, need that care.

Cold Storage

Modern industry ships oils rich in the delicate, easily destroyed omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids without protection. Remember, these are the most delicate of all essential nutrient building blocks that life requires to build and to rebuild your body. They’re easily damaged by … can you guess? Light, air, and heat. They need protection more than any other food. You won’t die from drinking melted ice cream, but you can die from chronically eating oils damaged by lack of protection.

My point is this. Well-developed methods for cold storage exist. For better health, we could, and we should use these methods to make sure that good oils retain their remarkable health benefits.

Protecting Sensitive Oils

Why do we not apply these keep-fresh methods to sensitive oils? There’s no easy answer to this question. It’s a combination of a lack of care for health, general sloppiness, and greater interest in profit than in customers. People make the decisions. What is their foremost goal? Is it health? You can dig into this question and find out for yourself.

Good oils need protection. It’s true when they’re being made; it’s true when they’re being used in food preparation; and it’s also true when they’re being stored in factories, stores, and homes.

Oils made with health in mind need care in storage. The best care is oxygen-free, dark, low-temperature storage. Working from practical experience, we set the following standards for oils made with health in mind.

• Frozen, closed: Three years. Oils shrink when they freeze. Glass bottles won’t break. Frozen solid, oil molecules can’t move. Not moving, they can’t meet.

Not meeting, they can’t react. Not reacting, they can’t change their shape from natural to unnatural, less health-supporting, or toxic.

• Refrigerated, closed: Twelve months

• Refrigerated, open: Use contents within eight weeks

A Storage Standards Story

Starting in 1988, when the buzz about our good oil was spreading through the industry, many distributors approached us. They wanted to carry our oils made with health in mind. I designed a two-question interview for them, based on our “stake in the ground”.

My first question was, “Do you have refrigeration in your storage facilitiy?” If they said, “Yes”, I’d pass them on to my business partner to discuss what the nature and terms of an agreement with them would be. If they said, “No”, I asked, “Are you willing to bring in refrigeration?” If they said, “Yes”, I told them, “Call us when you have it.” If they said, “No”, my response was, “This is a good time to end the interview.”

We held to our standards because we felt them to be vital when dealing with sensitive nutrients. We weren’t willing to do business with anyone who did not want to take good care of our oils.

We never buckled to anyone’s desire for convenience. In the case of essential fatty acids (and probiotics), “easy” is the enemy of “healthy”. That’s the way it is. We made it harder on ourselves to make health easier for you. More than three decades later, we still hold these standards. We’re proud of that stake in the ground.

Barrier 3: Shipping and Protection

Methods for cold transport were developed not only for meat and ice cream but also for butter, vegetables, fish, and other fresh foods. Without this care in transport, your vegetables and fish would arrive rotten in the grocery store. The butter would be melted out of its wrapping and end up all over the floor of the truck or railroad car that moved it from source to consumer. That’s why these products get that kind of care.

Why don't oils get this kind of care too? They are, after all, perishable foods. Like vegetables and other fresh foods in their sensitivity to damage and their need for protection. Is the oil industry more interested in presentation than in health benefits?

Oils in bottles don’t necessarily show rot or messiness. In fact, most molecular damage and poisons in oils are invisible. Unless it becomes noticeable by changing color, odor, or taste, industry may not bother to give oils care after their already damaging high-temperature deodorization treatment that makes their products colorless, odorless, and tasteless. But for me, it’s no cause for complaint. Their lack of care allows us to shine by making products with human health in mind and

motivating us to give care to our products to keep them more closely aligned with nature.

When my team and I began to work with good oils, we set standards for this important part of the care for omega-3 and omega-6 rich oils. From our experience with delicate oils made with health in mind, here is what we came up with:

We allow a two-week maximum shipping time for closed bottles without refrigeration.

We ship our oils refrigerated from North America to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Central and South America. At least one bottle of our oil blend even made it to Antarctica. I have a photo of it somewhere.

Air shipping is the fastest way to deliver good oil over a long distance. Some importers/distributors in other nations on other continents use this method. It’s more expensive, but you get the freshest product, with the longest time before expiry.

Barrier 4: Changing How Fats are Used and Understanding their Significance, Application, and Importance

If I can’t fry with them, how am I supposed to consume them? It surprises people that good oils can be used in hot foods. The trick is not to heat them to temperatures that denature and destroy them. So long as you keep this in mind, you can enjoy them at pleasantly cozy temperatures.

Add After Cooking

Good oils and both omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids can be safely added to hot soups, hot vegetables, hot starchy foods like potatoes, yams, and pasta, or mixed into hot sauces added to all kinds of foods.

The key is to add good oils made with health in mind to foods after they’ve come off the heat. When you add them about the same time as you add salt, pepper, and spices to your foods, you do not damage good oils.

Use good oils in warm and cold dishes. They are good to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Snacks, too. They enhance the health value and flavors of shakes and smoothies. They’re compatible with all foods: vegetables, proteins, fruits, and starches. Remember, though, that when you mix good oils and starches, you block their ability to turn on fat burning, and then you may gain a bit of weight. If that happens, you’ll blame the oils, but it’s the carbohydrates that are responsible for the weight gain. If it happens to you, remember to lower your carbohydrate intake, and the oil will help you normalize your weight. Good oils will also increase your endurance, making it more likely that you will enjoy being more active.

Consume Oil Straight from a Spoon?

I don’t do this. Athletes do this. Some coaches recommend this. I’ve heard rumor my son does this. You do not have to do this. In fact, I recommend that you don’t do this. I recommend that you always mix good oils made with health in mind in your foods.

A few people who’ve taken Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend straight from a spoon on an empty stomach have complained to me that they don’t like the taste of the oil. Don’t be one of those people. My first question to the complainer is always, “How’d you take the oil?”

Their answer is, “From a spoon and on an empty stomach.”

Then I ask, “When did you most recently eat cooking oil from a spoon on an empty stomach?”

“Never,” they answer. They do not take any other oils straight from a spoon. Or on an empty stomach. They never have. Oh yeah, that’s right. No one does.

I ask them my final question, “Then why are you taking my oil by itself from a spoon on an empty stomach?”

Because yes, oils may never taste great by themselves. If you ingest cooking, salad, or culinary oil with a spoon and on an empty stomach, you will not like its taste. In fact, those oils taste worse than the blend because of the way they’ve been altered from their natural states.

Some people were taught to take good oils straight from a spoon, and they continue doing that. They were not taught by me to do this, though. My recommendation has always been based on getting the best results for health. For taste and enjoyment? Add oil blends that are good for health into your food. Like I said, they enhance food flavors and improve nutrient absorption.

Oils taste like oils. Some people like the taste, some people don’t. A few don’t like the texture. In nature, oils are always in foods, not alone by themselves. You’re supposed to use good oils in foods, just like you did before with the industrydamaged ones. Oils will never taste like ice cream.

The Cod Liver Oil Curse

Many people, especially those who were forced to take cod liver oil from a spoon as children, have a gag reflex when they see oil on a spoon or taste oil by itself. They don’t like the texture, or the taste, or the smell. My advice to them is to mix good oils into their favorite foods. When they do this, the gag issue does not come up for them (pun intended). When they notice the benefits of good oils, they develop a happy feeling about using them in their foods to improve their health.

On many of my tours, we make different recipes using good oils. One favorite was simply mixing oil in applesauce. People loved the taste. Sometimes we dipped bread in the oil. On occasion, we hired a chef to make a set of fancy dishes using

the oil blend. We also put it in shakes and smoothies, on rice, in hot soups, mashed potatoes, or on steamed veggies. People generally like these ways of using oils. Good oils enhance all foods.

“Oil Shooters” and the Gag Reflex

My favorite recipe to share at conferences is making “oil shooters”. “Everything but the booze,” I tell them in advance. We take a juice like piña colada or mango and top it with oil. We pass these oil shooters out from big trays to hundreds of people. Every attendee gets one. There are always a few who hold it in their hand, look at it, and start heaving like they’re about to throw up. It looks quite funny.

Then I ask them, “How many of you were forced as a child, by well-meaning parents, to take cod liver oil off a spoon on an empty stomach?” There’s a strong concordance with that childhood trauma and the present, heave-worthy dislike of oil taste, texture, and appearance.

Then I ask them to swish their oil shooters around in their mouths, to blend juice and oil together. They notice that the oil taste and texture disappear at once, the flavor of the juice deepens, the juice has more “body”, and tastes delicious. Then they ask for seconds. Within minutes, their nausea at the thought of oil is gone forever. Try it!

Liver Care

I suggest that you spread out through the course of each day your intake of good oils to ensure that you won’t feel tired, heavy, or nauseous afterward. Have some with breakfast, some with lunch, some with dinner, and some with snacks.

Here’s why. Your liver must process the fats and oils you eat. If you take more oil at any one time than your liver can handle, you exceed its capacity, and it lets you know in no uncertain terms. How? It prevents you from taking even more by killing your appetite with tired, heavy, nauseous feelings.

Curing Yourself of Frying

Never use good oils (or bad ones) for frying. Oils are vindictive. They treat you like you treat them. When you care for them, they care for you. If you damage them, they damage you. If you fry them, they will fry your health. You can count on it.

Please, develop a fear of frying. Here’s my suggestion for how to best use a frying pan. Take it out of its hiding place. Turn it upside down. Hit yourself on the head with it to associate the frying pan with pain. Then throw it out. Permanently store it in the garbage bin. Set yourself free from its destructiveness. If you keep and use your frying pan, you’ll cause yourself a ton of life-shortening pain and problems.

Recipes

Oils go well in salads, smoothies, shakes, purees, and soups. On hot vegetables, proteins, and fruit. All foods are best taken with oils.

Many people ask how to use good oils in meal preparations. I’m no cook. My idea of a good meal is to eat a lot of raw foods. My stove is the most underused equipment in my home. It only gets use when someone visits me, and that’s because they turn it on. So, I don’t have recipes, but I have something better.

Celebrity Chef

At a conference in the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, I met celebrity chef Alan Roettinger. The restaurant was crowded, and the maître d asked us if we were willing to share tables. I said, “Sure,” and she seated me next to a stranger. We began to talk.

Alan: “What do you do?”

Udo: “I work with oils. What do you do?”

Alan: “I’m a private chef for Hollywood stars, celebrities, politicians, and industrialists all over the country (USA).”

Udo: “I need recipes that show people how to use good oils in food preparation without destroying them and their health.”

Alan: “That’d be fun to do.”

Udo: “Why don’t we do it together?”

Alan: “Okay.”

Udo: “Okay.”

That short conversation started a collaboration that’s been a lot of fun and began a great friendship with a great guy.

Health, Pleasure, or Health and Pleasure

Alan did the work. I explained to him how to use healthy oils in food preparation without doing damage to their delicate nature. He created the recipes. Alan is all tongue, nose, and culinary design. He says, “No matter how good something is for my health, I will not eat it if it doesn’t taste good.” I’m the opposite. If I know that something is good for my health, I’ll eat it no matter how bad it might taste. Bitter, great! Smelly, fine! Yucky looking, who cares?

The obvious takeaway here is: Do not come to me for good recipes. Go to Alan. His recipes are amazingly tasty. This guy knows flavor, presentation, and deliciousness. The result of two years of working together, him doing most of the work, is a book called Omega-3 Cuisine: Recipes for Health and Pleasure, which came out in 2008. It is, as far as I know, the only omega-3 cookbook in the world.

It has one hundred and forty plant-based recipes for every part of the day—one hundred and thirty-nine of which feature the healthy use of Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend. It

also has interesting stories about food and food cultures, little known but interesting facts, and mouth-watering desserts.

It is entertaining to read, and practical to apply. The recipes are super yummy. Yay for my friend Alan Roettinger!

Barrier 5: The Law and Confidence

In 1988, the FDA shut the border to the import of flax seed oil. This was tricky.

Every project has obstacles to overcome. The FDA was one of ours. Our first manufacturing facility was in Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. We had fresh flax seed oil that contained fifty-seven percent omega-3 by weight, and could provide this essential nutrient, undamaged, to anyone who wanted to improve their health. Our flax seed oil in those early days also had a three-month shelf life printed on the bottle.

We wanted the health-supporting benefits of our super-sensitive omega-3 molecules to remain intact. We wanted to help people better their health. We wanted the results people got from eating omega-3-rich oils made with health in mind to be our grapevine, “go-crazy”, word-of-mouth advertising.

We had begun shipping flax seed oil made with health in mind across the border into the USA until one day our packages got stopped at the border. The FDA was refusing to let our magnificent flax seed oil into the country.

Unbeknownst to me, the FDA many years before had classified linseed oil as an “unsafe food additive”. Their reason was its sensitivity to damage by oxygen (air). Linseed oil made without protection or care does rapidly go rancid. Rancid linseed oil is neither palatable nor good for health. They were doing their job of protecting the public.

We, on the other hand, with our cared-for and undamaged formula, were making noise about the goodness of flax seed oil. They had to act. They published their opinion in their newsletter and closed the border to its import from Canada. We had no immediate recourse and could not take them to court because like most countries in the world, the US FDA has one hundred percent jurisdictional power over products crossing its nation’s borders.

One company tried to sneak the oil across the border from Canada to the US in the back of a pickup truck, hidden under burlap bags, but got caught. That did not go well for them because now anything that came to the border from that company was automatically tagged for inspection.

What to do? We were sure that fresh flax seed oil, the way we made it, was not only safe, but important, because we had done our due diligence, and had put a very short shelf date on the bottles. Using flax seed oil ourselves, we were consistently seeing substantial skin, energy, and mood benefits. From my own experience and that of others, my confidence in the oil and its benefits was one hundred percent.

It was the perfect situation for a perfect standoff. While people in the US were eating turkey for Thanksgiving, we moved our entire operation to Ferndale, a small town in Washington State just fifteen miles south of the Canadian border and began to make the oil there. Now that we were in the USA, the FDA could not shut us down without cause. They’d have to bring legal proceedings against us in a court of law in the US to stop us.

For several years, we worked under their dangling sword. We never knew whether or when they might drop a suit on us. We continued to work under these circumstances because we were on fire to help people enjoy better health.

We didn’t argue with the FDA much, either. But we did have one argument. We disagreed that flax oil was a food additive because oils are foods, not food additives. Their position that linseed oil is a food additive because we add it to food was not defensible. They called all other food oils “food”, not “food additives”, and when we called them on it, they backed off from that position.

Long story short, we never got sued. About ten years later, I had the opportunity to ask a commissioner of the FDA, “Why did you never shut us down?” “We wanted to,” he said. “But when we tested your flax oil, which we did many times, it was never rancid within the shelf life you had printed on the bottle. We could not have won a court case against you, so there was no point in starting one.” My kitchen enjoyed me in a happy dance that day.

Barrier 6: New Education for Edible Oils and Rewriting the Books and Knowledge

By nature, all human beings want the best for their life. You ask, hope, or pray to be relieved of pain, but you never pray to be relieved of your happiness. You’re biased for joy. A preference for “better” and “best” is built into you by life. It is the innermost striving of every living human being, according to Alfred Adler, one of the pioneers in the field of psychology. However, our complex and confusing world is filled with many conflicting ideas, and it’s not always easy to know what is best.

What Is Best?

How do you find out? For one thing, information has become so detailed, the bodies of knowledge so vast, and truth narrowed down to molecular levels that it is tough to keep up. We can’t all be specialists in everything. We’ve become less and less educated about more and more; more and more knowledgeable about less and less. As the number of topics increases, our knowledge of each individual topic becomes shallower and less comprehensive.

For another thing, there is no guarantee that what people tell you is true. You don’t know the agenda of the person doing the telling. People sometimes genuinely believe that what they tell you is true, even when they’re mistaken. Sometimes, people lie to you because of an agenda that gives them an advantage at your expense. If these people had “Liar!” stamped on their foreheads, it would be easy for you. But they don’t.

How can you avoid overload and overwhelm? If you know the most basic truths in each area of expertise that is important to the quality of your life, you can figure out a lot of the details from there. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for.

You, the people, are more intelligent than those who mislead you to profit at your expense. Acknowledge, at least to yourself, that you’re more capable than they think. You’re more capable and smarter than you think, too. You just need a solid foundation. In the arena of health, that’s what I want to help you with.

Pains and History: Challenges and Obstacles

Success always comes with challenges and effort because no structure or project builds itself without external input.

Since early in my life, I’ve had my share of them. We all have our share of them. All were survivable—we obviously survived them since here we are. Of course, going through them was scary because we didn’t know that we would survive. Not only did we survive, but they also made us stronger, brought us greater clarity, and led us to greater measures of personal wisdom.

Challenges contain precious learning. My past challenges are now memories and stories.

Winston Churchill said, “Success is moving from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” There is just enough truth in that statement to make it humorous. He, too, knew it to be true, in retrospect.

One of my business mentors reminds his students that even in the face of total business and financial failure, “They can’t eat you.” You will always be okay, no matter what happens. Bruised ego you will have. Regrouping you will need to do. Course correction you will have to undertake. Bankruptcy you may have to file for. Creditors you may have to apologize to and make long-term plans to repay. But they cannot, and will not, eat you.

In fact, our life’s journey becomes easier after a few failures because we learn from them that who we are does not change. Outside circumstances and situations do. What we feel, think, say, and do does. But we are not outside, and we are not our emotions, thoughts, words, and deeds. We are inside, beyond circumstances, emotions, and thoughts. All is well inside. All will always be well inside. In our essence, we are indestructible. It's good to tune in to the experience of that essence.

Theft of Ideas

Someone once told me that only six people with original ideas live on the planet at any one time, and all the rest of the people steal from them. There’s a grain of truth in this statement. I’m pretty sure that more than six original people live on this planet, but exactly how many is not the point. What IS true is that people steal ideas.

New ideas that are not protected by patents, trademarks, or kept as trade secrets look super-attractive to people who see ways to turn ideas into bucks. Do you mind when someone runs with your ideas and makes more money with them than you do? Probably at the beginning you mind. Your ego hates it when others run off with your ideas. With maturity, however, you can learn to see it as helpful to the realization of your noble mission. In a thousand years, you won’t care at all about how it happened, or even that it happened, or who and what circumstances made it happen.

When I was younger, less mature, and less secure, my need to be acknowledged for my ideas, efforts, and inventions was greater, and I was outraged when someone stole from me. In other words, my ego was much bigger. Now, I take it as an underhanded compliment. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Creative Contentment

Contentment is very creative. In moments of contentment, original ideas come to you. These ideas are not actually yours. Rather, they come from “The Force” or “The Field”, which originates all things. In our calm, quiet moments, the realm of infinite possibilities (the universe of all that is conceivable) shows us ideas for which we become an antenna, and then perhaps the conduit of their manifestation into physical form.

Gifts

Original ideas are gifts you receive from the universe in moments of receptive quiet. If these ideas are not your ideas, then you don’t own them, and when someone takes and builds them out, you could be happy and grateful that they are also helping to manifest them, and that you don’t have to do everything all by yourself without help. If you practice becoming receptively quiet, there are countless ideas waiting to be gifted and manifested. You get free access to them all, so why should not someone who is better at manifesting than you are do that? This is a broader, more inclusive philosophical view.

Ego

The narrower view is that these are “your” ideas, that you created them, own them, and have rights to them. That no one should use them without your permission, and that if they do, you should punish them by legal means, badmouthing, or figuratively burning their house down. This is a common way to think and practice in the egodriven “me and mine” world.

Feeling discontent makes your access to the universe of infinite possible ideas more difficult. In this sense, discontentment tends to be a lot less creative state than contentment, and you come up with fewer positive ideas when feeling down. Maybe that’s why you can’t come up with original ideas and need to steal ideas from others.

Discontent, you may be more inclined to take the ideas others have received, run with them, claim them as your own, and turn them into products for profit in the material world. Discontent, you may think these ideas will make you bigger, better, and more—even when your “more” is at someone else’s expense—until eventually, you find out that more external does not make you more.

What is Wealth?

True wealth is a feeling embedded in life within you, rather than money and all the other stuff external to you. Discontent is disappointing. Before you know this, you chase external wealth until you die, stumble into, or get assistance into the contentment within your being.

In the process of building your separate ego, you may steal images and ideas and call them your own. You may steal formulas and modify them slightly to fall within legally defensible guidelines. You may plagiarize the work of other people and put your name on it. You might break contracts you agreed upon to enrich yourself. If you can, you even steal companies. You fudge your words for gain.

Where is the heart in all this? Oh yeah, that’s right, when you feel discontent it’s because the heart is missing. You disconnected from it. Your focus of awareness is out of touch with the heart within you, which remains undiscovered until you rediscover it.

Inner Conflict

Original thinkers and inventors have two opposing impulses to deal with. If you protect your invention, a lot of your time goes into that, which means less energy goes into taking it forward. The invention, therefore, does not as rapidly reach its potential market. Protected, you may collect more payoff from it. That may lessen your mind-created fears of financial insecurity and satisfy your desire to have others acknowledge your brilliance and validate your importance.

When you don’t protect your invention, it may spread faster and help more people, but you may lose control of it. That serves the heart’s basic impulse to make life as good as possible for as many people as possible. Do you want more for you or more for all? It’s a good question to ponder.

Goldilocks Zone

Is there a position from which all are served without it being at either side’s expense? That’s the Goldilocks Zone in situations based on inspiration, creativity, invention, and manifestation.

Over more than three decades, I worked with several companies that make oils with health in mind. They all learned from me, or from someone who learned from me, how to do it.

Chapter Twelve: Cutting Edge of Oil Information

Recent Findings

Many molecules made in the body from essential fatty acids have been identified. A large number of one kind of these molecules, collectively called ‘oxylipins’, are oxidation products, that is, molecules that result from reactions of fatty acids with oxygen. It is a wide-open field, and the roles that fat-derived molecules play in our cells and in all tissues, glands, organs, and systems are being teased out year by year in laboratories around the world.

Research regarding EFA conversion and metabolism has been ongoing, and different researchers have measured widely differing results. Basically, here is what the research has found so far. The conversion of ALA to EPA is between five to ten percent in both males and females. Insufficient EPA would then be the result only if not enough ALA as starting material for the conversion were present in the food supply.

Conversion from ALA to DHA is about five to ten percent in women and less than 1 percent in men. When pregnant, women must make a new baby’s brain while also maintaining their own brain, and therefore require more DHA or more effective conversion of ALA. Again, getting enough ALA to start with is the key.

Since men don’t get pregnant, they need less ability to convert ALA to DHA than women. The more efficient ability of women to convert ALA to DHA makes them smarter than men. Smart men know that. Really smart men acknowledge it.

Damage done by light, oxygen, heat, metals, and water is being more deeply studied and better understood. Clearly, omega-3s react with all these factors and are damaged by them when they have random contact with them. In the body, these reactions are controlled by biochemical and molecular structures (architecture), which direct and limit the kinds of reactions that take place.

The molecules that result from these directed reactions play important roles in the natural biochemistry within our cells. These reactions create intermediates, hormones, active metabolites, carriers of minerals and electric charges, fuel, and signaling molecules within and between cells. A lot more work is yet to be done in this complex and rapidly expanding field of study.

Resolvins, protectins, maresins, endocannabinoids, and the functions of all of these were discovered only recently, and work to better understand them is ongoing. What is delightful about these molecules is that some of them have properties that are opposite to those of the EFAs and their directly made derivatives, EPA, DPA, and DHA, in the body. Let me explain.

Resolvins: EPA and DHA are highly sensitive to reactions with oxygen. Randomly oxidized, they might be able to cause tissue inflammation. To head this off at the

pass, enzymes turn some of the DHA into powerful anti-inflammatory molecules that prevent inflammation from taking place and to even resolve inflammation.

Protectins: Detractors of the use of omega-3s in the diet, who’ve long suggested that omega-3 “can oxidize and turn your tissues rancid,” must be kicking themselves over this one. First, it isn’t and never was true, and there was no evidence of omega-3s turning tissues rancid. In fact, working with clients, we observed that they seemed to act as oil-soluble antioxidants. Now we know why. The body uses enzymes to turn DHA into powerful antioxidants that block the prooxidant effects that this omega-3 derivative might otherwise have.

Maresins: These help immune function. Many other fats interfere with immune function. You gotta love this delicious contradiction! In many ways, omega-3s act in completely opposite ways to what you would expect from molecules that, because they have so many double bonds, are chemically super-active.

Endocannabinoids: These are molecules that occupy the same receptor sites in the brain that THC occupies when someone smokes marijuana. The kicker is that omega-3 derivatives can react with proteins to make molecules that naturally elevate mood. It’s one of the reasons why omega-3s have been found to elevate mood and lift depression. Links:

Interplay Between n-3 and n-6 Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and the Endocannabinoid System in Brain Protection and Repair

Cannabinoids and omega-3/6 endocannabinoids as cell death and anticancer modulators

Emerging class of omega-3 fatty acid endocannabinoids & their derivatives

The Endocannabinoid System and Physical Activity—A Robust Duo in the Novel Therapeutic Approach against Metabolic Disorders

Daily requirement for (turnover of) DHA by the human brain has recently been measured to be substantially lower than was thought. Research shows that the human brain turns over only 2.4-3.8 mg every day. One gram of ALA would be more than enough for the brain requirements, even if the conversion is less than 1 percent (0.24-0.38 percent).

The same research points out that the flawed way that most conversion studies were designed results in underestimating actual conversion by a factor of at least three times (and perhaps as much as ten or even more times). Here is a link to this very revealing study:

Is docosahexaenoic acid synthesis from α-linolenic acid sufficient to supply the adult brain?

Look it up. It is well worth reading.

A recent study showed that turmeric, a powerful health-promoting herb in the ginger family, increases the conversion of ALA to DHA. This is helpful for people who eat a whole food, plant-based diet that has no animal products that might provide preconverted DHA in it. What is not yet known is whether other herbs and spices (and if so, how many, and which ones) also enhance ALA conversion to DHA. Here’s the link:

Curcumin boosts DHA in the brain: Implications for the prevention of anxiety disorders

This turmeric finding helps to explain why vegetarians seem not to suffer any ill effects from lack of DHA (which would most likely show up as defective brain function, vision problems, and sterility). Some sellers of fish oils have turfprotectingly proposed that the genes of India’s Brahmin caste of obligate vegetarians have different genetics than the rest of the populations of the world, hoping that their fishy story will translate into more people buying their fish oils. You’re better off upping your intake of curry or the super-health-enhancing turmeric spice.

Future Research

The importance of the conversion of ALA to EPA and DHA is the area where the marketing and research agree. Many have asked the question, “Can the body make enough EPA and DHA from ALA, or do you need fish oil?” The research says the body can do it with the help of factors that promote and inhibit conversion and these need to be addressed if health is the goal. What are the factors that enhance and inhibit? This is the area of research we need to dig into so that we can remain healthy when the world runs out of fish.

Rate of conversion:

Research has been clear for many years that life can convert ALA, the omega-3 essential fatty acid, into SDA, EPA, DHA, and many other derivatives. In the marketplace, even this basic truth has not always been acknowledged. We know that the brains, eyes, and sperm of animals that only eat plant-based foods i.e., rabbits, horses, elephants, and gorillas contain DHA, which is not present in plants. This means that ALA is converted into DHA in their bodies. They would die if they could not convert ALA into DHA. But before they died, their brain would fail in its function; their vision would deteriorate, and their males would be sterile. But they have no problem in any of these areas.

In the same way, the Brahmin caste in India, which has 300 million members and has been plant-based for at least five thousand years (except for a bit of milk, mostly

clabbered, for probiotics), has no source of DHA in its foods. Neither fish nor fish oil has ever been part of their food intake. However, they do have ALA in their food supply. It comes from legumes, vegetables, and the whole psyllium seeds that are part of the foods they eat.

Most cells in all human beings have a copy of the entire genetic program, which contains the genes for making the enzymes that life uses in the body to convert ALA to DHA. Brahmins, too, have no problem with brain function, vision, and fertility.

Like human vegetarians, plant-eating fish in the ocean convert ALA into EPA and DHA.

To top it off, the original producers of DHA for much of the food chain are one-celled algae (plants) in the ocean. That is where those higher in the food chain gets it from. Krill eats algae. Little fish eat krill. Bigger (carnivorous) fish eat little fish. Whales and seals eat big fish. However, there is evidence that plant-eating fish can convert ALA into EPA and DHA as well. Carnivorous fish get it from the creatures they eat.

Eff

ect of Diet on Rate of Conversion

It would be instructive to do more precise research into the extent to which dietary substances and combinations determine the rates of conversion of ALA into all the derivatives of this essential fatty acid.

Herbs and Spices

It would be helpful to find out if herbs and spices other than turmeric affect the rate of conversion. If so, which ones? To what extent?

Errors in Study Design and Measurement

In the Domenichiello, AF, et al conversion study published in July 2015 and already referenced above, researchers injected 5 grams of C13 labeled ALA and measured the C13 labeled DHA made from it in the body.

They did not measure any of the other molecules that the labeled DHA can turn into in the body (like protectins, resolvins, maresins, endocannabinoids, and the many different kinds of oxylipins), or its retro-conversion into EPA, so their measurements would miss and therefore under-report what is actually taking place in the body.

The researchers completely ignored the fact that 15-50 or even more grams of unlabeled ALA is already present in body tissues and is also available for conversion into DHA. Even though that ALA also converts into DHA, it will not show up in the measurement of DHA because it is not C13 labeled.

This means that researchers may be underestimating the amount of conversion of ALA to DHA in the body by a factor of at least 3 and as much as 10 or even more times.

These studies need to be repeated using a better study design, to come up with more accurate answers on the rate of conversion of the omega-3 EFA in different tissues.

DPA(n-3)

In our frenzy over EPA and DHA, we have ignored a derivative between these two in the chain of conversion of ALA to all their derivatives. It appears that DPA(n-3) has important functions that neither EPA nor DHA can fulfill, and it can also convert into EPA effectively and into DHA in the liver.

It will be interesting to follow the research on DPA(n-3) to help complete (or at least advance) our knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of this complex system and its power to support optimum health! Here’s a link:

Omega-3 Docosapentaenoic Acid (DPA): What is known? Did EPA and DHA overshadow the health benefits of DPA?

Processing

Over the years, most of the research on oils has been carried out on processingdamaged oils, but the study results published in journals do not point out the role that the damaged oil molecules play in the body as opposed to the role that undamaged oil molecules play. In other words, many of the problems that we blame on oils should probably be blamed on the processing-damaged oil molecules, not on intact oil molecules in their natural state. This distinction has never made the evening news.

To get to the truth, we will at some point need to separate out the extent to which fat- and oil-related effects in the body are the result of natural (undamaged) molecules, and the extent to which they result from unnatural (damaged) molecules —so far unacknowledged—created by industrial processing.

We will need to re-think and re-interpret much of what we have been told and taught about fats and oils and their effects on body and health.

Cleaning out misinformation is difficult and sometimes takes generations. In the end, the truth always comes out. If we tell the truth in the first place, a lot less confusion will need to be sorted out.

Chapter Thirteen: Fad Diets and The Right Fat Diet

Fads and Trends

Fads are only sometimes a function of health, but you can be sure they are always a function of effective marketing. Every year or two, there’s a new one. It goes ballistic for a short time, then fades.

Over the past forty years, fats have figured in many fad diets. None of them were effective long-term, because they were all wrong in the way they looked at fats. There have been high-fat diets (Atkins), low-fat diets (a la Pritikin), no-fat diets (based on an all-fat-is-bad phobia) and even a fake-fat diet (Olestra). All of them missed the key point on fats.

None of these diets paid attention to the fact that two essential fatty acids are needed for health and must be present undamaged and in optimum amounts in any diet to sustain health in the long term. A no-fat diet will kill you if you stay on it long enough. A low-fat diet will also kill you, but slower.

A high-fat diet is not sustainable if it does not supply both essential fatty acids in undamaged form and in the right amount and ratio. The more nonessential fats you consume, the more essential fatty acids you need to also include in your diet.

High-fat diets over time, like the old Atkins and the modern KETO diets, usually ignore the importance of the essential fatty acids, without which you can neither be healthy nor live long. Deficiency of either one will lead to a deterioration of health.

If you measure the global or national improvements in health created by these fads though, you will be disappointed. We are not better off than we were twenty years ago, and we are in many ways worse off than we were one hundred years ago when we ate more whole, natural, fresh, organic, plant-based foods and less convenient, animal-based, and processing-damaged foods. For instance, we live longer now (though even longevity has decreased now for two years in a row), but far more people suffer from earlier-in-life degenerative conditions including cancers, diabetes, asthma, allergies, and autoimmune disorders. Links:

Early-onset colorectal cancer: Current insights and future directions

Why Are Diabetes-Related Complications on the Rise?

Pediatric Asthma: A Global Epidemic

Does the epithelial barrier hypothesis explain the increase in allergy, autoimmunity and other chronic conditions?

Prediction and Prevention of Autoimmune Disease in the 21st Century: A Review and Preview

Rise in Chronic Childhood Health Problems

The problem is that your mind cannot tell the difference between truth and marketing. Everybody tells a good story and it’s easy to believe such a nice story when instead you should be suspicious. If you are not in touch often enough with the energy of life that loves you unconditionally and takes perfect care of you, and you do not live closely aligned enough with nature, you may not know enough about nature and your nature to know what your needs are. You might trust your mind, industry, and experts more than your heart, nature, life, and God.

A Short List of Fads

One year it was coral calcium. Another year it was the Blood Type Diet. Another year melatonin got huge attention. Another year it was glucosamine sulfate. One time it was Pritikin. Then came Atkins. Then came the South Beach Diet. More recently, it’s been Keto diets. Some time ago, it was the Mediterranean Diet. After that came the Paleo Diet.

Every one of these fads has some truth to it, but none of them are the solution. Why? What ails you is not the lack of one magic bullet. Many things ail you, and every “ail”ment is specific, so the cure needs to be equally specific. On the other hand, you have unique sets and combinations of “ail”ments, so a one-shot deal never works for everyone.

It’s Complicated

Making it more complicated and the solutions more complex is the fact that some of your physical problems can have mental causes, and some of your mental problems can have physical causes. Not only is there crossover between mind and body, but the emotions you feel, who you hang out with, and what is in your surroundings also play roles in your well-being and your sense of it.

And Deeper

Going still deeper, your direct, personal, experiential awareness connection to the core of your being and to life energy can make a huge difference in whether you feel well and whole or ill and discombobulated. Each of these areas (eight in all) has a different nature and function, needs a different kind of attention on a regular basis, goes off in a different way, and responds to a different kind of intervention.

The Problem with Fads

Most fads are built on a weak foundation of facts and lots of marketing. The stories always sound good, but the basic agenda behind them often has more to do with money than with health as the originators cast baited fishing lines.

First, they get your mind with a story. Then they appeal to your emotions with endorsements. Then you bite the bait and get hooked. Then they extract your money.

Not every fad or trend is like that. But truth tends to mostly presents itself to you and others with less fanfare. It is not based on promises of quick fixes, but provides steps you can take, one at a time, to return to living more closely aligned with nature and your nature.

What is true has staying power. What is true is not trendy. What is true does not change. What is true is only rarely the life-changing, revolutionary, intensely hyped discovery of the day.

Promotion

To confuse the facts, we have marketing agencies telling you it’s easy. You’re told the figurehead is a genius, when in fact he may just be someone hired (doctor, celebrity, authority) to read a script off a prompter for a fee.

To get your attention, they also do or claim something extreme. Or they milk your insecurity by promising you great things if you comply and threaten you with disastrous consequences if you ignore them.

When is the last time nature hammered you to live aligned with her? She never does. She quietly waits for you to come around. Doesn’t judge or threaten you. Is infinitely patient. You make her your last resort when she is running your show and therefore deserves to be acknowledged as your first resort. Remember to not ignore her.

In North America, a lot of different diets have come and gone. You can find about 150 of them on Wikipedia. Link:

List of Diets

Every year or two, there’s a new fad, and everybody gets excited, yet again. Soon, the new fad fades, and someone develops another new-fangled rationale around which to construct yet another fad diet. The most remarkable point about these diets is that even though most of them rarely deliver results, millions of people remain eager to try every new diet that comes along.

How many such diets have you tried? How many of them worked? Overweightness is increasing and now hovers at about sixty-five percent of the American population, despite all the diets and weight loss benefits they promise. It has been predicted that by 2030, seventy-five percent of North Americans will be overweight, and by 2050, eighty-five percent. Links:

Close to half of U.S. population projected to have obesity by 2030

Adult Obesity Rates Predicted to Rise to 60-80% by 2050

New diets get customers because people who haven’t gotten results are prone to be suckered by any new diet-marketing angle.

“Oh, that’s what (the new angle) I must have been missing!” they think. And buy it.

Filled with new hope, they try the umpteenth new “new” diet, full of excitement for the magic it promises to deliver: Easy weight normalization, pound-shedding, and improved health. Most commonly, diets focus on weight management, because weight is such a big issue. Some diets focus on other problems. Hardly ever does a diet focus on what we need to do to get to optimum health.

The approach that all these diets use is wrong. Before we talk about what is right, let’s look at just a few of the more than six hundred diets that have made the rounds over the past fifty years.

Kinds of Fad Diets

Since there are over six hundred, I won’t discuss them all, but I’ll go through some of the ones more applicable to our discussion on fats.

High fat diet: This one does not work long-term for the best health possible. It is effective for weight loss because fats suppress appetite, and a high-fat diet is low in carbohydrates. However, long term, it cannot sustain good health unless it contains optimum amounts of fresh, essential fatty acid-rich oils made with health in mind and with the right balance of omega-3 and omega-6. And tons of fresh, low-carb, green and colored vegetables.

Low fat diet: Low fat diets, based on the notion that fats are bad, took people into EFA-deficiency, which for many, resulted in dry skin and low energy. When we put these people on good oils though, their health and energy improved dramatically, and by their reports, their skin became kissably nice. Dry skin is a sign of a suboptimal intake of the right kind of good oils.

No fat diet: A no-fat diet will eventually kill you because you get no essential omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids which are required for life and health.

Fake fat diet: This diet was one peak in a long mountain range of industrial stupidity. Olestra, the fake fat made by Procter & Gamble, feels and tastes like fat but is not absorbed into the body. Seemed like a good idea, but it was a gamble with your health and died in the toilet due to the serious gastro-intestinal problems (diarrhea) it engendered in its users. It was banned in the UK and Canada because it also prevents the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, some of them essential, and moves these nutrients into the toilet from the diarrhea it caused.

Mediterranean diet: This is a diet with a high-fog index both in terms of its content (what exactly is in that diet?) and in the vagueness of its description. The science behind it is weak, because any diet, Mediterranean or otherwise, that’s rich in plantbased whole foods will support health. The addition of dairy, eggs, fish, fowl, and red meat makes it less healthy. It’s difficult to argue for the consumption of most animal products. Note: A completely plant-based diet, but many animal-based diets as well, needs to have a vitamin B12 supplement added to it.

Paleo diet: In most places, Paleolithic people ate mostly vegetables, and consumed animal products only rarely in a time when rocks were their main hunting tools. In a few places, there was a lot of meat, but how healthy that was is not known. The definition of what a Paleo diet is seems vague and so just about anyone can put just about anything together and call it a Paleo diet. Paleo is more useful as a convenient marketing term than as a specific, spelled-out recipe for health.

Right fat keto diet: This really does work. That’s because it’s based on optimizing intake of both undamaged (made with health in mind by being protected from harm that light, air, and heat can do) essential fatty acids (omega-6, which is damaged by industry processing, and omega-3, which is the essential nutrient that’s too low for optimum health in ninety-nine percent of the population) in the right ratio and in the right amounts.

The error about most keto diets is that usually, both right fats are omitted because they are sensitive to destruction and need to be cared for. Have you noticed that most keto (high fat, low carb) fad diets don’t contain ingredients that need such care? If you can dry, powder, and stick it on a shelf for a few years with minimal deterioration, it has the potential to go big. Not sustainable for health, though.

What about High Fat, Low Carb?

There is certainly something to be said for lowering your intake of carbohydrates (more about that in a later chapter) and making fats your primary fuel for body functions. Why is that? Carbs give you limited energy, easily punctuated by blood sugar swings, metabolic yo-yo’s, insulin peaks and valleys, mood ups and downs, and cravings that often result in gorging (overeating). In contrast, fats give you longterm, stable energy.

Proteins used as fuel act like carbs, albeit less intensely. But with amino acidburning comes increased ammonia production, which, long-term, can cause liver and possibly even brain function problems.

KETO has recently become a trigger word for millions of people who try to make sense of the confusion and misinformation that now surrounds every topic under the sun, especially any topic that has marketing and profit potential, and therefore inspires creative lying that skirts the laws of truth whose intent it is to protect you from the advertising that misleads you into making unhealthy health choices.

What is KETO?

In short, if you decrease carb intake enough and increase fat intake enough, you create a condition in your body called ketosis. In ketosis, your body burns fats for energy, because you are not eating enough carbs to cover your energy needs. In this process, life breaks fats down into ketones, and these become your main fuel.

Benefits

There is no doubt that a KETO diet, properly used, can help you lose excess body fat. It forces your body to burn fats for energy, because on that diet, you don’t give your body enough of any other kind of fuel—carbs or proteins—to fulfill your energy needs. When you eat fats, seriously reduce your carb intake, and lower your protein intake, you accomplish several other changes that help with fat loss.

First, fats suppress your appetite. Even though they have more than double the calories of carbs, you don’t feel like overeating. Carbs, and to a lesser extent, proteins, do not reliably suppress your appetite.

Second, your blood sugar does not fluctuate, and you don’t get cravings that lead you to overeat carbs and become addicted to them. Carb addiction can be a serious, health-destroying, life-shortening problem. Proteins affect your blood sugar to a smaller extent.

Third, fats don’t turn off the fat-burning genes in your body, but carbs do. Proteins can also turn off your fat-burning genes, though to a smaller extent.

Fourth, fats don’t turn on the fat production gene (fatty acid synthase), but carbs do. Excess proteins also turn on your fatty acid synthase gene though to a smaller extent.

How to KETO-ize

The easiest way to keto-ize yourself is eat good oils made with health in mind and rich in both essential fatty acids in the right ratio and get the rest of your nutrition from lots of non-starchy vegetables of any color. Kale, pepper (all colors), radishes, cucumbers, cabbage (red or green), broccoli, cauliflower, olives, lemons, limes, grapefruit, tomatoes, lettuce, and turnips are in. And in are tree nuts like walnut, hazelnut, pecans, macadamia, and almond, as well as oil seeds like sunflower, sesame, pumpkin, and flax.

Potatoes, grains, bread, cake, cookies, and sweets are out. So are all but small amounts of sweet fruits.

Keep bean, pea, lentil, and chickpea consumption low because these legumes contain only small amounts of oil and large amounts of starch and protein.

On such a diet, you live in ketosis.

Not All Roses

The KETO diet is also controversial. For one thing, the ketones you breathe out can smell intensely unpleasant.

For another, long-term use of KETO diet tends to decrease your lean muscle mass because carb intake is low, and protein intake is moderately low. Then you become even more sensitive to the many detrimental effects of excess sugars.

It is also possible to impair liver and kidney function when you push a KETO diet too hard or too long.

KETO weight loss can also be misleading, as at least some of it is not fat loss but the loss of water from your tissues: dehydration. Weight loss through dehydration is not a healthy goal.

In summary, while KETO diets are generally effective for weight management, they may not be good for long-term lasting health and therefore cannot be your life-long diet.

Lack of EFAs

Probably the biggest problem with a KETO diet is that most people who use or recommend such a diet don’t consider the need your body has for the two essential fatty acids (EFAs), omega-6 linoleic acid and omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid. For health and life, these must both be present in the diet. Their balance needs to be right. They are super-sensitive nutrients that need to be made and used with care.

One main reason EFA intake on a KETO diet is ignored is the simple fact that EFAs require care and are therefore a pain to work with. If you want to make and sell a product that has a long shelf life and requires little care, EFAs are not your ticket. If you want to consume a product that requires no refrigeration, then EFAs are not your ticket. But a diet too low in EFAs guarantees that your KETO diet will not work for your health in the long term.

You can use any fat to put yourself into fat-burning ketosis and suppress your appetite, but most fats are not essential.

A Wrong-Headed Direction

For decades, beginning in 1977 with the US Senate’s McGovern Report on nutrition and health (look it up), we’ve been told to eat less fat and more carbs. The first twenty years of following that upside-down recommendation increased overweightness in the US population from twenty-five percent to sixty percent. That should have been a huge hint, but very few people paid attention to the facts on the ground. When I began to study oils, I learned quickly that the two essential fatty acids that can come only from fats and oils are, well, essential. You absolutely need them both to be healthy, and even to remain alive. That fact makes it impossible to treat all fats as trivial nutrients.

On the other hand, there are no essential carbohydrates. Carbs do not contain any nutrients that you cannot also get from other foods. That makes carbs your least important food. The ill-advised McGovern Report wrongly put carbs at the base of the food pyramid as the most important of nutrients.

As the most powerful nation in the world, the US led everybody astray, because many nations unquestioningly take their cues from American positions.

A “Right Fat” Keto Diet

There is one possible diet that could make people healthy and have them lose weight as a side effect of good health. Welcome to the world of the Right Fat KETO Diet!

You already know that fats don’t turn on the fat production gene. You know that fats don’t turn off the fat-burning genes. You know that fats suppress appetite.

And you know that unlike carbs, fats produce ketosis, give you stable energy and don’t produce blood sugar, energy, insulin, and mood swings driven by sugar swings and the cravings that result from low blood sugar.

But EFAs (the right fats) produce some very helpful additional effects when used as the source of fats in a KETO diet.

Omega-3 actively (omega-6 to a small extent) turns on and powers up all the fatburning genes in your cells. For this reason, I call omega-3 the “fat-burning firestarter”.

Omega-3 decreases inflammation, making it effective at reducing any body weight resulting from excess water held in inflamed tissues. If inflammation is your case, you can literally pee out being overweight, as retained water leaves your no-longerinflamed tissue and is removed through your kidneys.

Omega-3 increases your energy level (vitality) and makes you more likely to be physically active (and burn more calories) because it increases your oxygen metabolism and metabolic rate.

Omega-3 and -6 together enhance skin beauty, which may enhance other kinds of fat-burning activities related to attractiveness and sensationally sensuous skin.

In the right amount and ratio, undamaged omega-3 and -6 oils made with health in mind can increase stamina and performance by as much as forty to sixty percent within a month of starting to take them. They also speed recovery and healing and improve muscular development, which results in higher metabolic rate and raised oxygen metabolism.

What this all means is you can stay healthy on a Right Fat KETO Diet® for the rest of your life and extend your longevity with it as well.

Paleo: These diets have been quite the rage for the past decade or more. They are supposed to be how our ancestors ate. They assume that before civilization, we were hunter-gatherers. That may have been true in some places, but in other places, plant-based foods were most prevalent, simply because plants don’t run away and don’t fight, so they are much easier to hunt down and kill.

Hunters came home without meat a lot in most places. In those regions where and when this was true, humans were more gatherers (and later, gardeners) than hunters. Gatherer-hunters rather than hunter-gatherers. In truth, men everywhere have been bragging about their hunting skills, while in many places, women have quietly picked berries, leaves, flowers, roots, herbs, and weeds to feed their families.

Perhaps the saying: “Among lions and humans, women do all the work,” applies here as well as in other situations.

Definition

A commonly used Paleo Diet definition goes like this: “A diet based on the types of foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans, consisting chiefly of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, and excluding the dairy and grain products and processed food.” It is also known as the “Caveman Diet”.

However, this definition leaves a large amount of wiggle room that comes from the “presumed to have been eaten by early humans” part of the definition.

Given that nobody alive today lived in the Paleolithic time (~2.5 million years ago until ~12,000 years ago), a Paleo Diet can be made up in a lot of different ways, depending on your location on the planet, your culture, your dietary preferences, and some of our favorite, strongly held, even if unfounded, opinions.

The devil is always in the details. And your guess about exactly what cavemen and cavewomen ate is as good as mine.

Is a Paleo Diet Useful?

Sure, it is. Any diet that excludes processed foods is better for health than a diet that includes them. Excluding dairy eliminates the source of one of the most common food allergies. Avoiding grains eliminates the second most common source of food allergies.

Today, grains often contain traces of glyphosate (Roundup), Monsanto’s popular pesticide introduced in 1974. Glyphosate was originally used as an antibiotic. Monsanto dishonestly advertised it as being inactivated upon contact with soil. I know because remember my pesticide poisoning? Glyphosate is one of the pesticides I regularly worked with.

Glyphosate is used to desiccate grains to ripen and harvest them earlier in the year, which is more convenient for farmers. There are now thousands of lawsuits worth billions of dollars in damages against Monsanto concerning this pesticide, which

even the rather slow-moving United Nations has now classified as a probable carcinogen.

If glyphosate has been used on them, avoid grains (also soybeans and corn). Go organic.

Fish is now the dirtiest meat on the planet, due to pollution that washes into waterways and oceans.

Meat has unhealthy additives in it, and is grown with the use of hormones, antibiotics, and pesticide-containing foods.

Overall, antibiotics and glyphosate can upset the balance of good and bad bacteria in our gut and compromise our physical, mental, immune, hormonal, and neural health.

A Better, More Effective Plan

What’s the right approach to weight management? How should you eat to maintain or regain your health and normalize your weight? The answer is simple: Health can replace or displace disease. Normal body weight can replace excess body weight. Shape can replace out-of-shape. Attractive can replace unattractive.

Is there a diet that can do that? Yes, and it’s easy to design. The issue is not only about creating such a diet but is also about addressing eating habits and beliefs.

The health-building, weight-normalizing diet is simple. All you need to do is deliberately eat, drink, breathe, and act in line with nature. Why does it work? Health is the natural state. Just as in light there is no room for darkness, in health there is no room for illness or overweightness.

Rabbit Food

A diet for healthy weight emphasizes mostly plant-based, whole, organically grown, non-starchy foods. People often say that plant-based food (rabbit food!) has no taste. That statement is so untrue that it is patently ridiculous. The truth is that burned flesh almost always has the same bitter, acrid, scratchy, disgusting taste, while cooked or raw meat pretty much all have the same bland flavor. To add flavor variety to these bland foods, you add . . . Wait for it.

Plants!

Vegetables. Spices. Herbs. Like mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, garlic, mustard, ginger, pepper, cayenne, rosemary, and many more.

Plant foods have unique and widely varying sweet, sour, salty, bitter, tart (astringent), pungent flavors, and endless combinations of wonderful fragrances. Plants also provide widely varying textures. On top of a great variety, plant-based foods are better for both health and longevity than animal-based foods.

In order of importance, your health and weight normalization diet will provide greens for minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and gene regulators; good oils for energy, hormones, and cell membrane construction; and proteins from whole foods for muscles, receptors, signaling molecules, and enzymes (from the right kinds of seeds and nuts as well as all whole foods). Your healthy diet will limit your intake of carbohydrates (the least important food, and not even the best source of energy) to the amount you burn through physical activity.

The diet makes liberal use of herbs and spices that bring thousands of mouthwatering flavors into foods and provide tremendous health benefits.

Deliberate Choices

To lose excess fat and water, you must deliberately choose a health-promoting, weight-normalizing diet. Some foods you can grow in your garden next to your house. Alternatively, you can get what you need to be healthy and fit from organic farms and organic, fresh whole food stores.

One weakness is that stores also carry a wide variety of processed, partitioned, adulterated, and preparation-damaged foods, that are tempting to choose for their convenience or marketing-driven misinformation, instead of avoiding all foods that are no longer in their natural state.

When you deliberately choose fresh, whole, organic foods with your health and fitness foremost in your mind, you get results.

When to Stop Eating

Second, you may not have learned to rightly identify your body’s signals for when to stop eating.

People tend to use one of the following signs to stop eating:

1. All the food is gone: This would be a good sign to stop eating only in a situation where there is not enough food, a situation that has been largely eliminated in rich Western countries.

2. Your craving is gone: This would work if you ate slowly and limited your intake of carbohydrates, but this sign works against you on carb-rich diets, which create these cravings because of excess.

3. Your stomach hurts: This happens because you stretch its size with excessive intake of foods that trigger high blood sugar, fat production, and low blood sugar, which create cravings. When you then eat too fast, you’ll eat more than you need. By the time your blood sugar is normal again and the craving is gone, you’ll have set yourself up for another round on the cycle of carbohydrate addiction.

4. Your hunger is gone: This is the right way to eat. Take small portions. Eat slowly. Chew well. Stop eating when the hunger is gone. With this kind of discipline, weight can be effectively managed, even if the foods are not as healthy as they could be.

Eating Water

In addition to knowing when to stop eating, you also need to know when to drink water instead of eating food. Many people have not learned to differentiate between the signals of thirst and hunger. Here, the remedy is to drink water first, continuously, all day long. Some experts suggest that whenever you feel hungry, you should first drink water, and turn to food only if water does not make the “hunger” pangs (which may have been thirst pangs) go away.

Eating the Blues

Many people eat when, or because, their heart aches. Eating food does not relieve an aching heart, because heartache is not a physical hunger, but a hunger (desire, yearning, blues, emptiness, want, restlessness, longing, loss, sadness, grief) you feel in your heart. Eating the blues is eating as a distraction, to bury uncomfortable feelings. This is especially intense whenever you have lost someone or something near and dear to you.

When this happens, you’re being reminded of the loss of your connection to your essential self. It is your heart calling your attention to come back home to life. No amount of food can bring you home to yourself. What you need in this case is an awareness practice that takes you inward into the full richness of your being.

Stress Eating

Ever notice that you eat more when stressed? You’re loading up on fuel to prepare for fight or flight. When the stress is mental rather than physical, you’re less likely to work it off with intense physical activity, in which case the extra fuel gets turned into fat and stored in the cells in your adipose tissue.

Imagine what chronic stress will do? Most of you don’t have to imagine because you already know.

The solution is to find effective ways to disconnect stress triggers, don’t take on stress by leaving it outside, or stay focused on the part of your being that is calm and stress-free in its nature.

Social Eating

We never call our friends to go out and just meet to breathe together. We also don’t take people out for a splendid drink of pure water. We most often go out for meals. This is true even though we need air and water more than food. Without air, we die in five to ten minutes. Without water, we die in seven or eight days. Without food, we can live for at least one to four months.

A lot of overweightness is the consequence of going out to eat with friends when not even hungry. This is a factor in addition to eating too much of the wrong kinds of carbohydrate-loaded foods like sweets and starches.

Probiotics, Inflammation, Water Retention

Each of the following can lead to weight gain due to water retention in your tissues.

• Not getting enough probiotics

• Insufficient essential omega-3

• Too little magnesium

• Not using anti-inflammatory herbs and spices

• Using too much sodium table salt

• Too many refined carbohydrates

• Too many toxic molecules

When these are issues are addressed, the water held in tissues is released and filtered out through your kidneys. You can literally pee out your overweightness in these cases.

Other reasons for water retention include:

• Infections

• Poor circulation

• Kidney damage

• Heart failure

• Impaired lymphatic drainage

To deal with these, get the help of a health care provider.

The Right Fat Diet

In the history of diet creation, no one has ever designed a Right Fat Diet.

How about a Right Fat, Right Carb, Right Protein Diet? How about a diet that’s right for health? How about a diet for Optimum Health? How about a diet in line with life and with nature? How about a diet in which the focus is on what is right and what to include in your diet, rather than on what is wrong and what you should exclude? How about a diet in which you chase nutritional light instead of fleeing from nutritional darkness? How about a life-affirming diet instead of a merely deathavoiding one?

The Right Fat Diet is the title of another book in progress. It covers all the related health and psychology issues and contains steps to take and recipes to prepare in line with health and fitness. We describe the components of a diet and lifestyle program that are in line with life, body, and nature. It’s the way we could, should, and can live. It’s a diet of deliberate choices and decisions based on knowing what health is, how the body works, and what it looks like to live in line with life and with nature.

With all the fad diets around, a diet for health is almost a new concept, but it is not. It is the way every creature in nature eats. In nature, overweightness is rare while health from living in line with nature is plentiful.

Summary

Fruits and vegetables are always good, especially vegetables. Prefer organic, whole, fresh, and GMO-free.

For those who like the image of being a caveman, the Paleo Diet promises character traits long lost and buried under the weight of civilization.

If you follow the existing research, you know it is now clear that the longest life and best health result from a diet consisting of plant-based whole foods.

The addition of any animal product (dairy, eggs, fowl, red meat, or fish) decreases both your health and longevity. This information kind of takes most of the romance and glory out of the caveman mentality, doesn’t it? Link:

Eat More Plant-Based Proteins to Boost Longevity

Eat low on the food chain. That’s where the veggies are. A dear friend of mine who is fifteen years younger than I am, fights the research.

He says, “I did not claw my way up to the top of the food chain to end up eating vegetables.”

Do I argue with him? No. But I am aware of the responsibility I have. Someone needs to live long enough to carry his premature coffin.

Chapter Fourteen: Essential Fats to Toxic Ones

Four Kinds of Fats

Researchers call the building blocks of fats and oils “fatty acids”. You can source them from foods, and life can make some of them in your body. Fatty acids come in four different kinds.

The first kind of these kinds is essential for health and must be brought in from outside the body in foods or supplements because life cannot make that kind in your body from anything else.

The second kind is useful, in that, although life can make it from the first kind in your body, it has health-supporting functions in your body.

The third kind is optional, in that you can take it or leave it without serious consequences.

The fourth kind is toxic because processing damaged it and food preparation wrecks it even more. If health is your goal, avoid it.

Here is a more detailed description.

1. Five-Star Vitally Important (Essential) Fatty Acids

Of dozens of fatty acids that occur in nature and foods, only two are key. These 5star Vitally Important Essential Fatty Acids are vital because they’re “essential”, a term defined by researchers in a clear and precise way. An “essential” nutrient is one that:

1. Life, the energy/power that runs your body, cannot make it from other molecules in your body because you do not have the genetic or metabolic (enzyme) equipment for making it. In the web of nature, some creatures can make that nutrient for you. Life needs that nutrient to keep your body alive, healthy, and in working order. To be optimally healthy, you must bring optimum amounts of this nutrient into your body from outside, either in the form of food or as a supplement.

2. When not enough of any essential nutrient lands in your body, life can’t do its job, your body cannot stay healthy, and it slowly breaks down. As a result, “deficiency symptoms” begin to appear. These symptoms are degenerative in nature. They worsen with time. When deficiency lasts too long, life and your body separate and your body dies.

3. If, while your body is deteriorating because of deficiency of an essential nutrient, you return enough of that nutrient into your body, life reverses all deficiency symptoms that resulted from getting too little of that nutrient. You get your health back because life knows how to make an optimally healthy body but depends on you to take responsibility for making sure to bring

optimum quantities of all essential nutrients required for physical health into your body, so that life can do its job of creating that physical health with them for you.

This definition of “essential” nutrients applies to:

• 18 essential mineral elements

• 13 essential vitamins

• 9 essential amino acids

• 2 essential fatty acids

Nature is your boss. Nature made the rules that govern what and how you should eat, and which foods to emphasize if you want to be healthy. When you eat fresh, whole, raw, organic, and uncontaminated foods in line with nature and her seasons, your foods can usually supply the essential nutrients in the amounts necessary for creating the state of physical health.

If foods don’t supply enough, you can supplement your foods with essential nutrients in pill or powder form. You may find it useful to augment your intake of the essential nutrients from whole foods with such supplements, to bring your intake of essential nutrients up to the level required for optimum health.

Among dozens of fatty acids that exist in nature, only two are ‘essential’ by the above definition. One is the essential omega-6, linoleic acid, abbreviated as LA, which researchers Burr and Burr established to be essential for life and health way back in 1929. The other is the essential omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid, abbreviated as ALA, which T. Holman showed to be essential to life and health much more recently, in 1981. In the past, the abbreviation used for alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) was LNA, and you will find that abbreviation used in Fats That Heal Fats That Kill, which was published in 1993.

Sources of Essential Fatty Acids

Omega-3:

• High (50+ percent of oil): Flax*, chia, perilla, green leaves (but very low oil content), clary sage

• Medium (30-50 percent of oil): Psyllium seed (not husk), kukui nut (candlenut), sacha inchi

• Low (17-30 percent of oil): Hemp

• Even lower (1-10 percent of oil): Canola, walnut, soybean; high-fat fish

• Negligible (less than 1 percent of oil): safflower, sunflower, corn, sesame, almond, peanut, olive, low-fat fish, krill

Omega-6:

• Safflower (60+ percent of oil) > sunflower > corn > soybean > sesame > canola > almond > peanut > olive (10 percent of oil) > cashew

2. Three-Star Useful (Derivatives) of Essential Fatty Acids

When you get enough of both essential fatty acids in the right ratio, undamaged, and free of toxins into your body, life can make from them all the health-supporting derivatives with key functions in your body that we talk about through this book and many others that have not yet been identified.

Avoid Using Damaged Oils

If you use oils within which some of their essential fatty acid molecules have been damaged during processing or food preparation, your body may still make derivatives from some of them, but these molecules will be unnatural, and may interfere with or block the roles these derivatives normally play. This can have dire consequences for health, which is another reason why it is so important that you make sure that you buy and eat only oils made with health in mind and containing no damaged molecules. It also underlines why you should not damage the oils you buy by frying, deep-frying, and using other high-heat food preparation applications.

Omega-3:

In your body, life makes an omega-3 derivative called EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) from the omega-3 essential fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). EPA supports immune function. It also serves as starting material for several powerful, short-lived hormones that regulate activity in every cell in your body on a moment-to-moment basis (Series III Eicosanoids: prostaglandins, prostacyclins, thromboxanes, leukotrienes).

In your body, life makes a second omega-3 ALA derivative—called DHA (docosahexaenoic acid)—to build cell membrane structures with major presence and functions in brain, eyes (retina), and sperm.

From EPA and DHA, life also makes other powerful derivatives, including antioxidants called protectins; powerful resolvins with anti-inflammatory benefits; powerful maresins that support immune function; and powerful endocannabinoids that relieve pain, have anti-cancer properties, and make you feel good.

From EPA, life makes another super-powerful derivative in your body, with the shortened name DPA(n-3). Overlooked for years, this one is getting a lot of attention now. Here’s a link you can chase down:

The n-3 docosapentaenoic acid (DPA): A new player in the n-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid family

Omega-6:

In your body, life makes an omega-6 derivative called gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) from the omega-6 essential fatty acid linoleic acid (LA). From GLA, life makes another derivative called dihomogamma-linolenic acid (DGLA), from which it makes another set of several eicosanoid hormones (Series I) that regulate activities in every cell in your body in a way that is similar to the hormones made from EPA.

From DGLA, life makes another omega-6 derivative, arachidonic acid (ARA), which it uses in your brain construction and function. From ARA, life makes a third set of eicosanoid hormones (Series II) that also regulate cell activity in all your cells on a moment-to-moment basis, but in a way that opposes the hormones it makes from EPA and DGLA. From ARA, life makes another super-powerful antioxidant in your body, docosapentaenoic acid with the shortened name DPA(n-6).

Your state of physical health is a dance between the hormone molecules made from omega-3 and omega-6 derivatives with similar and opposing functions in your cells. It’s a reason why balancing the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 in your diet is important for health.

Conversion

The biochemical process in your body that turns essential fatty acids (omega-3: ALA; omega-6: LA) into essential fatty acid derivatives (omega-3: SDA, EPA, DPA(n-3), DHA; omega-6: GLA, DGLA, ARA, DPA(n-6)) is called conversion. Research shows that optimum intake of both essential fatty acids makes possible optimum balance and optimum conversion of omega-3 and omega-6 into several dozen different derivatives. This is true both for men and women.

Essential fatty acid derivatives are not essential because life can make them. When you get enough omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids (ALA and LA in the right ratio), life can make, in your body, the amounts of all the derivatives with vital functions you need for health.

While conversion turns omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids into derivatives with all the functions listed above, none of these derivatives need to be in your foods, so long as you optimize your intake of both essential fatty acids in their natural, undamaged state. Life makes many derivatives from these very sensitive and chemically active molecules. Research discovers and identifies new derivatives and new functions every year.

Rate of Conversion

The rate at which your body converts five-star essential fatty acids into three-star essential-fatty-acid derivatives depends on several factors. The single most important one for optimum conversion is optimum intake of both essential fatty acids, in the right ratio and undamaged. Without enough five-star essential fatty acids to start with, you’ll not get enough conversion.

This is the key issue that my teams and I continue to address in our work (almost four decades now): To optimize people’s intake of undamaged oils made with health in mind, containing both essential fatty acids in the ratio that consistently produces the best results for health.

Poor nutrition and lifestyle, including the following dietary factors, slow down this conversion in your body.

1. Excessive sugar, sweets, alcohol, and other carbohydrates (sugars and starches found in potatoes, potato chips, French fries, flour products including sauces, stuffing, bread crumbs, crackers, croutons, corn, corn flakes, corn chips, wheat, rye, breads, breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles, barley, oats, couscous, millet, rice, quinoa, amaranth, cake, cookies, candy, chocolate bars, energy bars, convenience foods, honey, syrups, snack foods, and even excessive consumption of apples, pears, bananas, melons, peaches, mangoes, and other sweet fruits).

Excessive means eating more than you burn. Never eat more than you burn.

2. Excessive saturated and monounsaturated fats from pork, lard, beef, butter, lamb, tallow, chicken skins, olive and coconut oils, palm and palm kernel oils, cocoa butter, shea butter, canola, high oleic sunflower and safflower oils, cashews, macadamia nuts and oils, peanuts and peanut oil, and other sources can interfere with the conversion.

Optimize your intake of both essential fatty acids, undamaged and in the right ratio. Do this first.

3. Excessive trans-fats found in unlabeled convenience airline snacks, shortenings, and margarines in foreign countries. Any amount of trans-fatty acids is excessive, including CLA supplements, which are 70% trans- fatty acids. Avoid shortenings and margarines containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. They contain trans-fatty acids. After the Harvard School of Public Health blew the whistle on the damage they do to health, trans-fats became pariahs in the fats and oils industry. Links:

Trans fats—sources, health risks and alternative approach - A review

Health effects of trans-fatty acids: experimental and observational evidence

4. Too much omega-6 from seeds, most nuts, and most oils. Although essential, omega-6 can crowd out and prevent the equally essential omega-3 from doing its work in the body.

5. Too little vitamin B3, B6, or C from eating refined, processed, junk, snack, and convenience foods made with white flour. The conversion enzymes in your body require these essential vitamins to do their job.

6. Too little magnesium or zinc from processed foods. The conversion enzymes in your body require these essential minerals to do their job.

7. Already having enough derivatives in your body (feedback). There’s no point in making more when you have enough of them. Life designed natural and reliable feedback systems that let your cells know when to convert more, and when there’s enough. There’s nothing that you need to do here.

8. Toxic, unnatural molecules that interfere with the function of the conversion enzymes that exist in every cell in your body. Avoid industry, restaurant, and home cooking-damaged foods, as well as toxic pesticides, alcohol, heavy metals, radiation, and industrial chemicals.

9. Stress, adrenalin, glucocorticoid hormones, age, total fasting, protein deficiency, and being male also slow down conversion.

Optimum nutrition improves conversion, and includes the following dietary factors:

• Eat fresh, whole, raw, organic foods.

• Optimize your intake of both essential fatty acids made with health in mind, free of toxins, in the right ratio to one another, and packaged in glass.

• Optimize your intake of all essential minerals and essential vitamins.

• Optimize intake of phytosterols, GLA, phytoestrogens, proteins,

• Insulin, and partial calorie restriction help conversion.

• Optimize your intake of plant-based (herbal) molecules such as curcumin, which is present in the yellow spice turmeric root which is used in Asia/India used to make curry. Turmeric improves conversion and helps prevent inflammation and degenerative diseases with inflammation as a background factor such as atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s, cancers, diabetes, arthritis, and others.

When there is too little DHA in the diet, the body will conserve what it has, to last twice as long. People who eat plant-based whole foods convert more effectively (because they need to) than people who eat animal-based products that contain EFA derivatives.

Market Hype

Some sellers of omega-3 derivatives claim that your body cannot convert the fivestar essential fatty acids into the three-star derivatives they sell. This is turf protection marketing. Research shows otherwise. Studies show that effective conversion takes place when you ingest enough five-star fatty acids from your food supply. However, ninety-nine percent of you do not get enough five-star omega-3 in your food supply, so ninety-nine percent of you may not do enough conversion in

your body, even though you could if you ate enough omega-3 ALA essential fatty acid-containing foods.

The remedy is simple. Make the oil change that optimizes your intake of undamaged essential fatty acids in the right ratio from your food supply, so that life can do its job to convert them into the many important omega-3 and omega-6 derivatives.

Optimizing intake of undamaged essential fatty acids in the right ratio from your food supply is what I addressed in my product Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend. If you optimize fivestar omega-3 intake to maximize conversion into three-star omega-3 derivatives, you likely don’t need to take three-star supplements.

But if you want to take a three-star supplement in addition to your five-star plantbased food omega-3, you can take krill oil extracted with alcohol. It is undamaged, comes in a more effective form than other three-star products, contains its own powerful, red-colored antioxidant astaxanthin, and is environmentally sustainable.

Most of you get enough five-star omega-6 essential fatty acid (LA) in the oils you use. From them, life energizes its conversion into three-star omega-6 derivatives (GLA, DGLA, ARA, DPA(n-6)) in your body. Unfortunately, you get five-star omega-6 oils with processing- and food prep-damaged molecules that are toxic and interfere with omega-6 functions and health. However, there’s no problem with omega-6 conversion, simply because most of you get enough omega-6 starting material to allow life to do its conversion in your cells.

In summary, ample conversion takes place if you optimize your intake of ALA (the essential foundation omega-3). You optimize conversion by living in line with nature: Fewer poisons and interfering fats; more key nutrients; less stress.

Life makes Three-Star Useful (Derivatives) of Essential Fatty Acids in your body by converting each of the two five-star essential fatty acids into dozens of three-star derivatives. That is why the derivatives are not five-star. They are not essential because life can make them in your body. They do have important functions. Derivatives include:

• Omega-6 GLA (gamma-linolenic acid), DGLA (dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid) and omega-6 ARA (arachidonic acid), both of which life further converts into dozens of Series I and Series II eicosanoid hormones

• Omega-3 EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid), which life further converts into dozens of Series III eicosanoid hormones

• Omega-3 DPA(n-3) (docosapentenoic acid),

• Omega-3 DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), which is important in brain function, vision (retina), and sperm formation.

• Life uses EPA, DPA(n-3), and DHA to make powerful derivatives with the following names and functions:

o Protectins (antioxidants)

o Resolvins (anti-inflammatory)

o Maresins (immune enhancing)

o Endocannabinoids (pain-killing, anti-cancer, feel-good)

Life makes all of these in your body when you ingest enough of each of the two fivestar omega-6 and omega-3 essential fatty acids from whole foods or oils made with health in mind.

3. One-Star Optional (Non-Essential) Fatty Acids

These fatty acids are not essential. You can take them or leave them without doing yourself harm. Life can make them in your body from other foods you eat, including from sugars and starches. That is why they only get one star.

Life can make One-star Optional Non-Essential Fatty Acids, also known as monounsaturated and saturated fatty acids, out of excess carbohydrates which you eat but don’t burn, and which get stored as fat in your tissues for future use. The fat produced in your body from excess sugars, sweets, starches, grains, rice, corn, flour, and potatoes eaten but not burned, creates most of the fats present in overweight people. When you eat a lot of protein, life can even make one-star fats from amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

You don’t die if you have no one-star fats in your diet. Life uses them in the structure of the membranes that surround your cells and keep the inside, inside and the outside, outside. But mostly, optional fatty acids serve as fuel. You burn them for energy.

You get optional one-star non-essential fatty acids from all oils and most fats, whole foods, and especially from seeds, nuts, and beans.

Fats Are Nature’s Most Reliable Fuel for Humans

Carbohydrates, which for several decades have been deemed the best fuel, are not the best fuel. For millions of years, fats have been the human body’s preferred fuel. Good oils rich in undamaged omega-3 are the best fuel. Good oils provide stable energy without blood sugar, insulin, or mood swings, and without cravings. Carbohydrates produce these yo-yo effects and cravings, and promote gorging, overeating, and carbohydrate addiction.

Why do I say that fats have always been the most important fuel for the human body? Here’s something to consider. Your body can only store about one pound of animal starch (glycogen, made from carbohydrates via glucose) in your liver and muscles. That’s just over 1,800 calories, enough energy to run about twenty miles, burning just under one hundred calories per mile. When they’re used up at about mile twenty, marathoners who carbohydrate-loaded before the race “hit the wall.”

With their pound of glycogen used up, they run out of energy, and drag themselves the last six miles to the finish line. Why don’t they just burn fats after the carbohydrates have all been burned? Because carbohydrates inhibit fat burning in the body by turning off the genes that make the enzymes which life uses in the body to burn fats. It takes time for these fat-burning genes to be turned on. Until that happens, the runner’s energy is depleted.

Fats for Energy Storage

On the other hand, you can store three hundred pounds of fat in your body and remain alive. At one hundred calories per mile, this amount of fat provides enough energy to run about twelve thousand miles. Just four percent of body weight as fat is enough to run three hundred miles.

The human body’s superior ability to store and burn fat is one reason why it’s been proposed that early humans would run wild animals to exhaustion by simply having greater endurance, based on the human body storing much greater fuel fat reserves than animals. Humans in good shape have about eight percent body fat (most of us wear more like 15-21 percent fat). Animals in nature normally carry only two to three percent (domesticated, that percentage goes as high as forty percent for cattle, and sixty percent for pigs). That’s a big difference. At eight percent, a one-hundred-andfifty-pound man would carry twelve pounds of fat energy reserves. An animal of the same weight would have only three to four and a half pounds of fat energy reserves.

Two decades ago, knowing what we had learned about fats, health, and human performance, we began to recommend marathoners to carbohydrate-deplete for a few days before races to ensure the fat-burning genes in their body were turned up full bore, and thus allow them to run their entire marathon on the fats stored in their body. Some of them looked at us in disbelief, and others at the beginning argued with us. It contradicted parts of athletes’ carbohydrates-are-the-best-fuel miseducation (fad) at that time. But a few of the athletes tried it.

What did they report? “At the end of my marathon, I had so much energy, I felt that I could have run another,” one of them said. Others echoed this sentiment about having plenty of energy at the end of the race, and not hitting the wall at all.

Research

This isn’t a novel idea. For centuries, natives of the Tarahumara tribe in Arizona ran 100-mile ultra-marathon races using only water and chia seeds (protein, omega-3 rich oil, and fiber; no sugar or starch) as food. Between races, they ate plant-based squash, beans, corn, and veggies. Links:

Why Tarahumara ultrarunners fuel endurance with chia seeds

Chia Seeds and the Tarahumara

More recently, sports research has begun to point in the same direction. In 2015, a paper published in the European Journal of Sports Science, written by JS Volek et

al, Link: Rethinking fat as a fuel for endurance athletes, makes the point that fat as fuel "could extend human physical and mental performance beyond current expectation.” Although Volek does not focus on the super-energy that omega-3 generates (his research is supported by the meat and dairy industries), he’s clear that fats are better fuel than carbohydrates, especially in endurance sports, in which athletes require a large and stable energy supply. Who is Volek? He is one of the key researchers on the effects of fats on the physical performance of athletes. I called him to get his scoop, but he did not return my call.

Omega-3 As Fat Burner

Undamaged omega-3 is special in the fuel arena. Not only is it essential and has vital functions in every cell, but it’s also what I call your body’s “fat-burning firestarter.” It turns off your fat-making gene (fatty acid synthase) and turns on your nine fat-burning genes. Omega-3 does this most effectively when you eat fewer carbohydrates, since carbs can interfere by doing the opposite: turn off your fat burning and turn on your fat production gene.

Fat Is Your Fur

Optional fatty acids also play a role as your “fur.” You may be thinking: What? Let me explain this strange statement. Animals have fur (made of hair, which is protein and some minerals, oiled by dead cells and sebum fat) to keep warm, but even the hairiest human beings are relatively hairless and naked. Instead of hair, fat deposits under your skin keep you insulated and protected from the cold. This is one reason why human beings, even healthy ones, have substantially more body fat than wild animals (we are not talking about commercially grain-fed, deliberately “obesified” pigs, beef, and sheep here).

Again, wild animals usually carry no more than two to three percent body fat. Lean, fit human beings can go down to four percent body fat, but athletes in good shape carry eight percent (men) to twelve percent (women) body fat. At four-percent body fat, female athletes’ menstruation often stops. In her wisdom, Nature prevents a pregnancy that could not be brought to term due to the potential mother’s insufficient fat (energy) reserves.

One-Star Club Members

These include omega-9 monounsaturated and saturated fatty acids. One-star fatty acids are found in all seeds, nuts, oils, and bodies. Some seeds contain small bits of omega-7 or omega-5 fatty acids. Oils rich in one-star fatty acids include:

• Omega-9: Olive, canola, sesame, peanut, almond, beef, butter, lard; all oils contain some omega-9

• Omega-7: Tropical fats: macadamia, coconut, palm, palm kernel

• Omega-5: Certain rare fruit seeds, like pomegranate

• Saturated: Cocoa butter, shea butter, coconut, palm kernel, palm, butter, lard, tallow (beef and sheep); all fats and oils contain some saturated fats

Nature makes the above three kinds of fatty acids. That’s why they’re in your foods. Life can also make the 3-star EFA derivatives and the one-star omega-9 and saturated fatty acids in your body. One more time, that’s why they are not essential.

4. Toxic (Damaged) Fatty Acids

Through human technical ingenuity (and arrogant stupidity), we developed industrial processes and frying pans that turn each of the above three kinds of fatty acids—all of which are in their natural (best) state when harvested—into damaged, unnatural fat, oil, or fatty acid molecules that may impair health.

We damage fatty acids in two major ways.

1. Industrial Processing (RBD Oils)

We process oils industrially by successive treatment with the corrosive base sodium hydroxide (NaOH) that is also used to break down whatever clogs sinks and toilets, then with corrosive phosphoric acid (H3PO4) used commercially to de-grease windows, then bleaching clays that produce rancidity, and then high heat to “blow off” (deodorize) the rancid molecules.

Used to extend shelf life, this processing creates several kinds of damaged fatty acids. Only a few are familiar to you because they have been in the news. The others have had no airtime. Some of these damaged, now unnatural molecules can have serious toxic effects on health.

Here’s a short list of the kinds of damaged molecules found in these refined, bleached, deodorized (RBD) oils:

• Oxidized oil molecules: rancidity, commercially measured as peroxide value (PV; short term oxidation) and anisidine value (AV; long term oxidation)

• Fragmented (broken) oil molecules: not commercially measured; presence not stated on label

• Double bond-shifted oil molecules: not commercially measured; presence not stated on label

• Trans- fatty acids: these are now regulated and recommended against, but they were present in oils, margarines, shortenings, vegetable shortenings, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for nearly one hundred years without having to be listed on labels. Now, the amounts in products must be listed. However, there is a glitch in the current labeling regulations which permit manufacturers to claim on ads and labels that their product has “No transfats!” or “Zero trans-fatty acids!” if the product contains less than 0.5 percent of them. That’s nice for producers, but is it fair to you?

• Oil molecules cross-linked within triglycerides: not commercially measured; presence not stated on label

• Oil molecules cross-linked across triglycerides: not commercially measured; presence not stated on label

• Cyclized oil molecules: not commercially measured; some of these have been found in research to be powerfully liver-toxic; presence not stated on label

• Dimerized, trimerized, and polymerized oil molecules: not commercially measured; presence not stated on label

Testing for the damaged molecules that are not screened commercially (all but oxidized and trans-fatty acids) can be done in university laboratories but is superexpensive. You don’t even get to know that they are in your oils, nor do you get to know the effects they can have on your body. And there is no requirement for them to be put on the labels of the oils you buy. Given this information, it’s not surprising that some health-conscious people recommend against the use of any bottled oils.

The industry knows that these damaged, unnatural molecules are present in their oils. Their rule of thumb is that less than one percent of any one kind of these is okay. This means that they find it acceptable to sell you oils with almost three percent of their molecules damaged during processing, and that it is okay for you not to know this. The media has not been helpful here, either. No investigative reporter that I know of has examined and reported on the damage done by industrial processing and the fact that this has been kept from you. However, the media does accept advertising money from the oil industry to promote these damaged products to you.

2. Food Preparation in Homes and Restaurants

We further damage already damaged fats, oils, and the fatty acids they contain in frying pans, woks, and deep fryers during food preparation in restaurants and homes. Whenever you brown, blacken or burn food by heat, fats in the burned part are changed and made unnatural. Life never made a way to break down, in your body, molecules that never existed in nature. Damaged molecules (of fats, oils, starches, sugars, and proteins) accumulate in your body and interfere with your biochemistry. To maintain and/or regain health, stop using oils made toxic by industrial processing and by cooking methods.

Oils, specifically omega-6, and even more, omega-3 essential fatty acids, are the most sensitive of all food molecules. Remember: Omega-3 is five times more sensitive to damage than omega-6. Light, oxygen, and heat can damage both. Of all nutritional molecules, they should get the most care. But in fact, of all nutritional molecules, they get the least care. During processing and food preparation, we treat them most harshly. The result? They’re the most damaged, toxic food molecules. Damaged fats and oils cause more health destruction and problems than any other aspect of nutrition.

We create most of the toxic (damaged) fatty acids during industrial processing and high heat applications in home or restaurant food preparation. Absent in nature, life never created a way to remove or metabolize them, and they pile up in your body, interfere more and more with body chemistry, and are only very slowly removed from your body with the shedding of skin and inner gut lining. Want the best advice? Don’t get them into your body in the first place. That completely solves the problem.

Toxic (Damaged) Fatty Acids Summary

For most of the toxic damaged fatty acids—oxidized, fragmented, double bondshifted, cyclized, trans, cross-linked within and across triglycerides, dimerized, trimerized, and polymerized fatty acids—commercial tests to measure their levels in oils have not been developed, even after more than one hundred years of commercial oil production.

As a result, you don’t know their levels in your oils, unless you pay some university’s high testing costs. Should you know? It’s impossible to make good choices for health if you don’t know what you need to know to make those choices.

Processing and cooking-damaged oil molecules are unnatural, and their effects can be serious. It’s the price you pay for convenience. Theirs and yours.

Chapter Fifteen: Essential Fats for Pets

One day in 1992, my phone rang. A veterinarian from Sylmar, California was on the line. “I read your book,” he said. “I learned a lot from reading Fats and Oils We never learned about essential fatty acids in vet school, and I was thinking that animals probably have the same essential fatty acid deficiencies as humans. Do you think that we could do something for them?”

I told him that I was sure we could.

Within a few weeks, I was in California with his brother, and we were talking about the possibility of starting a company that would make whole food supplements rich in essential fatty acids for pets and other animals.

In 1992, omega-3 was not yet on the list of essential nutrients for dogs, cats, or even horses, even though they are present in the foods these animals eat in the wild. Omega-3 was on the list of essential nutrients for gorillas and orangutans! There was no doubt in my mind that the health of dogs, cats, and horses would improve when omega-3s were added (or returned) to their foods.

On a TN work visa, I partnered with the brothers in California to form a company named “Petscriptions”, but the FDA said the name was too close to “prescription”, so we changed the company name to “Designing Health” and called the product “The Missing Link”. We developed and marketed whole foods essential fatty acid products made with health in mind for dogs, for cats, for horses, and later, for humans. Still later, for birds, too.

The question came, “Did we make one for humans?”

Animal owners are remarkable human beings. They’ll do anything to improve their pets’ quality of life. They’ll do more for the health of their animals than they’ll do for themselves. When they see results in their animals, they sometimes begin to think more about their own health. Their love for animals then inspires owners to also take better care of themselves. Sweet!

One pet owner told me: “I thought to myself: Why should my dog be healthier than me?” And then he started taking the animal product. Even though the ingredients in our products for animals were all organic and human-grade quality, animal food regulations forbid companies from selling animal foods for human consumption. That’s because the quality of the ingredients used in some pet foods can be quite low.

Morgue Food-Inspired Regulations

You may not know this, but my vet partner in Sylmar told me this story. Some pet food manufacturers put disgusting stuff into animal foods, like recycled, drug-laced, disease-riddled corpses of pets put down by vets. Vets throw cadavers into barrels, and every week or whenever the barrel is full, a big truck shows up to get those

corpses and transport them to a pet food factory. My vet partner showed me the barrels of dead pets, and on more than one occasion, I saw the trucks that picked them up. I have not been to the factories where he told me they make pet foods out of dead pets.

Not all pet food manufacturers do this, but some brands may, which is one reason, I was told, for the government’s regulations against humans eating animal foods. Other reasons include the use of slaughterhouse waste: brains, skins, hooves, joints, teeth, guts, and other awful offal.

It’s easy to understand why humans should not be eating drug-laced dead pets. What’s not so easy to understand is why anyone would think that it’s okay to feed drug-laced dead pets, ground up and mixed with other low-grade ingredients, to living pets. If only pet owners knew!

Due to these regulations, we had to make a product for humans separate from the ones for animals. Still, people’s pets were our best sales force for both the products intended for animals to eat and for those intended for human consumption.

Together, the brothers and I developed materials to educate and market the products we created. We took amazing before and after photos of animals. We showed these photos to pet owners at trade shows and to managers in retail stores around the country. The photos impressed them because the results were impressive. Word got out and we started getting invitations to do media interviews.

Animals’ skin and hair conditions, including hairless backs, stiffness in older animals, low energy levels, and doggy odors improved dramatically from taking the products we made. We got rid of calluses on Siegfried and Roy’s white tigers in Las Vegas and got front-row tickets to their fabulous show.

We applied for and obtained several patents on the invention and its method of production.

The Missing Link was one of my favorite business projects. Full of enthusiasm, we helped a lot of animals and their owners to enjoy better health.

Chapter Sixteen: Water, Air, and Digestion

Air, Water, and Foods: Essential and Non-Essential Nutrient Building Blocks

When you take your car for an oil change, there are two other important acts of maintenance that must happen. The fluids and the air filter must be replaced. Beyond that, the engine must run smoothly.

When your body gets the oil change it needs, it makes sense to also check what shape your water and air are in. So, let us do that now.

Does Your Body Need a Water Change?

Water is the most abundant material in our body. Ninety-nine percent of all molecules in our body are tiny water molecules. Water is seventy percent of our weight (oils and fats are fifteen percent proteins are ten percent, all minerals together are four percent, vitamins are less than one percent, and dissolved oxygen is less than one percent).

If we drink 2.4 liters (average actual adult daily consumption) of water every day and live one hundred years, eighty-eight tons of water will have coursed its way through our bodies. If we drink the recommended three liters of water daily, one hundred and ten tons of water will have found its way through it.

At three liters daily, we consume more than fifteen times our body weight in water every year. More than our body weight in water every month. We’re like little waterfalls. We pour water in the top and it squeezes out through every pore in our skin, our lungs, and our kidneys.

Without any water, we live only seven or eight days.

Given that we take in over twenty times more water than all nutrients combined, it makes sense that we would give the quality of our water much more attention than we do. Maybe we need a water change, too. When I began to work with oils, I never gave water a single thought.

For the better part of my life, I’ve hated drinking water. It puzzled me because I know how much water I am supposed to drink. I just wouldn’t do it. I didn’t like the taste of colorless, odorless, tasteless water. Sometimes I’d wonder what was wrong with me. I work in health and refuse to take care of one of the key issues in health. Drink enough water.

I thought maybe the tap water I drank was dirty. And it is. Tap water is old, stale, dirty, poisoned water.

Old and stale because of the long journey of fresh water from where it begins in the mountains—aerated, mineral-rich, slightly charged from slipping over rocks, and chlorine-free—through creeks, rivers, and lakes, then through water pipes made of iron, or plastic, or concrete, or copper, then through a factory that puts chemicals

into the water, then stagnantly sitting underground a lot of the time and moving only slowly through progressively thinner pipes into my house for the convenience of “running” water. Did you ever wonder how long it took the water you drink and cook with to get to your tap from the glacier? So, I’m not kidding when I say that our “running” water is old and stale.

It’s dirty because dirt collects in that once fresh water throughout its downhill journey from the glacier. Do you ever wonder what kinds of dirt, air pollution, industrial chemicals, and critters accumulate in water on its journey? How many animals poop and pee in the water? How many sewers and industrial wastes are conveniently flushed into flowing water? How many junked-out gadgets get dumped in waterways?

Then, deliberately poisoned by your friendly health authorities, who use chlorine to kill sick-making microbes—viruses, fungi, bacteria, protozoa—in the water. Chlorine kills them but is also toxic to us. Chlorine gas was used during the first world war to kill people. They would inhale it. It would turn into hydrochloric acid in their lungs and burn delicate lung tissues. Death would be super-painful and agonizingly slow. Imagine: hydrochloric acid destroying those tissues. Maybe it’s the chlorine in the water? I did like the taste of cold water fresh out of glaciers in the mountains. But I couldn’t go to the glacier to get my daily supply (2-3 liters) of fresh water.

Bottled water standards are not much better. Plastics dissolve in water. Everything does. That’s why water is sometimes called the “universal” solvent.

And bottled water is taken from waterways that are open to the air and have boats and grease and garbage conveniently thrown overboard by careless boaters and by people on shore.

And soft drinks are as bad or worse. Too much sugar. Too many chemicals. And carbon dioxide, which is acidic and is a waste product to breathe out, not a nutrient to bring in.

For years, I experimented with water filters. At one point, I had a long row of jars containing different kinds and sizes of sands that could be used to filter water. I didn’t like the filtered water any better than the unfiltered stuff.

I bought and installed a reverse osmosis machine. Didn’t like the water. Wouldn’t drink it.

About twenty years ago, I bought a distiller for six thousand dollars. It evaporated the water with heat and then condensed it in cold glass tubes. Everything was removed from the water except the water. Should be truly clean water I was drinking, but I hated the water.

About fifteen years ago, a friend invited me to a “water talk”. What do you do at a water talk? You listen and drink a lot of water. How exciting! With some resistance, I went. The presenter talked about some of the many unique and different properties

of water. He encouraged us to drink a lot of water. I did. I noticed a lot of bathroom breaks.

But I noticed something else, too. I loved the taste of the water. It tasted sweet to me. I’d never experienced that before. But there was no sugar in the water. That evening, I drank two, seventeen-ounce cups of water. But I didn’t trust my own experience. Maybe they hypnotized me. Or somehow “got” to me. A few days later, I went to another “water talk”. A lady presenter. Same experience. Still skeptical, I went to yet another water talk. Yet another different speaker. Same experience. That’s the water I now drink, and I love drinking water.

So, yup, I changed my oil, and later, changed my water, too.

Of course, there is a lot more to body composition. For the nerds among you, dear readers, and even for those of you who just want to get a more complete picture of the body and what it’s made of, I compiled some information you might enjoy, but, because it is so much larger than the oil change we want to stay focused on, I put quite a bit of further knowledge of body composition into Appendix 3 at the end of the book. Go there at your leisure. You’ll be surprised at what more you can learn about the total picture of physical health.

Why Do You Need the Essentials?

Life never created a genetic program in your cells to enable your cells to manufacture the essential nutrients you need. That’s why you must get them from foods or supplements. What you take in must supply all these building blocks. Optimum health requires the optimum intake of each of them. If you don’t get enough of any one or more of them, your health must decline. Then you develop symptoms of deficiency that get worse with time.

If you don’t get enough over a long enough period, you die. That’s how important they are. These are the essential structural, energy, and helper building blocks for body construction, maintenance, and repair.

If you replenish enough of them to a previously deficient diet, your deterioration ceases, deficiency symptoms reverse, and in time, you get your health back.

Why is that? Life knows exactly what to do to make a body in which everything works normally (a definition of health) and has a genetic program with which to do it. All you need to do is ensure that optimum amounts of all essential nutrients land in your body to enable life to do its job with them.

Most of the nutrients that are essential for humans are not essential for plants. Plants don’t need vitamins, amino acids, or fatty acids. They only need water, sun, carbon dioxide, a source of nitrogen, and minerals. Plants make all other nutrients and oxygen from scratch. Plants make most of our essential nutrients from scratch. We one hundred percent rely on plants for health. Every time you pass a plant, thank it. Even weeds and poisonous plants make oxygen for you to breathe.

Does Your Body Need an Air Filter Change?

I’m amused, when I think about my past, how compartmentalized my focus was. Even though I knew that, by nature, the entire body is made from (solar) energy, air (oxygen), water, and food, I only focused on oils and health because they were so confusing, and I needed to make sense of them to address my poisoning situation. I gave little thought to water until more than twenty years later.

I gave no attention to changing my air filter until about three years ago. But before I get into that, let’s do a bit of math for comparisons.

Food: We can live without food for thirty to one hundred and twenty days (longest ever without food was 431 days). Daily absorbable nutrient intake is about 0.6kg. Volume is just over half a liter/quart.

Water: We can live without water for seven to eight days. Daily intake of water is about 2.4kg. Volume is 2.4 liters (~4x the amount of nutrients). Recommended is three liters.

Oxygen: We can live without oxygen for about twelve minutes. When the oxygen supply to the brain (through the carotid arteries) is blocked, we faint in two seconds. Daily volume of air is 500cc per breath x 12 per minute x 60 per hour x 24 per day. That equals 8,640 liters of air per day. That’s close to three thousand times the recommended daily volume of water. One fifth of that volume is oxygen, so the daily oxygen intake is approximately 2.464kg per day. About the same as water, but the volume of air that provides that oxygen is huge in comparison.

The point of doing this math is that it occurred to me only recently how much air (8,640 liters), containing dust, soot, toxic chemical fumes, and infectious microbes (virus, fungus, bacteria) we suck into our lungs—the most delicate of all our body tissues—every day. A slogan someone coined for this situation is: Get a filter or be a filter.

So, yes, I have also made an air filter change part of my daily lifestyle. My body needs an oil change, a water change, and an air filter change. For my protection, I do all three just as the mechanic would do for my car.

Together, these three can also take a huge load of unhealthy material out of your food, water, and air and help greatly to protect your precious health.

How Should You Eat?

The answer depends on what you want to accomplish. When health is your goal, you must align with the long-standing standards that life set for all creatures in nature. What are these standards?

You can divide life’s standards for body construction into five topics:

1. Food Quality

2. Food Types

3. Essential Nutrient Building Blocks

4. Intake Amounts

5. Optimum Digestion

1. Food Quality: “Fresh” is the operative word on how to eat. The air you breathe should be fresh, which is easier said than done, and points toward spending as much time as possible in nature away from city and industry or finding a way to filter the almost nine thousand liters of air you haul in and out of the delicate tissues in your lungs every day. In nature, trees are the greatest air filter. In your home, you can get an air filter. Clearing your lungs in unpolluted nature is the best long-term option for breathing fresh air, but that includes requiring us to clean up air pollution, which is one of the most vital global issues.

Part of ensuring fresh air is to plant trees. There were ten trillion trees on the planet ten thousand years ago (before the development of agriculture). Now, there are only two and a half trillion trees. Trees act as filters for dust, lower CO2 and acidity, and increase oxygen and alkalinity in the air. Trees also moderate weather and climate.

In some traditions, the family plants a tree every time a child is born. Naturally, that is a great idea in line with keeping nature sustainable. Plant trees! Be a grateful planetary gardener. Plant as many trees as possible in as many places as possible.

The water you drink should be fresh. This requires you to find a way to make at least the stale, old, dirty, poisoned (with chlorine) municipal “drinking” water the way it comes out of the taps in your house fresh again. Special technology has been invented for doing this. Akin to making oils with health in mind, technology for making water with health in mind has been developed.

Much more water goes through your body than oils and all other nutrients put together. How much more? About twenty-two times more water is absorbed into your body than nutrients, every day, every year, and over your entire lifetime. After air, making water fresh again is the second most important change you can make for health. With fresh water, you can even make your not-so-fresh foods fresh again. Cleaning up the drinking water for the planet’s billions of people is a key global issue.

In the short term, you can use equipment to make the water you consume fresh again. In the long term, we must clean up the messes all societies have been dumping into our environment. This will become obvious the moment you feel cared for, which happens the moment you bring your awareness inward, home, in touch with life. When you experience your life as magnificent, you want to give it the best quality and longest duration possible. This is a longer conversation to revisit elsewhere.

The foods you eat should be fresh, which means eaten as soon as they are harvested. The foods you call fresh are usually three to fourteen days old. Nutrients are lost in this time. As soon as a vegetable is cut from its roots, it begins to deteriorate. Cool storage slows this down but does not stop it. The freshest food grows in your own garden. I strongly suggest that if you live in a house, convert your front and back yard lawns into vegetable gardens. Doing so, you can grow fresh, organic foods. You know what has been done to these foods because you’re the one doing it. It puts you, partially, back in control of the quality of the foods you grow and eat.

You can also promote planting fruit trees, shrubs, vegetables, and herbs in parks and along streets, free for the taking. If you live in an apartment, grow windowsill herbs or a balcony garden.

Become a Gardener

Growing your own foods is not only good for health. It is good education for city children, who grow up in many ways out of touch with nature. It decreases your carbon footprint, which is becoming more and more of an issue, even though those who profit from burning up your oxygen by burning fossil fuels and those that have the money to influence you on this will continue to deny it, until our breath runs out. At present rates of carelessness, that should not take long. Our collective lifestyles cut down or burn the plants that make oxygen. At the same time, our transportation methods burn oxygen, gradually decreasing it in the atmosphere. A car driving at a normal speed for a day burns five hundred to seven hundred times more oxygen than you burn by breathing over that same time.

Waiting for food plants to grow in your garden also helps to teach patience and shows your children how much persistence and time it takes to go from seed to food. It’s a lot of fun to be part of this kind of education. It helps young people living in the “instant” world to connect to the importance of sustained effort, alignment with seasons, realistic expectations, and appreciation for weather and climate.

A garden is a study of nature. It’s practical because it is grounded. Experiencing your home garden, your children become more realistic adults later in life. Instant messaging does not make radishes grow faster.

Most important, the fresh food that is homegrown also improves both health and energy.

Fresh: Air gets old. Water gets old. Food gets old. Consume all of them fresh. Fresh, they’re most health supporting. Fresh, they are most nutrient-rich. Fresh, they have and give you the most energy.

Whole: This is how nature made them. Nothing has been added or removed. The foods look the way nature made ‘em. But be warned. Whole wheat bread, for instance, is not made from whole wheat, but from white flour to which a bit of bran has been re-added, but from which much of the nutritional value (minerals, vitamins,

some amino acids, essential fatty acids, probiotics, enzymes, and fiber) has been removed and remains lost.

The word “whole” is misused in advertising. It may be important for you to know what whole looks like according to nature and to life.

On top of that, farmers may use pesticides like Roundup (glyphosate of Monsanto fame, before that company hid inside of Bayer) to ripen grains faster, except it also leaves poison in grain-based products. Eat whole foods that still look whole. Trust your senses. Don’t let advertisers trick your mind with well-chosen, misleading words in advertising copy. For instance, “enriched flour” is flour from which the seed’s thirty plus minerals and vitamins have been partially removed, have then had three to six of them added back, and should really be called “impoverished”. “Valueadded” products are usually “value-subtracted” if you examine their nutritional content.

Raw: All creatures in nature eat their foods raw. Not cooked. Not fried. Not baked. Not boiled. Not broiled. Not barbecued. Not steamed. Your pets and you no longer eat your foods that way. All wild creatures in nature have eaten their foods raw for as long as the planet has been turning, whether that’s six thousand or billions of years. Return to eating more of your foods that way. Better health follows. Cook only microbe-contaminated foods to kill one-celled creatures that can cause diseases, but then add back the enzymes and probiotics that cooking destroyed.

You can eat everything else raw. It may take some time to get used to this change toward more natural eating. Take a year. Make changes gradually. Be inspired by the fact that you’re returning to a way of eating that’s closer to God’s plan and nature’s design.

Organic: When my generation was young (before the flood… just kidding), most foods were organic because pesticides had not yet come into widespread use. Now, only a few decades later, organic is a big deal. This planet was organic for all its existence, until less than a century ago. Pesticides are not an improvement. They kill birds and rodents—natural insect-eaters. They poison earthworms and soil bacteria. They poison foods. They poison you. The only intentional use of pesticides is to destroy energy production or nerve function. What a concept! Choose organic and kill the pesticide industry instead. Vote with your wallet to help save the planet.

In season: In nature, creatures eat spring food in spring, summer food in summer, fall food in fall, and winter food in winter. That way, the foods are fresh, and they give you their full nutritional value.

Before there was refrigeration and air conditioning, there was no cold storage in the warm seasons. There was no warm storage in cold seasons except root cellars or similar storage spaces.

Locally grown: Buying local is the way to get the freshest foods, minimize food shipping, and minimize the carbon footprint of the transportation of foods over long distances.

Until relatively recently, long-distance transportation of foods was not possible.

Sun-ripe: Many people think that the best time to eat a food is when nature has fully developed its nutritional value. But there may also be value in eating local foods while they’re still green, young, and unripe. Or to eat buds and flowers.

Fresh continues to be the single most important operative word.

2. Food Types: For most of human history, there were no fields of wheat, oats, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, millet, rice, corn, yams, potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, amaranth, or sorghum. These new inventions began with agriculture, only about ten thousand years ago.

For most of human history, our species ate lots of plants, but in most places, little meat. When hunters only had rocks to hunt with and came home empty-handed, the family ate vegetables that women and children gathered. Stems, leaves, flowers, bark, and roots were part of the food supply. Fruit was available in season, but fruits were smaller, tarter, and less sweet than the fruits we eat today. Seeds, nuts, tubers, and roots provided winter foods rich in protein, fat, oil, and fuel.

To improve health, eat foods in season because your genes developed in nature before agriculture, and work best for your health when you eat in line with nature before agriculture.

Recent research makes it clear that the longest and healthiest life comes from whole food, mainly plant-based diets.

When you add commercially grown eggs, dairy, fish, or meat to that diet, you shorten your life and compromise your health. Recently, some experts have suggested that the most contaminated food you can eat today is fish. It’s not just mercury. It’s cosmetics. It’s fossil fuels. It’s industrial waste. It’s pesticides. It’s plastics that leach many different unnatural chemicals. Everything we dump on land heads downhill and eventually ends up in the ocean and ocean creatures bathe, lifelong, in what has become the world’s garbage dump and sewer. On top of fish depletion from a century of over-fishing. Links:

Plastic Toxic Chemicals Killing Fish Poisoning Us

Oceans help feed the world, provide a living for millions of people, and are home to most of the life on the planet

Chemical Pollution Causes Fish Decline

Sad, but true. This is the result of a century of chemical industrial pollution that has found its way into the waterways, oceans, fish, and other marine organisms that live there.

3. Essential Nutrient Building Blocks: Make sure you optimize your intake of all the essential building blocks that life requires to build, maintain, and repair an optimally working physical body.

We have already spoken of these in various parts of the book and will add no further details here. These building blocks are the fuel you need to generate energy to get you to your chosen destination and, in our case, build the vehicle in which you ride to that destination.

4. Intake Amounts: Essential nutrient intake can be too little, too much, or just right. Your “Goldilocks zone,” the amount of each essential nutrient that’s optimum for health, varies from person to person, and from nutrient to nutrient, so you need to experiment to find out what yours is.

Insufficient: When you get too little, you become deficient, which leads to degeneration, which leads to health deterioration, which can eventually lead to death.

Minimum: When you get just enough, you’ll be okay in good times, but you may not get enough during times of stress, extra activity, pregnancy, and healing after surgery or injury.

Optimum: When you get enough to obtain optimum health under all circumstances, you are in your Goldilocks zone. Everyone has one, and everyone can and deserves to live in it.

Maximum: When you get more than this, you get no further benefits, but you might deplete your retirement fund.

Excessive: This is a waste of your money and produces “Expensive Urine Syndrome.” Most essential nutrients do not cause problems when intake is excessive and are safe. When you don’t need more, you don’t even absorb them, and they end up in your toilet.

Toxic: A few essential nutrients, however, including vitamin A, iodine, iron, sodium, and chloride, can cause negative effects when you exceed the maximum dose, so be cautious with these. However, unlike with drugs, the margins of safety for essential nutrients are very wide.

Let’s put essential nutrient intake into perspective. There have been few if any deaths from excessive supplementation with nutrients. Drugs, in comparison, have been shown and are known to kill more than one hundred thousand people in the USA every year due to toxic side effects.

5. Optimum Digestion: Expanding on our car analogy regarding an oil change, optimum digestion is the combination of components and conditions under which the engine runs smooth, creates energy to get you from here to there, and selfbuilds as well as self-repairs.

Optimum digestion leads to the capacity for optimum performance in the actions that self-responsible physical health care, mental performance, social interactions, and environmental impacts require.

Why is digestion such a big issue? After oils, digestion is the most neglected foodrelated topics in physical health that needs attention. That’s where, after I got the effects of oils on health sorted, I next focused my energy. Good digestion protects you from pain and discomfort, ensures that you absorb essential building blocks optimally, and prevents toxicity caused by poor digestion. All atoms in your body, except for oxygen, enter your body from water and food. Digestion is ground zero for physical health and energy.

To absorb the nutrients, life must break foods down into basic absorbable building blocks: water, fatty acids, amino acids, sugars, minerals, vitamins, nucleic acids, and a few other small molecules.

Effective digestion minimizes the need for your immune system to mount an immune reaction or to assist in completing the digestion of poorly digested food proteins. By freeing your immune system from having to get involved in digesting your foods, good digestion supports better immune function everywhere in your body. That’s a big deal.

In 1991, the owner of a mineral vitamin supplement company called Quest Vitamins hired me to write, in his words, “the best nutritional supplement manual in the world”. I accepted the challenge. In one hundred and eighty-six pages, I laid out the rationale and made the case for why using nutritional supplements can help us enjoy better health.

It was an entire book but was only used in-house. As I wrote it on a work-for-hire basis, the book did not belong to me, and so I couldn’t publish it. It was a thorough piece of work that took me four months of intense research and writing to finish. I was proud of the result. So was the owner of Quest.

This was a good project for me because it further expanded my focus and knowledge of nutrition beyond what I had already published in my own book on oils. In writing it, I had the chance to examine the properties and uses of all the nutrients which are essential to health. Essential fatty acids are only two of forty-two essential nutrients, which also include minerals, vitamins, and essential amino acids from proteins. In addition to the essential nutrients, I delved into the beginnings of thousands of additional health-supporting molecules that life cannot make in the body itself, but that we can get from plant-based foods, herbs, and spices that can and do make them.

In addition to the essential nutrients, I learned about digestion, which improves with digestive enzymes, probiotics, and prebiotic fiber. These are essential to health but do most of their work inside the digestive tract, the gut, which is located outside the body (as a canal from mouth to anus).

They play huge roles in your digestive system, where all the building blocks for body construction are freed from foods for absorption into your body. Bitter herbs and many spices also help to digest and absorb nutrients more effectively, and I began to develop an interest in this vast area of wisdom created by and found within nature.

In 1996, we came up with a dessert lozenge of probiotics to dissolve in the mouth after meals. Later, we added a family of age-specific and condition-specific probiotic blends to my line. They are highly targeted and super-effective. In 1997, we made a digestive enzyme blend, and later added a few other digestive enzyme blends. In 1998, we put together a green blend for people who want control over their greens intake when traveling. Why greens? Greens are the third most-neglected area in nutrition. We all know we should “eat our greens”. Most people don’t eat nearly enough of them. We made them super-nutritious and portable.

That year, we also developed a fabulous prebiotic fiber blend. Then we created a spectacularly good blend of active herbal extracts and concentrates. Plus, we added the reduced form of coenzyme Q10, called QH in Udo’s Oil, to the product line.

Optimum digestion benefits from:

Good oils: They improve the barrier in your gut wall against the absorption of undigested foods, which is what happens in a leaky gut. They also slow down stomach emptying and thereby allow more time for digestion, which promotes more efficient and complete protein digestion by acid and pepsin in your stomach.

Digestive Enzymes: Raw foods contain enzymes that can do up to sixty percent of the digestion of thoroughly chewed foods. But they’re destroyed when industry processes and/or you cook them. If they’re destroyed by processing or food preparation, you should replace them. Digestive enzymes ensure that all proteins are completely digested so there is nothing from proteins that can trigger immune, food sensitivity, food allergy, or autoimmune reactions. They also break down fats and carbohydrates.

Probiotics: These friendly bacteria are killed when foods are processed or cooked and need to be replaced. They’re present in fresh, whole, raw, organic foods. They begin their journey in your mouth and protect the delicate lining of the inside of your digestive tract from injury by acid, enzymes, abrasion, some unfriendly molecules, and illness-causing microbes.

You can take them with food, mix them in food cool enough to eat, or brush your teeth with them in the evening before you go to bed.

Prebiotic Fiber: It keeps things moving along in the digestive tract, scrubs debris off the digestive surfaces, ties up toxins and wastes, serves as food for probiotics, inhibits the growth of unfriendly bacteria and viruses, and can even stabilize blood sugar by slowing down its absorption into the body. A mixture of water-soluble (mucilaginous) fiber, found in foods such as flax seeds, chia seeds, okra, and slippery elm, and water-insoluble fiber found in all plant foods serves this function best. By the way, there is no fiber in animal foods. There’s none in beef, pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, eggs, fish, or dairy products. That is why when you eat animal foods, your trend toward constipation.

Bitters: These are herb- and plant-based extracts that support your liver and bile functions and thereby support digestion.

Digestion Takes Place Outside the Body

Enzymes, probiotics, and fiber/prebiotics do their work outside your body. You may not ever have thought about it, but the inside of your digestive tract is outside your body. You could call it your “inner outside”. It’s just a tube through your middle, from stem to stern. You swallow foods into this tube. Acid, enzymes, bile, and more enzymes break down the foods you eat into their basic building blocks, which life then pulls into your body. What you don’t need, you don’t absorb, and it passes on through, back into the natural environment.

Digestive enzymes, probiotics, and fiber are minimally absorbed into your body. They do their work outside of it. But they’re very important to health. When digestion doesn’t work, nothing in your body works for long. Why is that? Your entire body is constructed out of what you absorb from your digestive tract. Make sure that your digestion system fulfills its function. This is critical to good health and long life.

Impact on Environment

Let me make it short and precise. After that, we can discuss the details. Many years ago, on a sandy west-coast-of-Vancouver-Island-in-Canada beach, I came across a big, long, bark-free log. Someone had carved a near-perfect summary of almost all issues related to environment and nature in letters twelve inches high and an inch deep into the wood. As the one doing all the work with chisel and mallet, the carver no doubt focused on economy of words. None of the words were more than four letters.

Here is the artist’s observation: Shit in your nest. Nest in your shit!

It could not be said shorter or better.

For ages, we poo in our nest, and now we nest in our poo. The original carved statement is a prophecy that has come ever truer with time. It is now fait accompli. We are all part of the demise. It is no longer merely a possibility. It is a fact. It reminds us that we are responsible for what we do, rather than blaming others to

exonerate ourselves from culpability. We are all responsible for everything on this planet.

The list of environmental considerations is long. The list of environmental consequences from careless human industrial activities is equally long. Let me just point out a few of them, that relate to our story of oils and human health.

For a century, humans have pilfered the fish in the oceans. There were no rules, no regulations, and no limits or limitations. Fishing fleets over-fished an area, and then moved on. Then they over-fished another area, and another, and another. They’ve now been around the entire globe.

The average size of fish now harvested is one third of what it was one hundred years ago. There are fewer remaining edible fish species. We have bigger boats and more efficient fishing methods. We have polluted the oceans with industrial toxins, and fish are now the most polluted food we eat. Farmed fish are even worse (toxins in their feed; cooped up on top of each other; no fresh, living food). As mentioned earlier in this book, research shows that at present rates of depletion, there will be no fish in the oceans by the year 2048.

Here's another link about it:

We Could See Fishless Oceans by 2048

What will happen to marine ecosystems from this? In addition, what happens to ecosystems from rising ocean temperatures because of hacking down our forests and burning fossil fuels? What will happen from rising water levels? We seem not to care. We seem to live in major denial.

Here is how damage to the environment can damage your health. One product of the fishing industry is fish oil supplements. Fish oils contain high levels of very potent, oil-soluble poisons called dioxins, PCBs, pesticides, and other industrial toxins. The higher a fish is on the food chain, the more poisons will be in it because poisons concentrate up the food chain. The oilier the fish, the more of these oilsoluble poisons it will contain. PCBs and dioxins can cause birth defects, cancer, and inflammation.

These very toxic poisons come from industries that humans created. Researchers say there are no safe levels for them. Follow their advice. Don’t use fish oils. Under the circumstances, to be “practical” (meaning to overlook industry irresponsibility), governments set an allowable limit of PCBs and dioxin in fish oil of ninety parts per billion. That’s down from as much as 1,300 parts per billion found in some types of fish oil raw material. But to keep it down, more processing is needed. More processing produces more damage. More damage makes the product more toxic and less helpful to health.

Here’s why I don’t recommend taking fish oil supplements: The industry is not sustainable. The oils contain powerful industrial poisons. Processing does extensive

damage to the omega-3 in fish oil, which is the most sensitive and easily damaged form of omega-3. Processing damage can be three hundred thousand times higher in the oil than the toxins we measure and worry about. Processing-damaged molecules can also be toxic.

Plants provide oils that are sustainable, organically grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers, non-toxic, low on the food chain, made with health in mind, unprocessed, undamaged, and rich in the most stable, basic form of omega-3. If you eat enough plant omega-3 (ALA), life can make “fish oil omega-3” (EPA, DPA, DHA, and many others) from it in your body.

Industry and Nature

Nature does not need industry, but industry depends on nature. Without industry, nature would still exist. But, without nature, there would be no industry. This makes the priority clear. Nature is more important. Nature is the support system of life and your body. You need nature more than you need industry.

Resolve conflict between nature and industry in nature’s favor. Restrict industry activities in a way in which nature continues to be sustainable for an almost eternal future.

In about four billion years, the sun will collapse, turn into a red star, and incinerate everything on this and planets further out from here. Until that time, please take care of the planet that is our home.

Because, when all is said and done, nature does not need you. You need nature. To live, you depend on nature. To live, you are one hundred percent dependent on nature.

Chapter Seventeen: Different Kinds of Fats

Why Not Just Fish Oil?

For decades, fish oil manufacturers claimed that thirty percent of the population is unable to convert enough plant omega-3 into fish omega-3. They did not say that no one can convert plant omega-3 into fish omega-3. They did not say that everybody needs to take fish oil. That is what they say now.

If thirty percent of us cannot convert enough ALA into EPA and DHA, that means that seventy percent of the population does not need fish oil, and only thirty percent of the population would benefit from taking it. Their statement fits with the fact that more than ninety percent of the human population does not take fish oils, and they are not more obviously sicker and do not die earlier than those who do take fish oils.

The week in 1987 that we began to tell the story of flax oil made with health in mind, the fish oil marketing story changed. One specific fish oil manufacturer declared that the human body can’t convert flax oil into fish oil. Meaning that the body cannot convert the ALA present in flax into EPA and DHA present in fatty fish.

The makers of flax oil said, “Yes, it can!”

The fish oil sellers said, “No, it can’t!”

This marketing conflict went on for years. It was like an argument between two-yearold kids. Both sides got caught up in it. Everybody got sidetracked until someone kindly pointed out how ridiculous the argument was. Why is it ridiculous?

Food oils and supplemental oils play very different roles in health. They are not interchangeable. Replacing food oil with supplemental oil does not work for health. Let me explain.

Food oils made with health in mind are a necessary foundation for anyone who wants to be healthy, and most people use about two to four tablespoons (28-56 grams) of oil every day. Food oils made with health in mind are meant to replace the cooking, salad, and culinary oils damaged by industrial processing and food prep, and that additionally contain too little omega-3 for optimum health. These damaged cooking, salad, and culinary oils are the reason why the body needs an oil change. Get these damaged oils out of your food supply and body, and get good oils in.

Supplemental oils are an add-on. The doctor-recommended dosage of supplemental oils (fish oil and healthier options) is only one to three grams per day. And, according to Google, less than ten percent of the population takes fish oils.

Fish supplemental oil should not replace food oils. You cannot exchange one to three grams of fish oil against twenty-eight to fifty-six grams of food oil and call it even. That’s just plain silly.

Humans need a lot of oil. To be healthy, you need more oil than other creatures. Oil is one of the three pillars of nutrition, along with protein and carbohydrates. Oil is about half of your total fat intake.

In the brouhaha between flax seed oil and fish oils, the notion that only thirty percent of you cannot convert the flax omega-3 ALA into the fish omega-3s EPA and DHA conveniently evaporated. It likely occurred to the fish oil manufacturers that if only thirty percent of the population cannot convert, then seventy percent can, in which case seventy percent of you don’t need fish oil. It would be better for their business to suggest that no one can convert, and that everyone needs to take fish oil. The research did not support that claim, because the body (especially of ladies) does convert the plant-based omega-3 essential fatty acid, ALA, into the omega-3 fatty acid derivatives EPA and DHA. And seventy percent of the edible fish obtain their oils from plants (algae) at the bottom of the food chain in the ocean.

Research has made clear that the necessary conversion of ALA to EPA and DHA takes place if we eat enough ALA from our food supply. Recent research has made this totally clear. Vegetarians convert better than meat-eaters. Low levels lead the body to conserve them. At least one herb, curcumin, improves the conversion of ALA to DHA. Link:

Curcumin boosts DHA in the brain: Implications for the prevention of anxiety disorders

Many other factors, already referred to previously, affect conversion. In my personal experience of almost forty years, only about five to ten percent of the population seems to get better results when they add oil supplements to their optimum intake of a food oil foundation made with health in mind. During pregnancy and early childhood, adding undamaged DHA to a healthy food oil foundation can be recommended and may be helpful.

Confused by the contradictions in the marketplace, some people take both because they don’t know for sure what they need. They derive more peace of mind from taking both, independent of any research-supported basis for doing this.

Over time, the fishy fish-oil story morphed a few times, and then rested by essentially stating that the body cannot turn flax oil into fish oil (plant omega-3 into fish omega-3, or ALA into EPA and DHA). That is contrary to what the research shows.

Research shows that in the body, both men and women convert, about equally, five to ten percent of their ALA intake into EPA. Most of the studies measured plasma and liver levels, not levels in other specific tissues or in the brain. What is the reason for that? Plasma and liver are the easiest tissues to work with. Conversion may be different in different tissues within the body. What we do know is that the cell, specifically the endoplasmic reticulum, is the site for delta 5 and delta 6 desaturases (the rate-limiting enzyme for ALA conversion) expression. This means the potential for this process to happen in every cell exists. So far in the research I’ve come

across, it’s confirmed that these desaturases are expressed by liver, muscle, and fat cells in humans. In rats, it was discovered that these desaturases are expressed in the testis. I postulate that with a little more study into human cells, we’ll find that every cell with a nucleus can covert ALA to EPA and DHA. Here are some links:

Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) metabolism

Fatty acid desaturases in human adipose tissue: relationships between gene expression, desaturation indexes and insulin resistance

Expression and Regulation of Δ5-Desaturase, Δ6-Desaturase, Stearoyl-Coenzyme A (CoA) Desaturase 1, and Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase 2 in Rat Testis

In the body, women convert ALA into DHA at substantially higher rate than men. Women’s conversion of ALA to DHA is between two and ten percent, depending on which study you read. Men’s conversion is considered to be less than one percent, although some studies showed two to five percent conversion. In truth, much lower conversion seems to be required by males. Why the difference in conversion of ALA to DHA? Pregnant women benefit from making DHA from ALA, to supply it to the developing brain of the fetus, which will otherwise pilfer DHA from her brain. Nature favors the fetus that is the future over the mother who is the past. When needed, nature will sacrifice the past for the future.

Men, on the other hand, don’t get pregnant. So, they don’t need to make as much DHA in their body. They make small amounts needed in heart, eyes, sperm, and other tissues even by a low conversion of ALA.

The amount of DHA needed in the body is quite low, and the body can conserve it when the supply is low. According to research, the adult brain of both genders turns over at most 3.8mg of DHA per day, and at an intake of only 1.7 grams of ALA per day, less than one-quarter of one percent conversion is enough to make enough DHA for the brain’s requirement.

The single most important factor in conversion is that most people don’t get enough of the essential omega-3 ALA to optimize conversion and health.

Not too many people read the research, and even fewer have read it critically. The studies make it clear that not getting enough ALA, the starting material for converting ALA to EPA and DHA in your diet, is the biggest, most critical issue here. That is what prompted us to develop ways to optimize the intake of this sensitive essential nutrient. What did we base that decision on? There were several considerations:

If your body can convert, but you don’t get enough starting material for the conversion, of course you will not get enough flax ALA converted into “fish” EPA and DHA. The best thing to do, then, is to optimize your intake of ALA. Flax seed is the richest of the commonly available sources. Forty to sixty-three percent of its oil is ALA. The exact amount depends on the weather, the cultivar, the soil, and the

northern-ness of the latitude where the flax is grown. The further north it grows, the more omega-3 it contains.

Rabbits, horses, elephants, gorillas, orangutans, and zebras only get ALA from their plant-based diets, but have DHA in their brains, retina, and sperm. How do they get it if the body cannot convert ALA? If their body can convert ALA, why would yours be unable to? You all have all the same conversion genes in your DNA that planteating animals have in theirs.

Three hundred million Hindus belong to the Brahmin caste. They’re obligate vegetarians from birth until death. The caste has a history of more than fivethousand-years of eating plant-based foods and not eating fish, fish oils or other products that contain EPA and/or DHA. Yet, Brahmins have no signs of DHA deficiency. In some studies, lower levels of DHA were found in vegetarians, but DHA deficiency symptoms have never been identified because the body can convert ALA and because not that much conversion is required, especially by men. More to the point, if Brahmins were unable to convert ALA into DHA, they would lack DHA in their brain, retina, and sperm, and should be brain-deficient, blind, and sterile. In fact, their mental competence, vision, and ability to reproduce are equal to those who do consume fish and fish oils. If not better!

And keep in mind that it’s been known for some time that the fish oil industry has become unsustainable. Unregulated overfishing around the world for the past three hundred years is the cause.

I want you to remember this one so here are a couple more links about our fish industry’s deadline for the year 2048:

Global Loss of Biodiversity Harming Ocean Bounty

Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says

In addition, fish oil omega-3s are:

• Twenty-five times more sensitive to damage than omega-6

• Processed by methods that are like those used on cooking oils

• Contaminated by PCBs, dioxins, pesticides, and other oil-soluble liquid industrial poisons that flow downhill from land and end up in the oceans that have become our industrial sewers

• More contaminated the higher up they are on the food chain

• Even more processed (more damaged) now than twenty years ago

• Less effective in studies now than twenty years ago

Another issue surfaced more recently. Most of the fish whose oil we consume do not make their own fish oil (salmon, sardines, herring, cod liver). They get it from foods

that contain it. Ultimately, most EPA and DHA comes from marine algae that krill eat, which little fish eat, which then bigger fish eat, which the fish oil fish eat. In other words, fish oil is a plant-made product. You should know this, lest you unfairly rate fish as too important, and demean the plants that do the work.

Finally, it is now clear that fish has become the most polluted food on our planet. It is worse than red meat, chicken, and turkey. Why? We have hugely polluted the oceans with toxic industrial chemicals, and marine foods have become laced with them. Links:

Nutrition Considerations in Aquaculture: The Importance of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Fish Development and Human Health

Fatty Acids in Fish

Framing the Argument with Health in Mind

The marketing argument between flax and fish oil has raged for several decades. It’s time to put it in perspective and end the silliness.

Oils made with health in mind are foods. They are your food oil foundation. Fish oils are supplements. A supplement is taken to augment food, not to replace it. Supplement is used in addition to food. Food comes first. Food is more important. Food may be enough. A supplement without food can never be enough.

More damage is done to health by damaged food oils than any other part of nutrition. That’s because food oils are much more sensitive to damage done by light, oxygen, and heat than any other nutrients, and industry processes oils with less care than is taken with any other nutrient. You cannot use a supplement to fix the damage done to health with a damaged food oil foundation. You need to fix the foundation. That’s why your body needs an oil change. You make that oil change by replacing the damaged food oil foundation with a food oil foundation made with health in mind.

More damage is done to health by damaged food oils than by the lack of an oil supplement or a damaged oil supplement. Why? You use far larger amounts of food oil foundation than of supplemental oil. The average daily food oil foundation is about 28-56 grams/day. The average daily supplemental oil intake is less than one gram per day. You eat more than twenty-eight times more food oils than supplemental ones. Damaged supplements will do the same amount of damage as a damaged food oil foundation only if the supplement is twenty-eight times more damaged than your food oil foundation.

The supplemental oils themselves are partially damaged, mainly due to processing damage, and they contain industrial toxins. Here are links:

Oxidation of Marine Omega-3 Supplements and Human Health

Production and Refinement of Omega-3 Rich Oils from Processing By-Products of Farmed Fish Species

Instead of damaged fish oils, you can take a krill oil supplement. Krill oil is low on the food chain. Its processing is done different, and the oil is not damaged. It is in a more effective form (both triglycerides and phospholipids), and more effectively absorbed than fish oil. Less oil is needed for results. Krill is environmentally sustainable because sustainability regulations were set before krill began to be harvested (might the fish oil industry misinform us about krill oil to protect their commercial turf?).

You’d never think of replacing food with a multi-mineral and vitamin pill. It would be crazy. Your multi is a supplement that you take in addition to your food.

Why would you take an oil supplement instead of your food oil foundation? You will not get better health that way, so you should not do that.

Let me summarize for clarity. I call this my “ALL-SOME-NONE” Statement: To be healthy,

ALL of you need a healthy food oil foundation if health is your goal

SOME of you may do better if you add a supplemental oil to your healthy food oil foundation

NONE of you can be healthy on supplemental oils alone

In other words, healthy food oils are first and most important to bring in. A supplement might be helpful on top of that. Never replace food with supplements, and don’t ever think that a supplement alone contains enough oil to take care of your health.

Coconut and MCTs

For years, the Western world demonized coconut oil for increasing cholesterol and causing heart attacks. It turned out that, in part, the soybean industry used this advertising ploy of dissing the competition to keep and expand its market share.

In the past, there were two problems with coconut oil. One is that, although it is better fuel for weight management than carbohydrates, it contains virtually no essential omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids. This is the lesser of the two problems. In fact, it is a problem only if we have no other source of these essential nutrients. The more serious second problem is that the coconut oils imported until about twenty years ago were highly processed, refined, and damaged, and did indeed increase cholesterol levels. Undamaged (raw, unrefined) coconut oil, on the other hand, lowers cholesterol levels. What a difference processing can make.

But wait, wrong again! Recently, research showed that even raw coconut oil can increase LDL (the bad) cholesterol. However, when you eat the whole coconut, LDL

does not go up. Researchers think that the fiber present in the coconut, but removed when the oil is made, protects the body from jacking up the bad LDL levels. Links:

The Effect of Coconut Oil Consumption on Cardiovascular Risk Factors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials

Coconut Oil Increases Bad Cholesterol

Virgin, unrefined, fresh, raw coconut oil became available in North America less than two decades ago. It still does not provide the essential fatty acids that are too low in most people’s food supply, but it is fresh, tastes good, provides good fuel, is a rich source of powerful antioxidants, gives stable energy, is easy for the liver to burn (metabolize), and helps reduce cravings for carbohydrates.

From coconut oil, by the processes of fractionation and/or inter-esterification, industry makes medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). These, too, while no longer natural in the sense of being in their natural form, are still easy for the liver to use, and have application in hospitals. MCTs are popular as “thin” oils. Athletes can use them as fuel, and people with weight problems can use them for energy instead of carbohydrates.

MCTs are better than sugars and starches (carbohydrates). But, used instead of carbs, oils rich in omega-3 properly balanced with omega-6 produce better health results and sports performance, quicker recovery and healing, and better weight management effects than do MCTs or coconut oil.

With MCTs, there is another issue you need to be aware of. MCTs usually consist of a mixture of fatty acids that are 6, 8, 10, and 12 carbons long. Unfortunately, the 12carbon fatty acid (lauric acid), which makes up close to half of the oil, increases cholesterol. If you use MCTs, make sure you get the fraction of it that contains only 6, 8, and 10-carbon fatty acids.

While many claims are made about coconut oil in the trade, there is little research to support these claims. It doesn’t improve thyroid function. It cannot replace oils rich and balanced in undamaged omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids. But it is better fuel for weight normalization than refined sugars and starches, which are the main source of weight gain, overweight, obesity, type II diabetes, and the cardiovascular problems that commonly follow the development of diabetes.

The bottom line is that omega-3 and omega-6 are the only fats you must have to live and be healthy. That being the case, give priority to making sure you optimize your intake of these two. After you have done that, you can consider adding the saturated fats that come from coconuts to your nutrition program.

Olive Oil

Olive oil has become very popular over the past few decades. It is used as part of a poorly defined Mediterranean Diet but is popular and often recommended by health

gurus of every description. We’ll talk about the Mediterranean Diet a bit later but let us talk about olive oil first.

Why has interest in olive oil skyrocketed? Partly because overall interest in health is increasing rapidly. But there are two main reasons why extra virgin olive oil is popular.

1. Less Harshly Processed

First, extra virgin olive oil is unrefined, meaning that it is NOT damaged by the usual industrial processing applied to what are known in the industry as RBD oils: refined with harsh chemicals, bleached, and deodorized at destructively high temperatures (160-245°C or 320-450°F, the temperatures used for frying). These processes are unnecessary for olive oil because the oil is pressed from the flesh, not the seeds, of the olives, and is then floated off on water.

As a result, extra virgin olive oil, usually packaged in glass, is less damaged than the colorless, odorless, tasteless oils sold in plastic bottles in grocery stores. Both damage and packaging material are big deals. Extra virgin olive oil won’t give you one million plus damaged molecules for every one of your body’s sixty trillion cells in one tablespoon. Extra virgin olive oil is far less processing-damaged than cooking oils.

2. More Stable Oil

The second reason for extra virgin olive oil’s popularity is that it is relatively stable. That’s because it contains less than 1 percent of the highly delicate but essential omega-3, and only ten percent of the oil is the less delicate essential omega-6. Eighty percent of the oil is omega-9 (mono-unsaturated oleic acid), which is not essential for health, and is relatively stable. All this means that you don’t have to spend a lot of time making sure that the oil is treated with the care required by oils that are rich in essential fatty acids.

But . . .

. . . there are olive oils, usually sold as “virgin” or “pure” which have been treated like the colorless, odorless, tasteless cooking oils. These olive oils may also be partly damaged by refining, bleaching, and deodorization.

Downsides of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Even extra virgin olive oil has some downsides. To begin with, extra virgin olive oil, or olive oil of any kind, gets you almost no essential omega-3 and very little essential omega-6. Ninety percent of what the oil contains—eighty percent mono-unsaturated non-essential and ten percent saturated non-essential—is what you don’t require for health because life can make them in your body from sugar, starch, glycerol, and proteins (amino acids).

In addition, the extra virgin olive oil craze creates another problem for you. Olive trees grow very slowly. Expanding the supply takes a long time. As a result, the rate at which the demand for extra virgin oil has grown in recent years has far outstripped its supply. What’s a crooked merchant to do in such a case?

Some suppliers of olive oil mix extra virgin or even processed olive oil with cheaper oils, but still label the mixture as “extra virgin” olive oil. Then you get cheated. You think you’re getting one thing when you’re getting another. How do you know? You don’t. You can get screwed both on quality and on price. Links:

Adulterated Fraudulent Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Is Your “Extra-Virgin” Olive Oil Really Extra-Virgin?

It becomes important to know your source of olive oil. As much as possible, get to know growers, suppliers, and shippers that you can trust. That is easier said than done, and you can be fooled and misled.

A Simple Test

I know two simple ways to deal with this dilemma.

First, I use olive oil only rarely. My main reason is that there are other oils made with health in mind that have much higher amounts and far better ratios of the only two essential nutrients that come from fats and oils. More specifically, you get better results for health with an oil containing both omega-3 (forty to fifty percent) and omega-6 (twenty to twenty-five percent) made without damage by complete protection from light, oxygen, and heat while it’s being pressed, settled, filtered, and filled.

Second, I keep oils in my fridge. Really high-quality olive oil will solidify in the fridge, or it will at least develop small oil crystals that float in the oil. If this does not happen, I assume that the oil has been doctored and I will not use (or buy again) that oil.

The Mediterranean (Med) Diet

The Mediterranean Diet is said to be associated with longer life and better health. It sounds good. We should all be eating that diet and its foods. There’s only one problem. What exactly does the Mediterranean Diet consist of? It is so poorly defined that it is not helpful unless we examine it a bit closer.

The Med Diet emphasizes pasta and noodles of many different kinds. However, research makes it clear that whole grains are substantially better for health and long life than white flour and the products made with it, including pasta.

Wine is also associated with the Med Diet. But research blows the cover on this one too. Alcohol shows a strong correlation with breast cancer, but wine with the alcohol removed does not. In fact, research has recently shown that even one alcoholic drink per day is already one too many for good health. Alcohol, concludes research,

is poison and any alcohol at all hurts your health. That is not news. We know from our own experience that it temporarily poisons our brain. It also poisons liver function. Link:

What Just One Glass of Wine Does to Your Brain

The olive oil in the Mediterranean diet has a good reputation because it is less damaged by processing than most other oils. But research tells us that eating olives is better for health than using olive oil. And frying foods with olive oil will fry your health, so don’t do it.

Salt is another issue. Less salt is better than more salt. Excess salt increases blood pressure. Most people use too much salt in their food.

Consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in any, not just a Mediterranean, diet is one of the most reliable and important predictors of health and longevity, no matter what you call the diet you adhere to. Eating more plant-based whole foods and fewer animal products (dairy, eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, lamb, beef, pork) is a good direction to go in.

What about Cooking Oils? Convenience

Safflower, sunflower, corn, grapeseed, sesame, almond, peanut, and canola oils are widely produced and used in food preparation as well as for “cooking”, by which we mean frying or deep-frying. When I was a child, cooking meant the use of hot water for food preparation. Using hot oils for food preparation was called frying. Now cooking almost always means frying. Sautéing is included here.

The amount of each of the different essential and non-essential fatty acids that an oil contains (called its fatty acid profile) is different in different oils.

Most cooking oils contain only the omega-6 essential fatty acid:

• Safflower oil can have up to 70 percent omega-6

• Sunflower, corn, and grapeseed oils can have about 60 percent

• Sesame oil has about 45 percent

• Almond oil contains about 26 percent

• Peanut oil has about 20 percent

• Olive oil has about 10 percent

• All of them contain less than 1 percent omega-3

They should not be used for cooking if health is the goal.

Only three commercial mass market cooking oils contain omega-3:

• Soybean oil has about 57 percent omega-6 and 7-9 percent omega-3

• Canola oil has about 24 percent omega-6 and 10 percent omega-3

• Walnut oil contains about 50 percent omega-6 and 5-11 percent omega-3

They should not be used for cooking if health is your goal.

Two more oils not recommended for cooking contain omega-3:

• Hemp oil contains about 57 percent omega-6 and about 19 percent omega-3

• Flax seed oil contains about 19 percent omega-6 and about 57 percent omega-3

The more omega-3 a cooking oil contains, the more it is damaged by processing and by cooking, and the worse it will be for your health when made and used this way. That’s because the omega-3 essential fatty acid is five times more rapidly damaged than the omega-6 essential fatty acid by light, oxygen, and heat during industrial production and food preparation.

If health is what you want, throw out your frying pan and your cooking oils. Add oils made with health in mind to foods after the foods come off the heat. Add good oils just before you eat your food. That way, you get the health benefits. Oils also enhance food flavors and improve the absorption of oil-soluble food ingredients into your body. Many of the oil-soluble molecules in foods have health benefits, which means good oils make your already good foods even healthier.

What About Butter and Margarine? Is One Better?

As a teenager, I lived for two years on a farm without electricity, central heating, or water heater (we heated water in pots on a wood-burning stove). No indoor shower or bath (we washed with a cloth in a wide, tapered enamel washbowl). No refrigeration, TV, radio, or running water (one of my chores was to fetch water, two buckets at a time, carried on a shoulder bracket with a hook on each end up the steep, muddy, slippery slope from the creek that ran down a deep ravine next to our self-built house. No indoor toilet (we used an “outhouse” even in winter when it was minus 40°C (-40°F).

How It Once Was

In that place (late 1950’s), we drank lots of grass-fed cows’ milk, fresh and whole, that we got from a farm near our place.

The milk was unpasteurized. Within a day or so, its thick, rich cream would rise to the top. If we let the milk sit for a few days, the milk would naturally turn sour (fermented by probiotics supplied by the milk ducts in the cow’s udder) and become a wet whole milk yogurt with sour cream on top. We would eat it with cinnamon and a bit of honey that we bought in 5 gallon buckets.

We also skimmed the sour cream off the top of some batches of this whole milk yogurt. We would turn it in a hand churn built into the lid on top of a one-gallon glass bottle. After much churning, the fat would stick together in clumps of raw butter, which separated (floated) from the watery sour whey.

We drank the whey or used it in cooking and baking. We put butter on our heavy whole grain (risen with yeast) or sourdough (rye started with whey) bread that we made from scratch by grinding grains into flour just before using them to make these kinds of bread.

Changes

Why do I tell this story? Food then was different from food now. Milk then was different from milk now. Butter was different. It was better butter. Then, the milk was fresh, and the butter provided probiotics with the fat. The butter from grass-fed cows was different (more omega-3, carotene) compared to the pasteurized, storebought butter that comes from cows fed pesticide-sprayed grains and treated with hormones and antibiotics. And you don’t know what chemicals and processes, in the name of “better living through chemistry” have affected the soil, the farm, the cow and its milk, the butter made from that milk, the container it’s in, how old the butter is, and storage and transport conditions of the butter.

The butter we ate was made in line with nature. There was no factory, no processing (except hand-milking and hand-churning), and no industrial chemistry between the farm and our teenage stomachs.

We ate a lot of it too. To clear forty acres of wild land by hand and by horse (no tractor or chain saw), we worked our butts off, using saws, axes, shovels, mattocks, pry bars, stone boats pulled by horses, and lifted big rocks by hand onto said stone boats or schlepped them to the outside border of the cleared acreage. We sweated every day and burned a lot of butter and the bread we ate it on to fuel our hard work. My father thought of it as character building. We were not allowed to complain about our aching muscles and bodies. He said that we could begin to complain when we were his age. Of course, he continued to be older than we were, so we never did get to complain.

Which Is Better?

Between fresh butter and margarine, there’s no contest. Butter is food from nature. Margarine is garbage concocted in a factory with cheap materials with profit in mind. Butter feeds a calf. Margarine feeds an industry. When in doubt, trust nature, not just in product advertisements but in the sourcing of their raw materials. Even farmers can no longer be trusted blindly because most of them, too, have been subverted and seduced by the convenience of poisons that can substitute for back-breaking labor; a convenience that takes a toll on customers’ health.

Between chemicalized, pasteurized, antibioticized, hormonized, and pesticided butter and margarine, the choice becomes more difficult.

Margarine (also known as ersatz {imitation, artificial} butter) was created as a cheaper substitute for butter about a century and a half ago. At first, margarine was made in France for the dispensable people: soldiers and the poor. Originally, margarine was made from beef suet and skim milk. It tasted disgusting. Over time, formulas were changed and doctored with other chemicals to imitate the flavor of butter. Link:

A brief history of Margarine (and Trans fat) Butter vs. Margarine from the beginning

Margarine after the 1920’s was made with oils treated by hydrogenation, a process patented in Germany in 1911, which turns oils into plastic (spreadable) fats. In the process, trans- fatty acids were created. These were not required to be listed on labels in the US for eight decades. Gradually, research on trans-fats showed that they increase the risk of heart attack, diabetes, cancer, and dementia in humans, and interfere with pregnancy in both male and female animals. Walter Willett and his group at the Harvard School of Public Health estimated that at least thirty thousand Americans died prematurely every year from eating industrially made trans-fatty acids. Links:

Trans fatty acids and cardiovascular disease

Health Effects of Trans Fatty Acids Intake: Dr. Willett’s Testimony

With the publication of a key study on trans-fatty acids made by industry by Willett’s group at Harvard, the FDA began to change its mind about their safety. Link:

FDA’s New View of Partially Hydrogenated Fats

Finally, in June of 2018, they were taken off the FDA’s list of nutrients “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). They gave industry until 2020 to make necessary changes in products to ensure an “orderly transition” in the marketplace. Link:

FDA: Food Additives Petitions Trans Fat

A ban on the production of trans- fatty acids by industry is now under way.

To keep the picture balanced, whole milk, butter, and beef also contain trans-fatty acids. The amount found in dairy products is lower than that used in margarine. The naturally occurring trans- fatty acids in these products are said to be more easily metabolized and safer (though still best to avoid) for health than the trans-fatty acids made by industry from oils like sunflower or safflower.

Is the ban on trans-fats the end of margarine? Not hardly! Instead of using partially hydrogenated oils, the industry now uses mixtures of oils and saturated fats. Does this result in better margarine? Compared to trans-fatty acids, yes. But remember that the oils used to make margarine have been treated with corrosive chemicals, bleached, and then heated to frying temperature, and contain up to sixty quintillion damaged molecules that don’t exist in nature in just a single tablespoon of one percent damaged oil. If health is the goal, avoid using the new margarine too.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that neither butter nor margarine is a good source of the two essential fatty acids that are the only kind of fat that your body requires for health but cannot make from any other molecules.

From a health perspective, then, to hell with both, even though butter may still be less bad.

And, while I have your attention, here is a list of other chemical stuff that industry puts in your foods that are banned for health reasons in other countries. Link:

13 Harmful List of Banned Food Additives in Many Countries

Undeclared

Fat: Carbohydrates

Your body must convert all the carbohydrate molecules that you do not burn, into fats for storage in the body.

If you don’t burn ‘em, you’ll wear ‘em!

A fat-phobic society overlooks the fact that your body must turn excess (unburned) carbohydrates into fats.

You like it when the label of products reads “low-fat” and “no fat.” You think that you will not get fat or sick from such products. But the truth is quite different. Most such products are loaded with carbohydrates. These turn into fats in your body. That is why I call them “undeclared fats”. To remind yourself, you might as well call them that, too.

Life never turns carbohydrates into 5-star vitally important essential omega-3 or omega-6 in the body. It also doesn’t make 3-star omega-3 derivatives from them. It only makes 1-star, optional saturated or monounsaturated fats out of carbohydrates. These are the ones that you can take or leave. These are the ones that are mainly fuel but not essential nutrients. These are the ones that your body makes out of sugar and starch. In other words, the fats made from carbs, like the carbs themselves, contain nothing you can’t get elsewhere and nothing essential. Like the carbs they’re made from, they’re the least important foods. They are reasonable fuel molecules.

When people become overweight from eating carbohydrates, the fat deposits created from them are always composed of the kind of fats that we can live without. They are, however, less toxic than carbohydrates.

A person can carry several hundred pounds of fat on their body and still be alive, but they can only store about one pound of carbohydrates in their liver and muscles (in the form of glycogen, or animal starch), confirming the relatively greater biological importance of fats rather than carbohydrates in the body.

When we burn carbohydrates, they are passable fuel. When we don’t burn them, they act as poisons that life turns into fats to protect us from developing a highblood sugar coma that can end in death.

The Elephants in the Fat Room

In 2014, I wrote a letter to TIME magazine in the hope that they might be interested in the missing part of the fats story. They did not print it. They didn’t even acknowledge receiving it. I was only slightly disappointed. It’s been clear to me for some time that the changes we need in the world are unlikely to come from established banks, governments, religions, media, or even educational institutions. They will come grassroots, through individuals. Freedom, through knowing the truth, will change the world through innovations that make old habits and old institutions obsolete. Here is my slightly updated letter. It did not help TIME, but I hope it helps you.

Great article in Time Magazine, June 23, 2014! Thank you, Bryan Walsh. Finally, we are exposing carbohydrates and exonerating fats. Been a long time coming. But some elephants remain in the room. May I humbly address them in point form?

• There are no essential carbohydrates. That makes carbohydrates the least important of our foods. The body can make carbohydrates from amino acids (proteins) and from the backbone of fats (glycerol). There is no tissue in the body, not even our brain, that can’t get its energy from fats (as ketones, glycerol, and glucose are made from glycerol or by beta-oxidation).

• There are two essential fats (fatty acids): omega-3 and omega-6. We cannot live without them. They must come from food (or supplement). Too little leads to degeneration that gets worse with time. Too little too long, and we die. Return of enough to a diet too low in them reverses the degeneration that results from getting too little.

• Stable, carbohydrates keep for years, easy for industry to work with. Omega-3 and omega-6 are very sensitive to damage by light, oxygen, and heat. Of all our nutrients, they need the most care. They get the least, so they become the most damaged of our food molecules. Fresh oils are best refrigerated or frozen, and who wants to do all that? We’re used to keeping ice cream and meat frozen. But we are not used to giving oils that kind of care, even though lack of this kind of needed and deserved care damages them and then damages us.

• The body must turn unburned carbohydrates into fat for storage in the body. Because of that, I call carbohydrates “undeclared fats”. They lead to blood sugar, insulin, and mood swings. Ravenous cravings can result from low blood sugar. The body says: “Eat or die!” So, we eat. Addiction to carbohydrates can be as much as four to eight times more powerful than addiction to cocaine.

• Fats suppress appetite and produce lasting, stable energy. They do not produce blood sugar, insulin, and mood swings, and don’t result in cravings that lead to overeating and weight gain.

• Carbohydrates do not produce thermogenesis. Omega-6, and especially omega-3, turn on fat burning, turn off fat production (provided we eat them instead of carbs), and increase thermogenesis substantially. That means: We burn fats and blow them off as heat. They keep us warm in winter, and increase energy, stamina, performance, healing, and recovery. Life also turns them into many other molecules important to health in our body: DHA in brain, eyes and sperm; EPA to make eicosanoid hormones (prostaglandins, prostacyclins, thromboxanes, leukotrienes); antioxidant “protectins”; powerful anti-inflammatory “resolvins”; feel-good molecules called endocannabinoids; immune system-supporting “maresins”; and many other molecules collectively known as “oxylipins”.

• We need energy, which comes mostly from carbohydrates or from fats (which is why the short-lived fad of a low-fat and low-carbohydrate diet failed). We should choose one or the other as our main source of fuel. I call this a “fuel shift” rather than a “fuel addition”.

• Weight normalization comes most easily from eating fewer carbohydrates, and more good fats. Mixing them confuses our system and works against us. We can also lose extra pounds by eating more greens and veggies, more probiotics, and less bread, pasta, pancakes, sweets, sugar, cake, cookies, corn, corn “syruped” and “sugared” soft drinks, potatoes, rice, desserts, waffles, and pancakes.

• Processing and food preparation are the fattest fat elephants in the room. Processing damages about one percent of the molecules in oils treaded by industry with harsh chemicals, bleaching clays, and high temperatures. Not much, right?

But did you know that just one tablespoon of an oil damaged one percent by this processing gets us more than one million damaged, unnatural molecules for every one of our body’s sixty trillion cells? And when we use such already damaged oils for frying, we further damage the oil and burn the food.

• Frying (burning, overheating) starch, protein, and oils, each independent of the others, increases the risk of inflammation and cancer.

• Tell people to remember that fried oils fry health.

In summary: The body needs an oil change, just like the car. Dirty (damaged) oils out, clean (undamaged, made with health in mind) oils in.

Good oils made with health in mind are better fuel than carbohydrates, which in turn are more effective fuel than saturated fats.

Research needs to examine the damage that the processing of oils in particular, and all foods in general, does to health. Most food-related health problems can be tracked back to how far out of line our processing takes us from life’s (or nature’s) mandate of eating fresh, whole, raw, organic, local, and for humans, mostly plantbased foods. ALL creatures, except humans, have always eaten that way. Might that be a hint?

Once again, thank you for the article. And thank you for reading my response. I’m happy to continue this conversation with you.

Best regards!

Udo Erasmus

BSc (Zoology, Psychology; University of BC); Grad Studies (Biochemistry, Genetics; UBC); MA (Counseling Psychology; Alfred Adler Institute, Chicago)

Developer: Method for making oils with health in mind (1981)

Author: Fats and Oils (1986); Fats That Heal Fats That Kill (1993)

Originator: Flax Seed Oil (1986); Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend (1994)

Chapter Eighteen: Udo’s Recommendations

What do I Eat?

People often ask me, “You know about health, what do you eat? You look healthy, so maybe you could tell me what you do.”

My habits have changed over the years as I’ve learned and grown older and slightly wiser. They continue to change, since the body’s needs for health change with age. A one-sided diet may cause health issues after a while. Then it needs to be altered. It helps to feel present and pay attention to what your body lets you know about energy levels and about pain or its absence. You’re not supposed to make up your health plan in your head, follow rigid formulas, and/or commit to extreme nutritional theories. You’re supposed to respond to your body’s signals. To do that, you need to be present in the reality of the space your body occupies. It’s not easy to do a good job of living your life in theory and/or fantasies about health.

My family and I lived on farms in Europe and North America. My mother cooked simply, and we ate simply. We ate lots of vegetables, bread, and potatoes. We worked hard physically, so we burned the carbohydrates we ate, and therefore did not wear them. We used dairy products, including raw milk, yogurt, and cheese. We were always clearing our throats of mucus. It’s one of the predictable results of dairy consumption.

I laughed derisively at the person who first told me that eating dairy results in mucus. But then I began to observe that the amount of phlegm (mucus) I had to clear from my throat was directly proportional to the amounts of dairy products I was swallowing. Thinking back, my parents and siblings could “echo-locate” each other’s whereabouts in our house by listening for each family member’s unique throat-clearing symphony. Okay, I’m busted! Dairy products increase mucus.

We raised chickens, geese, goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, and heifers at various times on different farms, so we had eggs and some meat. We did not have much money, so meat was not a big part of what we ate. On our farm without electricity, we had no refrigerator. We ate a hunk of meat once a week. My father would keep a quarter of beef in a butcher’s freezer in town, fifteen miles away. No big steaks! There was no sense of deprivation, hunger, or lack of energy. Nor did we suffer deprivation or nutritional deficiency. We worked hard and had lots of energy.

When I went to university, I ate dormitory food. Nothing special. Everyone else in the dorm drank coffee, so I drank coffee, too. It irritated my stomach, and I could follow the path of the coffee I drank as it went down through my small intestine. This irritation ended as soon as I began to supplement with probiotics.

In my last year at university, I got gastritis, which I was told was a prelude for ulcers. It was a time of great stress for me. This was just before I left the genetics lab at the university, to find more heart.

When I worked in gardening and later in the job of spraying pesticides, I ate a lot of raw vegetables, some fruit, and not much else. It was not a philosophical position, nor was I vegetarian at that time. For me, it was simply a matter of convenience. Cooking took time, and I was always busy doing something. My feeling was that I had more important things to do than cook—hat’s off to chefs who do amazing things with food! Eating raw was quick and easy. And, I had almost no dishes to wash.

It is highly likely that my raw, whole, mostly plant-based foods helped me overcome my pesticide poisoning because I fared much better than most of the other people I’d heard and read about who'd been poisoned by pesticides. Some of them got cancer. One pesticide applicator died instantly when he reached his hand and arm into the tank filled with pesticides to retrieve a wrench that he’d accidentally dropped in it. That’s how fast his skin absorbed the pesticides that then went into his body, heart, brain, and cells. Phew!

As I get older, I migrate toward eating more colorful, water-rich vegetables and fewer starchy carbohydrate foods. Today, I have very little of any starchy carbohydrates in my house. Bread, noodles, corn, and potatoes have no place in my home. It’s too easy for me to gain fat on them. Occasionally, I cook some organic beans, chickpeas, or lentils. Because raw red beets scratch my throat, I cook them. Sometimes I cook asparagus and onions, as well as yams, carrots, and sweet potatoes in water, and I drink the water that I cooked them in.

I don’t have eggs, fish, dairy, or meat in my fridge. Mostly, I eat organic vegetables, some fruit, nuts, and seeds. I get raw organic tahini by the case, pour the sesame oil down the drain, and replace it with Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend. One of my staples is to eat vegetables with “Udo’s tahini”.

The older I get, the more I like my foods raw. I’m not a raw foodist, but I really like raw foods, because they work for me. I’m not a vegan either (human being is just fine with me, thank you). As I’ve gotten older, I’ve reduced my dairy intake to zero. I add unsweetened almond milk to my matcha turmeric tea. Eating organic vegetables is good for health, but it is also a political statement because I’m voting with my wallet against pesticides and for more sustainable agriculture.

There are no cooking oils in my home. I threw out my last frying pan some time ago. In my kitchen, there’s a good stove that rarely gets used, except by cooking-loving friends I sometimes invite to my home for other reasons.

The water I drink is fresh, charged, alkaline, micro-clustered, and contains hydrogen and oxygen. It is made from tap water by a “genius freshwater machine” attached to my kitchen tap. The machine also filters the water and removes chlorine. I also filter my shower water. Over the years, I’ve used all kinds of water treatments. Of these, I like only a couple of methods.

My routine is simple. I do nothing fancy in food preparation. Occasionally, I go out for dinner to a fancy restaurant. Some of the recipes good chefs come up with are remarkable in their artistry and their taste bud-popping flavors.

Mostly, I eat my foods fresh, whole, raw, and organic. I emphasize greens, good oils, and proteins. I limit carbohydrate intake. Do I take supplements? Of course: a multi, herbs, many different spices, and antioxidants. I try all kinds of things. And, of course, I use my oil blend as my main energy source. I also use my probiotics and my digestive enzymes.

Being quite sensitive to sugar, I stay away from sweets, not because of good discipline, but because I remember that sweets consistently make me feel lousy.

Most days, I walk my talk. But I’m a work in progress.

I’ve been known to tell people, “If I did not try the junk once in a while, how would I know just how bad it is?”

We all laugh.

Review

Your Body Needs an Oil Change. I began this book by making the claim that if you’ve not yet made the switch from damaged, toxic oils to clean, essential ones, then you’re in need of an oil change. Now you know how they become damaged, you have an idea of how much damaged oil you may be consuming, and you know which all-star performance oils you need to fill your body with to enjoy optimal health.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and unlike your car—whose oil can be changed in less than an hour—your oil change will likely occur in steps.

I also promised to be your willing and eager guide on this journey. I have outlined where you will need to begin and some easy steps so that your switch can be as smooth as possible.

Start Your Oil Change Today. In NLP (neurolinguistic programming), practitioners sometimes use words in a unique way that they call “embedded commands”. It’s like a rhetorical question. Here is an example.

“When is now a good time to start?”

They ask you a question with the answer they want you to come up with already included in that question. When is NOW a good time to start?

Here’s mine, “When is now a good time to start taking edible oils made with health in mind?” Of course, each of you makes your own decisions. Of course, I don’t decide for anyone, except for myself, when it’s a good time to start something. But I do make suggestions with embedded commands for reasons that are supported by research.

Research has shown that when a woman becomes deficient in essential fatty acids (EFAs), and then corrects the deficiency by getting enough EFAs in her diet, her child born three years later may still show signs of her earlier deficiency. When should you start to optimize your intake of undamaged omega-3 and omega-6 EFAs?

Best answer: Three years before the conception of a child.

Another answer: As soon as you learn how important these oils are for health, energy, healing, brain function, mood, joints, skin, hair, nails, pregnancy, and heart health. That time would be now.

A third answer: As soon as possible; as soon as you can; the sooner, the better.

A fourth answer: When you want and are ready for a better, healthier, likely longer life.

A fifth answer: Whenever you get around to it or it happens by itself.

A sixth answer: When you run out of excuses.

A seventh answer: When you feel so much pain or have so much health trouble that you become desperate to find improvement and are thereby humbled into sincerity.

When you pay attention, you’ll notice that the answer you choose is directly proportional to how inspired you feel to live a full and whole, long life.

Eat Good Oils. Use Udo’s Oils. The best oils contain the omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, without which you can’t live. You can’t stay healthy on a low-fat diet. A no-fat diet will eventually kill you. A high-fat diet is usually not healthy, because it usually contains too much of the wrong fats and not enough of the right ones. A fake fat diet completely misses the point, based on the mistaken assumption that eating fats will make you fat and that all fats are bad.

Get your good fats from the seeds and nuts that contain them and from oils made with health in mind.

A Right-Fat Diet, which optimizes intake of both essential fatty acids is the way to eat healthy. It emphasizes seeds, nuts, and good oils made with health in mind. Omega-3 and omega-6 both need to be present in the right ratio and undamaged. An oil change to good oils and the discontinuation of damaged oils will pay you great dividends in health.

The Right-Fat Diet will be developed in-depth in an upcoming publication. Stay in touch with us. Link: www.udoschoice.com

We’ll let you know when it’s available.

In a world full of a myriad of things, finding EFAs made with health in mind is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Not only is this worldly haystack full of all kinds of stuff, but it’s also full of unfounded views on every topic under the sun. Then there is advertising. People use sexy images and fine words to sell everything. They go to great lengths to convince you that their junk is what you must have. That’s the world you live in, and that’s the way it’s been for a very long time. How long? It’s been that way for about two hundred thousand years. It’s been like that ever since our ancestors developed large brains with the ability to both imagine problems and new realities into being.

Where is the right stuff for health? In nature, or it is made in line with nature with health in mind. Processing should protect. It should not remove or damage the natural qualities of foods. This is true for all foods. It is most critically important for the foods that are most sensitive to damage: essential fatty acids—especially omega-3—and the foods and food oils in which you find them. The best blend of the best food oils, made with health in mind, is found in a product packaged in a dark glass bottle, within a box, in the refrigerated supplement section at natural food stores and other outlets that sell products in line with nature.

I’m speaking of Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend.

Where to Find Udo’s Oil. Health and Natural Food stores carry Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind in about forty countries.

Go to www.udoschoice.com/resellers to find distributors in other countries.

Look up www.udoerasmus.com/products for more information and broader perspectives.

We keep these websites current with the latest news, blogs, findings, and recipes.

We’re working on certain populations also having their own specific affiliate outlets, such as:

• Seniors to access Udo’s Choice products made for advanced adults with health, energy, joints, and vitality in mind (through the AARP Magazine and others sent to people 50 years old up).

• Chefs to use Udo’s Choice products in restaurant foods prepared with health and pleasure in mind. They could have their own brand.

• Spa and Beauty practitioners to use Udo’s Choice products for healthy skin, hair, and nails and for healing after cosmetic surgery.

• Trainers and Coaches to use Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for muscular development, anabolic workouts, fitness, stamina, performance, recovery, joints, and healing of “actives” and athletes.

• Pets can benefit from Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind in digestion, hair, skin, joints, energy, performance, and healing.

• Nurses to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind to patients in post-op, during recovery from illness and to support healing.

• Doctors to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind in the arenas of inflammation, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and healing from injuries, surgery, and accidents.

• Dentists to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for oral hygiene.

• Psychologists to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for depression, anxiety, learning problems, and attention deficithyperactivity disorders.

• Teachers and Schools to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind to improve alertness, focus, concentration, intelligence, memory, and students’ ability to learn.

• Psychiatrists to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind both for thought and mood disorders, including, attention deficit and hyperactivity, depression, PTSD, personality disorders, and anxiety.

• Weight Management Specialists to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind to stabilize energy, reduce cravings, help with mood, refuel with a preferable alternative to sweets and starches, and to soften skin.

• Detox Specialists to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for sweating out oil-soluble toxins, including pesticides and other industrial chemicals. They can also use this oil for detox through the administration of oil enemas.

• Corrections Officers to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for creating calmness and better social functioning in prison inmates.

• Armed Forces Trainers to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for better resilience under fire and for calmness, focus, strength, stamina, and recovery from injuries.

• First Responders to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for improved motor coordination, quicker thinking, greater muscular capability, and more rapid recovery from physical and mental stress.

• Addiction Counselors to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for making withdrawal symptoms more manageable.

• Business Managers to recommend Udo’s Choice products made with health in mind for improving mental stamina, physical energy, endurance, and less illness and absenteeism.

Only One Source? Can we Trust This? Over the past thirty plus years, people have consistently asked, “Oils are complicated. Is there one thing I can do or one product I can take that gets me everything good from fats, and nothing bad?”

Yes, there is. In fact, that question (and my omega-6 deficiency experience with flax seed oil) moved me to design, develop, license, and recommend Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend.

The blend is made by the method that my team and I developed early on, and as described previously. It is:

• Made with care

• Protected from damage done by light, oxygen, and heat

• Undamaged during processing, storage, and transport (we can’t control how people use good oils, but we do have recommendations to ensure that the oil remains intact, in its natural state, and undamaged).

• Derived from plants, which are low on the food chain

• Organic and free of pesticides

• Not treated with harsh chemicals

• Unrefined

The blend is also:

• Rich in both essential fatty acids: omega-3 and omega-6

• Balanced in the most effective ratio of omega-3: omega-6

• Intact, containing all oil-soluble ingredients present in the seeds and nuts from which this oil blend comes

• Rich in naturally occurring flavor and aromatic molecules, antioxidants, chromophores, phytosterols, polyphenols, lecithin, and other oil-related minor ingredients

• Made with health in mind

• Packaged in glass (plastic leaches into oils)

• Further protected by a box around the bottle

• Stored cold in factory and store, and hopefully in your home

• Shipped cold-packed when transit time is more than two weeks

• Never recommended for frying, but great in all hot, warm, and cold foods

• Compatible with all foods: vegetables, proteins, herbs, spices, fruits, and starches

• Optimally used at 1 Tablespoon/50 pounds (25kg) of body weight per day

• Easily mixable in foods, with your intake of the oil blend spread out over the course of the day

We started the blend in 1994 with only three out of the nine ingredients being organic, with a commitment to exchange non-organic for organic whenever it became available. Now, eight out of nine ingredients in the oil blend are organic. Vitamin E cannot be called organic because it requires substantial processing to isolate it from its natural sources.

These are the ingredients: Flax, Sunflower, Sesame, Evening Primrose, Rice germ, Oat germ, Coconut, GMO-free lecithin, and Vitamin E.

We also have several other oil blend formulas for special purposes. Check the website. What we do is a continuing work in progress.

Let me repeat a few points on how to use the oil. When you do not eat foods raw, cook them in water. Mix the oil blend in hot foods after they come off the heat. Mix the oil blend in warm and cold foods, too.

All oils are compatible with all foods, but only healthy oils will keep you healthy. Use one Tbsp (15ml; 14 grams; ~0.5 ounce) of an oil blend made with health in mind per fifty pounds (25kg) of body weight per day, mixed in foods, and spread your intake if the oil out over the course of the day. That’s about twenty-five percent of daily calories from the blend of good oils.

Many athletes take up to twice that much, and rave about how good they feel, how fast they recover and heal, how nice their skin feels, how much better their joints work, and how well they sleep. These athletes’ positive effects occur even though taking double the dose of this good oil makes up about fifty percent of their daily calories.

That sounds like a lot. But there is a natural diet that contains even more fat. The traditional Inuit’s (indigenous Arctic people) food intake contained up to sixty percent of calories from fats and oils. They did not get tissue inflammation and arthritis. They did not get diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Why could they take so much fat and oil without the dire consequences we’ve been led to expect from fat consumption?

Their oils contained omega-3 in substantial amounts. Their oils were not processed, but came from whole foods like fish, seals, walrus, whales, and other species in the marine ecosystem. What does this mean? Good oils are good for health.

Health damage from oils comes from two issues:

First, lack of one or both EFAs in the right amounts and ratio to one another, which leads to deficiency, which leads to deterioration of health and can lead to death.

Second, damage done to these most sensitive essential nutrients can make them toxic to ingest.

Optimize your intake of both EFAs. Make sure they’re not damaged. They won’t hurt your health. They will, in fact, improve it.

Eat Greens! Where green plants cannot grow, people cannot live. Greens were here long (2.5 billion years) before animals. About four billion years before mammals. Humans arrived on the scene less than three hundred thousand years ago.

Greens are the best food because they make everything you need available to you. They make the oxygen you need to breathe to live. They absorb and incorporate single atoms of minerals into biological materials that are food for you. They manufacture, from scratch, the vitamins, essential amino acids, and essential fatty acids that you must have. They also manufacture the fuel you need. They hold water in the soil. They provide materials for clothing and shelter. They trap and store sunlight. They give you shade. They create beauty. They are salads, fruits, seeds, and nuts. They grow as radishes, carrots, and other root crops. They cool summers and warm winters. They create weather and climate.

They even make the animals you eat. A cow is made from grass. The milk she gives is also made from grass. The steak is made from grass. Some people say that since a cow is made from grass, steak is just a more concentrated form of vegetables. That’s really stretching it, because long-term, steak is not as good for health as are the plant-based whole foods from which it is made.

Eat Proteins! All whole foods contain proteins. Nuts and seeds contain about twenty-five percent protein (more protein than meat, which is less than fifteentwenty percent protein and seventy-eighty percent water). Beans contain about twenty percent protein. Quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat contain about thirteensixteen percent protein. Other grains contain about eight-twelve percent protein. Green vegetables and grass contain about two-seven percent protein. When you eat only whole foods, you will not suffer from protein deficiency. Bodybuilders on steroids might require more proteins than plant-based whole foods supply, but even that is not certain. I have seen some very ripped plant-based body builders.

Eating processed foods from which nutrients, including protein, have been removed could make you protein deficient. White sugar contains zero proteins and almost zero minerals and vitamins. White flour and bread contain no essential fatty acids,

thirty percent less protein, and less minerals and vitamins than whole grains. Refined oils contain no protein either.

You need protein to build muscles, enzymes, cell structures, receptors, and signaling molecules. Proteins supply nine essential amino acids that life cannot make in your body and therefore must be brought in by foods. They also supply about eleven non-essential amino acids that life can make in your body.

Limit carbohydrate intake!: Carbohydrates are fuel. Good oils are better fuel than carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are your least important food because they are nonessential. If you eat too much sugar and/or starch, you put on weight because your body turns any carbohydrates you don’t burn into fats. Those fats will be stored for use during a famine, should there be one. If there is no famine, you stay overweight. You may even become obese, diabetic, and insulin-resistant, and die prematurely from a heart attack or stroke.

The carbohydrates you eat and burn are not the problem. The ones you eat and don’t burn are problematic, especially if they’re refined and can push blood sugar fluctuations, cravings, and swelling from water retention. Unburned carbs can also take minerals from your bones, rot your teeth, feed viral, bacterial, and fungal infections, promote the growth of cancer cells, and impair the functions of your immune system.

Good oils rich in essential fatty acids get you more than twice as much energy per gram than you get from carbohydrates. Oil energy is stable, and benefits every cell, tissue, gland, organ, and system in your body. Limit carbohydrates. Burn good oils for fuel instead. Make a switch to better fuel, better performance, and better health.

The Human Oil Change (Step by Step). It’s time to act! After all this reading, you’re going to take one of the most important steps on your healing journey. You are going to take steps to put what you have learned in practice. Knowledge is useless until you turn it into action. Application is everything. Benefits follow when you make beneficial changes.

Let me outline the steps you can take to make your oil change and get your body to hum with energy and vitality.

Notice what you are doing. Stop. For better health, what should you do instead? Do that. One change per week. Start small. Do it in three steps:

Oils:

Weeks 1 and 2

• Fry less

• Use water more

• Eat processed less

• Eat plant-based whole foods more

• Eat raw more

Weeks 3 and 4

• Fry even less

• Use even more water

• Eat processed even less

• Eat plant-based whole foods even more

• Eat even more raw

Weeks 5 and 6

• Throw out frying pan

• Use only water for cooking

• Quit eating processed foods

• Eat mostly plant-based whole foods

• Eat as much raw as possible

Water:

Weeks 1 and 2

• Drink water as soon as you wake

• Drink fewer and smaller amounts of sweet drinks and juices

• Drink cleaner water

• Drink more water

• Drink water when hungry (you may just be thirsty)

Weeks 3 and 4

• Drink cleaner water as soon as you wake

• Drink fewer and smaller amounts of sweet drinks and juices

• Drink more alkaline (pH8.5) water if plant-based

• Drink more alkaline (pH9.5) water if omnivore

• Cook foods in alkaline water

• Make coffee, tea, alcoholic drinks with alkaline water

• Drink water when hungry (you may just be thirsty)

Weeks 5 and 6

• Throw out soft drinks (don’t buy any)

• Get and install a fresh-water machine (Kangen)

• Read and follow the instructions

• Reduce, then quit using tap water for drinking and cooking

• Drink cleaner water as soon as you wake

• Drink fewer and smaller amounts of sweet drinks and juices

• Drink more alkaline (pH8.5) water if plant-based

• Drink more alkaline (pH9.5) water if omnivore

• Cook foods in alkaline water

• Make coffee, tea, alcoholic drinks with alkaline water

• Drink water when hungry (you may just be thirsty)

Air:

Weeks 1 and 2

• Dust your house: shelves, windowsills, tables, countertops

• Notice how much dust settles out of your breathing air

• Install an air filter (AirDoctor)

• Read and follow instructions

• Turn on when in the house, or leave it on all day

• Notice the difference in your ease of (clean) breathing

• Breathe fresh air in nature, especially in forests or by river, lake, or ocean

• Go for a nature or water walk every day

• Practice 3 deep inhales and exhales three times every day

• Practice a few (5, 10, 20, 60) minutes of light, calm, slow, deeply relaxed breathing at least once every day

Weeks 3 and 4

Do what you haven’t done in Weeks 1 and 2

Weeks 5 and 6

Do all of what is recommended in Weeks 1 and 2

Chapter Nineteen Growth and Change

Why should I Change? Growth

Words from one of Bob Dylan’s songs express an interesting view on change. “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

It’s been said in many other ways.

• Psychologist Alfred Adler said, “Our innermost striving is to move from a felt minus to a felt plus, a striving for perfection, a striving for God-likeness.”

• Without a vision, the people perish.

• The desire to look better, feel better, do better, and be better is your driving force. The striving for better is built into you.

• Change is not a “should”, but a given. Even if you don’t want to change, you will change. As time marches on, everything that can change will change. Only what is beyond change cannot and will not change. Life goes better when you know and accept both what changes and what does not.

Something in you strives to become better, to improve. The striving for growth is open to, and notices, what’s possible. It’s alert and tuned to growth. It reaches for brighter light. It’s inspired. That’s the feeling behind all positive change.

Those who live in inspiration find changing natural and relatively easy: It’s not a dreadful grind. It’s more like an adventure of “try and see”. It’s fun to try new things and learn from them.

My prediction is that when you give your body the oil change it needs, your skin will look better, your mood will improve, and you’ll have more energy. You’ll have fewer cravings and more stamina; it will take you longer to tire. You’ll also recover and heal quicker. In time, you will also think better, perform better physically and mentally, think more intelligently, and solve problems more effectively. And you will have less pain.

Can just an oil change do all that? Yes, and much more.

What if you don’t want to change? Then you’re fighting your own deepest impulse. That's tiring and unproductive. Let it go. It is insane to fight your life’s effort to get you to better quality.

On the other hand, sometimes, you want change without effort. That’s not going to happen. It’s not how life works. Desire, clear goals, and inspiration make effort easier.

One form of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting the results to change. The same activity guarantees the same results.

Do you know anyone who wants more pain? No. I don’t either. Everybody wants less pain. Do you know anyone who wants less joy or less energy? No. I don’t either. You want more joy and more energy. You want less inflammation and to keep cancer away. You prefer better health. You prefer more vitality. Everybody wants this.

But to have it, change is necessary. Only small changes are required. One change to natural, undamaged oils made with health in mind has one hundred and sixty benefits. It’s a small change for big gains.

Making the oil change that your body needs is no more difficult than an oil change for your car. In fact, it’s easier, because you need to decide to make the change only once and you don’t even have to wait for the damaged oil to drain out. Life will do that for you once you bring in the good undamaged oil.

You can expect greater vitality and less negativity (pain) in your body. You’ll live more safely (improvement) because you’ll focus more effectively and concentrate better. You’ll notice these changes. They’ll make you more open to even more improvements in your life. You’ll begin to want to know what is true about health and about life.

Practical Guidelines

Inspiration: Uninspired, you likely don’t feel like making the changes that improve the quality of your life. Why bother when life is boring, painful, or lousy? Inspiration is Nutrient One and it is already within you. It is your life’s energy and power, experienced. When you feel inspired, you are out of your head with all its mental fences, ruts, structures, boundaries, and blocks. Life’s central message to you, from within you, is, “I AM Come Not to Judge but to Love.” Make it a daily priority to focus on feeling inspired.

Inspiration frees energy, takes you out of your habitual thinking patterns, and makes the development of new habits much easier. You cannot feel inspired and be depressed at the same time. How amazing is that?

Empowerment: In your power, in the feeling of life, you know that anything is possible. What you set out to do will be successful. You know it is in your power to do it. You know you can, and so you do.

Education: The word “education” has Latin origins and means “to lead out”. That means to lead someone out to something. It means to lead out to an area of expertise in some subject. Education involves focusing your attention on something, observing, learning from observation, and gaining new personal knowledge about that subject. A good education puts knowledge in context. The best possible education adds the human dimension of wisdom about life and living to the contexts of your learning. It puts everything about life, living, health, people, and nature into a synchronous context. It brings perspective. Everything is connected to everything else.

Entertainment helps to add playful lightness to serious topics. Ultimately, lightness comes from the feeling of life, which is light. Life is light, and light brings enlightenment and lightness. Lightness is lit up. Being lit up is playful. Learning is fun. Kids learn more by playing than adults learn by working. That’s a hint. Play and drudgery are different only in the attitude you bring to an activity.

Information is structure created by thoughts. It is made of your language, words, ideas, concepts, and beliefs. Information also occurs in the form of images. All of these are arbitrary. All are created out of nothing. None of them are real. Until you commit your life and body to manifesting them. You imagine things into being, and then you build them.

Thoughts have no power in and of themselves. They have only the power that you give them. Symbols carry the information that you give them. When you dedicate your life energy and your body to any thought, image, or symbol, you can use these to create a new reality that did not exist before, for better or for worse.

A few years ago, I heard this insightful comment:

“There’s nothing wrong with beliefs, as long as you don’t believe them.”

Thoughts are never real or true. They’re imagined, created, invented, made up. By themselves, thoughts have no power at all. However, when you commit your personal power (life) and your body (vehicle for action) to them, thoughts establish the direction for your actions (what you will do), set your limits (what you won’t do), and determine results, outcomes, goals, destinations, and destinies (where you will end up).

Yet, if you don’t look closely, thoughts can appear to you to have power, when in fact, you have and use your power and your body to turn your thoughts into physical reality. You imagine new possibilities within your being, and then give life and body to manifest them into physical existence.

Thoughts are useful as guidelines for specific purposes, but never pretend that they are real, true, or unchangeable. Ideas are never cast in stone. Thinking is supposed to be able to change, adapting you to respond in ways that are appropriate to constantly evolving, changing situations, events, or circumstances. You need to change your mind to bring events to conclusions that can improve the quality of life for all at the expense of none.

What can I do to help you change the thoughts, habits and results that do not (or no longer) serve your inborn desire for a better quality of your life? Know this:

I’m here to inspire and empower you.

I’m here to make education enjoyable.

I’m here to provide information that reflects as closely as possible what is true to life, body, and nature.

I’m here to help you put information that reflects what is true to life, body, nature, and others into practice, by designing a method for making oils that support health.

I’m here to explain the difference between processing-damaged oils and oils made with health in mind to provide undamaged omega-3 for human consumption.

Responding to people’s request, I’m here to offer an oil blend that has everything good that you need from it for health and has nothing bad in it that interferes with this commitment.

Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend has the most effective balance of the omega-3—an essential nutrient from oils that is too low in almost everybody’s diet—and omega-6—an essential nutrient from oils that is too often damaged by processing.

Udo’s Oil is packaged in glass (plastic leaches into oil and does not belong in your body), is in a box that cuts out all damaging light, is refrigerated in the factory, store, and home, and is used in hot, warm, and cold foods, but never for frying.

My team and I do our best to make it as easy as we possibly can for you. You don’t have to be an oil chemist to get the benefits. Udo’s Oil 3,6,9 Blend gives you all the good that you need, with none of the bad, to help you get enjoyment from optimum health.

Deep Knowledge

Let me share a few philosophical considerations with you, on who you (we all) are and what you’re here for.

Out of an undifferentiated field, in which anything is possible, everything comes. First comes awareness, then energy (life), then thought (mind), then physical form (body).

Focused on the body, you’re in survival mode. But the body will not survive. That is its nature. What has form will someday lose its form. It’s nature’s law. All your efforts to survive are doomed to eventually fail, which is depressing.

Focused on the mind, you are in memory and imagination mode. But memory and imagination are not real. They will never be real. The more your efforts are mental, the crazier you are likely to become. Mind is your specific human gift and curse. That is a vast topic of conversation for another day.

Focused on awareness and life, you are in “thrive” form. Energy and awareness are formless and indestructible. They are real even though they’re invisible to your physical eyes. The more you know them experientially, the more you feel their lightness, peace, harmony, and love. In the end, that’s who you are and where you will end up. Why not cultivate that lightness now? It’s not some far-fetched dream.

Something in you already aches to know, to feel, to be, and to enjoy that indestructible lightness. It is your essence. When, in your time on Earth, you give

priority to the feeling of life, when you let that feeling inform your mind, and let your informed mind set direction, limits, and goals for your body’s actions, you end up enabling the most remarkably full, whole, wonder-filled life.

Inspiration

Many people doubt the point of trying.

“What’s the use,” they say, depressed, “when I know I’ll never be good enough (perfect)?”

Why don’t you at least do what you can? Maybe you can start by just leaning in the direction of your dreams. If you cannot do it perfectly, do what you can, as well as you can.

This reminds me of a story. Once when I was in Japan giving a talk on oils and health, a lady spoke to me about organic foods. During the conversation, she told me that she would like to eat organic eggs, but they were too expensive. Nonorganic eggs cost fifteen yen; organic eggs cost six times more, ninety yen.

“Do you know how expensive it would be if I ate organic eggs every day?” she said to make her point. “I can’t afford that.”

“Can you afford one organic egg per month?” I asked.

“Oh yes, no problem.”

“How about three?”

She said she could afford about five organic eggs a month.

“Why don’t you just do what you can?” I suggested.

She thanked me. It had not occurred to her to think that way.

Sometimes, when you cannot do something perfectly, you don’t do anything. Don’t use the inability to do something perfectly as an excuse to do nothing. Every organic egg is a boost to a more health-conscious industry, and slightly takes down an industry that cares less about health. This is what it means to “vote with your wallet.” Choice is one of your powers for positive change.

Imagine what eight billion people could do if each does just one new act that’s more in line with life every year. What about one act every month? How about one every week? What’s the collective effect of that? You and all the rest of us would rapidly transform the world.

You just need to know what to do in line with life. You could start by being still at times and enjoying the light of life within you.

Making Changes

Here’s a suggestion for something practical to do to get started. Make a list of all the positive changes you can and want to make in your life, and of the changes you want to see in the world. Then prioritize the list. Then knock them off, one at a time until you have completed each change. If you get worried about running out of things to do, you can always add new items to your list.

Transformation of the world begins with you. What you master, you can teach. And sometimes, deciding to teach motivates you to become a better learner and master of the subject you want to teach.

The more you master, the more you can teach. The more completely you master your life, the more powerful your influence will be in that direction. The more deeply you know all your being: life (feeling), mind (imagination and thought), and body (speech and action), the more resources you can share with others. You have a sphere of influence. You are the center of that sphere.

Every problem on the planet begins with a lie. What is a lie? It’s a departure from what is true to life. It obscures the truth. For each problem, there is a true solution, and infinite minus one false one.

That is why truth is so powerful. That is why truth is so important to know and tell. One truth exposes infinite minus one lies. Only from the solution does the nature of the problem become clear. Only from the truth does the nature of lies become clear. Knowing the truth makes you free.

Health Definitions

Molecules are complex, but health is simple.

Let me make a point using arithmetic. What is 2 + 2? There is only one right answer to that question. That right answer of course is 4. All other answers (infinite minus one) are wrong.

Everything, including health, is also like that. You cannot just do anything you imagine and expect healthy outcomes. It would be insane to believe that. It doesn’t work that way. It’s like wanting to have freedom without any accountability or responsibility. The fact is that every action has a consequence. Over your lifetime, your feelings lead to perceptions which lead to thoughts plus emotions which lead to words which lead to actions which lead to outcomes which lead to your destiny.

The key question to ask is, “What is health?”

Here are a few of my favorite answers with one despicable definition in the mix. Can you tell which one is wrong, wrong, wrong?

• Life is Health.

• Health is the natural state.

• Health is the absence of disease.

• Health is the presence of principles and components.

Health is the result of:

Life lived in touch with (aware of) the feeling of life (whole, cared for, free, full, content); no distractions

Body in line with nature (fresh air, water, food); no poisons

Mind thinking inclusively, globally; not “us versus them"

Social group accepting and encouraging uniqueness, talents, and contribution; free of threat of being kicked out if you don’t blindly follow the group’s (mob’s) rules

Natural environment of fresh air, fresh water, fresh earth, soil, and food; free of industrial toxins and pollutants; managed sustainably

Big picture acceptance of our temporary, terminal physical existence within infinity

To know and teach health, you must replace the presently practiced field of disease management that is misrepresented to you as health care with a teachable field of health based in nature and human nature. One that is based on first laying out sensible definitions of health that are easy to understand and simple to put into practice, and that can therefore become widely accepted.

Such a teachable, practical field is systematically organized, coherent, built on common sense, consumer-friendly, and teachable. Its purpose is to give you a platform for making wise choices regarding the nature of awareness, of life, of creative mind, of body, and of protective mind, as well as of groups, of nature, of infinity, and of emotions.

If you have never thought much about health, but have decided that it warrants your attention, you should be able to take on this teachable field of health and, at the end of going through it, understand what health is, what the parts are, what they do, what kind of and how much attention they need, how each part works, how it goes off, how to bring each part back in line, and where to access what you need in order to give each part of health its due.

The goal here is to empower you to take personal responsibility for your health, as experts have recently begun to encourage you to do; to inform and educate you with basic knowledge of your nature and its needs; to put power over health care back into your hands for when you need it, and for all people when they need it; to take health care out of the hands of those who mislead and/or fail you in order to enrich themselves.

By the time my body wears out, I want an understanding of health to be embedded in folk wisdom. It should be learned not in theory out of books, but modeled in practical activities in homes, kitchens, gardens, and nature. Children learn not by what parents say, but by what they do. Let it be so with health.

It’s worth repeating: Molecules are complex and complicated, but the principles of health are easy to understand. The project of turning health into a teachable field based in nature and human nature is now well underway. I’ll let you know when the book with all the details is done.

Chapter Twenty What’s Next? Big Picture & Conclusions

Vision For the Future

For the past forty years, we have worked our butts off to make sense of the confusion surrounding the topic of fats. This information is now clear. We know the benefits of good oils. We know how much we need. We know how they need to be made, treated, and used. We know how many people could benefit. We know the story that we can tell about good oils. What remains to be done is to design the necessary educational approaches that will convince those not already on board to give them a try.

The practical goal of this project is to have a bottle of good oils in every fridge. That bottle should replace the damaged oils now being used. Remember that the body needs an oil change, just like the car. Take out the dirty oils that wreck the engine. Bring in clean oils that make the motor run smooth. Instead of using oils that increase cancer and inflammation in the preparation of foods, good oils made with health in mind can bring hundreds of health benefits.

To achieve the goal of a bottle of good oils in every household’s fridge requires us to transform ourselves from closet-type inventors to public marketing machines. It is a great challenge for us, and we’re in the process of that transformation.

In the previous chapter, you learned about developing a teachable field of health (systematically organized, coherent, practical, teachable, founded on commonsense and consumer-friendly). It is part of a larger project about human nature and how we live on this small fragile planet. That project examines field, life, mind, body, and mood in the contexts of society, nature, and the undifferentiated field.

We live in a time of personal, individual transformation. Our survival past this century and our “thrival” or flourishing after that depend on us changing. Truth is, we don’t need to change. We need only to discover more of what we already are. As we discover more of our being, our behavior will naturally change in line with our insights into life and living. Deeper knowledge, deeper wisdom, and deeper appreciation of (internal, personal, experiential) life are the most important, and so far, most neglected topics of all time.

Ignorant of our depth, we’ve invented a world from the mind. That world is flawed in its inception and cannot be fixed. We must start from scratch. What is “scratch” in this context? It is knowledge of the heart. It is feeling content, whole, calm, real, wise, loved, and cared for in the core of our being.

Feeling cared for, you are free to do what needs to be done from a place of care. Feeling fulfilled in yourself, you can be selflessly helpful. Feeling free in life, you are free to know what needs to be done, and to do it because it needs to be done, not because it will (you hope) take care of you, make you feel fulfilled, give you freedom, or make you money.

From that place of feeling whole, you can invent a world from the heart. One that, from its inception, is created with the intention of working to take care of every human being and all of nature. That would be a new way for humanity to work. It has rarely been modeled by individuals, but it has never been tried on a large scale.

A world from the heart allows us to build new systems that serve all of life and all humans on the planet. Among the systems that we need to reinvent from the heart are the following: Health, peace, education, environment, energy, justice, politics, finances, and more. It is a project that needs ‘all hands on deck’. It is a cooperative project for eight billion people.

Each one of you is on the team. Each of you can do what you can with what you know and what you have. Each of you can learn more. Each of you can lean into your own inner self-discovery, from which you can help invent that world from the heart.

What is the prerequisite for inventing a world from the heart? Let me repeat it. Be committed and able to get in touch with the heart, live aware of the heart, and stay aware of the heart in your feeling, thinking, deciding, speaking, and doing.

This is possible for the heart. It is profoundly simple, hopeful, important to know, and promising. Once you know—and to be perfectly clear, this knowing is in feeling, not in words— you will feel loved, fulfilled, and cared for by life. That is the starting point of wholeness from which you can examine two other profoundly important questions:

What is possible from the human heart?

What is impossible from the human heart?

The answers to these will define what takes place on this planet going forward. They will determine whether humanity survives. They can take us from barely surviving to fully thriving. They will decide whether other creatures more in line with life and nature will replace us.

A world from the heart must be based on what is true to life, according to life, about all major topics: The “Field”; Life; Nature; Human Nature; Body; Mind; Emotions; Health; Peace; Race; Gender; Age; Education; Energy; Justice; Equality; Politics; Finances. It includes all other issues on this planet. Start with this list and keep expanding it.

The Only Problem

An inquiry into the problems on this planet reveals that we are the only problem here. “We have seen the enemy, and them is us,” said the cartoon character Pogo. We created all the problems that we have.

An inquiry into what about us makes us the problem reveals that our central issue is that we have lost our connection with life and, unlike animals and plants, can live in

the unreality of imaginary or virtual substitutes for full personal presence in our space. By committing life and body to what we imagine only in our minds, we can invent realities that never existed in the known universe.

Although marketers of inventions always promise a better life, these inventions don’t deliver that better life. All have negative side effects on the body and on nature. Many create more problems than they solve. We keep chasing new sources of fool’s gold.

In truth, we have more than everything. It’s ironic that we miss that part. We imagine ourselves out of noticing that we have everything.

Imagination: A Blessing and a Curse

From the curse come all our destructive thoughts, beliefs, plans, intentions, and actions, and their dire consequences, which threaten us all. We live disconnected from our life and from nature. This disconnection took place early in our lives. We all live deeply disconnected from the core of our being.

The reconnection must also take place deep in the core of our being, in that part of us that is free of culture, free of belief, free of judgment, and free of conflict. It takes place deep in our biology because it has biological roots. It is in the part of us that is in complete alignment with life and with nature.

You have one life. Not much time. There is a lot to be and to know. From there, you’ll do what you can with what you have.

You can’t give what you ain’t got. You can’t teach what you haven’t learned.

Learn and teach.

Global: What are the Possibilities?

Eight billion people live on planet earth at the time of this writing. We’ve been told it’s only 7.5 billion, but the census measures are not perfect. Official census takers miss many people, especially in China (second children) and India (lack of precision), but also in Africa (porous borders between nations), many parts of Asia (tropical tribes, many islands), some parts of Europe (unfortified borders), big stretches of Central and South America (rain forest dwellers, slums), and even in super-organized North America (undocumented immigrants). When you include all those not counted, you end up close to eight billion. That’s why I use that number.

The Global Mission

My intent, for the time I have, is to help as many people as possible, in whatever way I can, to know from their own personal, internal experience that

• Eight billion people could each live lit up from within, because the light of life is already within each of us, and it is merely a matter of looking into it instead of looking away from it. When we do that, we’ll feel perfectly cared for,

because life always cares for us unconditionally, through all our dramas, traumas, crises, and circumstances.

• Feeling cared for, eight billion people can live in harmony with each other, because we can let others also live their lives without feeling the need to interfere with them or steal their stuff. When we know how good it feels to be alive, we have time and space for every human being’s same possibility.

• Eight billion people could have all basic needs for sunshine, air, water, food, clothing, and shelter met, because these needs are easily met by nature’s existing resources and the generosity that radiates from the sun and from living lit up from within.

The reason we hang on to things we don’t need is that, deep down, we feel discontent because of our disconnection from life, and we fear that if we gave away even what we don’t need, we will feel even more discontent. Once we feel cared for, it is our nature to give what we don’t need to those who need it. No sacrifice is needed. We take what we need to meet our basic needs, and let others have what we don’t need.

A radio host interviewed me once about this topic. She was blown away by what I said, and asked, “What motivates you to do what you’re doing?”

“What motivates the sun to shine?” I asked her back, and then answered it for her. “No motivation is needed for the sun to shine. Shining is its nature.”

Human beings are like the sun. When we feel cared for because we’re connected to the unconditional love of life energy for our body, it is our nature to help, to do what needs to be done, and to make the biggest splash for good that is possible for the one body we each inhabit and the time we have on Earth.

The Noblest Cause

Is any greater mission possible for human beings than the three-pronged statement of purpose above? Deep in our hearts, we all want heart-centered clear thinking. Really deep down, we know that all human beings deserve the best. That is humanity’s highest common denominator. This is what we exist, live, and shoot for. Even if it were impossible, it would still be our noblest cause and most positive aim.

Possible in Practice

All this really is possible in practice. As a child in Europe during the second world war, I did not conceive of it, but over the past seventy plus years, I’ve discovered (with the help of some remarkable teachers) that we are biologically wired for this possibility. I know and have already experienced living in fear, anxiety, and terror. They motivated me to look, listen, and learn. Everything for a heaven on earth

already exists here. This is the better alternative to drifting into conflict and sliding into war.

At a recent talk, I spent five minutes outlining my three-point mission and gave some of my practical definitions for health (the life part, mind part, and body part). After the talk, participants surrounded me with questions. They felt inspired.

One question came up more than any other.

“How can I be on your team?”

Their interest should not have surprised me, but it did. Maybe some of you reading this might feel that way, too.

The Global Team

Here’s how I see it. We’re all, each of us, already members of the global team for the three-fold purpose. We are just at different levels of competency. How is the team doing? Some members are doing very well. Others are still stumbling over their own feet. Still others are confused, getting in the way, and blocking others’ path forward. What is your level of team competence?

All team members have homework to do on themselves. We are all and will always be works in progress. All can deepen their connection to life, nature, and human nature. All can work on living more in line with life, nature, and human nature. All can be an inspiration for others.

The ache in our heart to feel whole, content, and cared for is our innermost driving force. None of us need to be browbeaten, forced, or coerced by anyone else in that direction, with whips, rules, and threats. The most effective action that we each can take is to sit with the ache, feel it, deepen our connection, knowledge, and appreciation of the magnificence of life, be an example of the possibilities that come from living lit up from within, and let that light shine on everyone and everything we meet. Every effort in that direction, small or large, helps the team.

Life’s Purpose; Not Ego’s Purpose

Is this three-pronged purpose my purpose? No, this is not my personal, invented, ego-driven, privately owned purpose. It is much, much bigger than I am. It is life’s purpose. I am one team member of life’s purpose. It is a universal purpose, carried out through human beings in line with nature and human nature.

The Role of Money in Life’s Purpose

It is not my get-rich scheme. Will it involve money? Of course. Life’s purpose involves everything in the world. But money is not the motivation. I’m 80 years old, and I have more than enough to live on for my remaining time here. My needs have been more than met. Life loves me unconditionally, every moment of every day. I’m

the richest person I know. I strive to feel the opulence of life more and more deeply, and more and more broadly beyond the limits of my physical body.

When we depart from this world, we take only a heart fulfilled with us. We leave everything else here: body, stuff, and ideas. When money comes to our teams, we enroll it in this purpose. We’ll direct it to causes, which, in line with life’s grand mission, can use support to grow. Or it will go to charities in line with this grand mission.

A History with Money

For most of my life, I was good at living without money. I even took pride in how little I could get by with. One time, just for fun, I wanted to find out what it would be like to cross the country (Toronto to Vancouver) without money, so I gave all the money I had—I think it was $1.48—to a homeless man and hitchhiked across the country without a penny in my pocket. It was a rich, magic-filled adventure with what you might call “cosmic” surprises. I have many stories on the topic, but for another time.

My family lost everything during the second world war, and had very little after that war, but I don’t remember ever feeling poor. Never having felt poor, I never thought much about financial goals. Making oils with health in mind and flax seed oil was something that needed to be done. That was my reason for doing it. I thought of getting it done as my payoff. I also had the trust that we would share whatever came out of it, and we were probably going to work together for the rest of our lives. That’s not what happened. After less than three years, flax seed oil was a going concern, and I was out of the company.

I had a few weeks of near-suicidal depression. I felt betrayed and, for some time, was unable to shake my attachment to that feeling of betrayal. My heart was hurt and closed. I remained depressed until, as I said before, a wise mentor responded to my lament and despair and told me to continue working with flax. My heart opened into gratitude by the kindness he extended to me and began to heal my wounded emotions.

Consult someone who is not upset when you’re upset. Be open to their clarity and make best use of it.

Despite myself, my income has slowly increased over time. And I continue to immensely enjoy my life’s purpose of creating better quality of life for more and more people globally, doing bigger and bigger projects.

Money is NOT the Source of Happiness

Anyone who believes that money (or more money) would make them happy (or happier) is living in delusion. Anyone who thinks that their money, which did not make them happy, would make anyone else happy, is missing the point. Money, some people say, does not buy you happiness, but will buy you a better brand of misery.

The truth is different. Money with heart can bring improvement. Heart without money can bring improvement. Money without heart does little good.

Why is that? Lack of heart is the source of our problems. More heart, with or without money, is the solution to our problems. More heart makes every problem better.

Whom Can You Trust with Money?

Only those people whose purpose is to serve life (and not just saying that) will use money wisely to protect, support, and care for life, body, nature, and others, which is the only sane use of money’s power.

Only people who don’t need money, and don’t revolve their life around money can be trusted with it.

Life and Money

Money adds nothing whatsoever to life. Life is whole, perfect, content, wise, and unconditionally caring, loving, and kind, and needs nothing added to it. Mahatma Gandhi said that money created poverty. Among animals, there is no poverty. They hoard nothing but have the use of everything.

Ownership

What view on ownership is possible for content human beings? Each of us owns everything within our sphere of perception. We each own everything. But this ownership is unique. We each own everything in a way that is nonexclusive, noncompetitive, and temporary. In this kind of ownership, all people get to enjoy everything, but without ownership papers and without preventing others from also enjoying it.

When we live our lives feeling cared for by life, this kind of ownership is completely natural. When we don’t feel cared for by life, this kind of ownership is completely impossible, and we will steal, confiscate, and kill for bits of the earth and nature that the universe gave us all as gifts to use and enjoy for free.

Pretense Around Money

Money just adds something to the pretense of ownership of things outside of us. When we use money to protect, support, and care for life, body, nature, and others, it’s a blessing. When we use money in any other way, it is destructive. Note, however, that it is not the money, but what we make up and structure in our mind to do with it that is the blessing or the curse.

Life’s Purpose Greater than One Person’s

Is this my mission and purpose? Not exactly. It is life’s purpose for individuals and for humanity. Am I the leader? No, I am not its leader. Please don’t think so. Life is the mission leader. Life in every single living human being is the mission leader. Each

of us can ask life: How close am I in my experience, thoughts, words, and actions to this purpose of life? Each one of us can practice getting closer.

Each one of us can commit to live more closely and deeply in touch with the leader within that goes with us wherever we go. That’s the only way that this team becomes more effective. Each of us is in the best position to invest in our own skill level and competence. Any person can commit to being life-present, life-filled, lifemotivated, life-directed, and life-supporting. We can each and all become experts in self-awareness that makes knowledge more accessible, discoverable, and apparent.

Life the Selfless Leader

What I like about this is that no individual person is “the one” everyone must follow. Life does not play favorites. Life does not work for money. Life never goes on strike for better wages. Life never misleads us. Life gives everything freely as a gift. Life gets no special privileges (and wants, needs, or asks for none). Life is not limited to any set of beliefs but is real beyond all beliefs.

Life is the king, prince, ruler, master, lover, servant, benevolent dictator, president, prime minister, sovereign, Royal Highness, CEO, and head of state of each individual human being. Everyone has his or her perfect loving ruler built in. Just look, listen, and feel inward to get that ruler’s message. Life has no fake ego constructed from illusion, delusion, or confusion. Life cannot be corrupted from its unconditional care for our body and mind.

Global Access to a Perfect Leader

Every living person has equal access to this powerful ruler, no matter where they live or what their circumstances are. No one living is left out for any reason. No one is better than another. Life enlivens eight billion living people equally. In life, there is race, gender, and age equality. Living in touch with life, there is no crime, violence, murder, or war. We already live in heaven on earth. We know it the moment we get in touch with what already is.

The more we feel it, the more we like it. The more we feel it, the more clearly we see that there is no other way to get there. It can be done within just a few years, or it can take another million years. Up to us. Completely up to each one of us as individuals. This is our highest purpose. Manifested globally, it’ll be humanity’s greatest accomplishment.

We know how to make it happen. If we don’t know, we can ask. To ask, we first find within ourselves the place that wants to know. The desire to know exists within us. The knowledge also exists. It is ready for us when we are ready for it. The world is wired for it. We are also under pressure to embrace this possibility.

Life’s leadership is not a purpose that involves banks, loans, investments, and profits. It has nothing to do with money. It has only to do with every person’s enjoyment of the experience of the richness of the heart.

Life rules all rulers. Life is the king of kings. When we embrace it, we will be and feel richer than funds could ever make us.

The Materialistic Delusion

One more thought about this incredible team led by life. In the materialistic viewpoint, which is the dominant theme in most of politics, religions, science, and cultures, life is merely a by-product of the body and brain. It is nothing special, just an electric blip.

The materialistic viewpoint supports the human-made external hierarchies that have controlled, exploited, and terrorized the world and its people for the past two hundred thousand years.

Since the ruler is internal, equal, and identical in every human being and we each live aligned with that inner ruler (beyond the limits of words, in feeling), we can live together with few external rulers. Then, we don’t need a tone of laws, institutions, destructive philosophies, soldiers, police, courts, and enforcers to threaten, manipulate, control, and/or kill us. And we don’t need heartless punishments that miss the point of helping each other make the most of our inner journey into the rich, full experience that has always been life’s possibility and promise to each child that’s born, life’s gift to us.

Fulfilled and Cared For

Someone who is content and feels fulfilled and cared for has no need to take things from or take things out on others. They feel no need to control or force others’ behaviors. They respect people’s wishes to be free to be. They trust the thirst of the heart to feel fulfilled, and make knowledge of that thirst a part of global education. No one ever abuses others from a place of feeling cared for by LIFE. Strong statement? Let me tell you another story.

A Story

One summer evening recently, I gave a short talk. It was on personal peace and contentment, and my audience was diverse and mostly young. It included spiritually focused, business-oriented, health-minded, and political buffs. In the talk, I expressed the thought that contentment is priority number one for anyone who wants to live a full life.

At the end of my talk, a woman raised her hand to ask me a question.

“I hope,” she said, “that with all this talk about peace, you are also against violence against women. Are you?”

Perfect question.

My answer, “I know of no act of violence ever perpetrated, in the entire history of human beings, against any woman by any person during a moment in which that person felt completely content. Violence comes out of discontent.

To end violence against women and violence against anyone, we need to commit to the overarching goal of making contentment real globally.”

For both genders.

In the short term, we can use other, protective, means. But so long as we forget the overarching goal of contentment for both genders, there will never be an end to violence against women.

That’s the power of contentment. You can make that same point when you address every problem existing on the planet.

Do you know anyone who abuses others while feeling content? Frustrated, thwarted people sometimes abuse other people. Dissatisfied, disappointed people sometimes abuse others. Angry, raging, hateful people sometimes abuse others. Fearful, frightened people sometimes abuse others. Terrified people sometimes abuse others. People in pain or grief over loss sometimes abuse others.

Happy, fulfilled people do not abuse others. People who feel loved by life do not abuse others. The pursuit of inner contentment through inner connection to the feeling of life is the single most important perpetual growth industry of all time for all human beings.

Our State of Being Informs and Defines Our Perception

Let me make one other point. It’s about how our state of being informs our perception. It’s about how our state of being, in fact, creates our perception and our world. Consider the following expression:

“Peace is Everywhere, But Only Peace Perceives it.”

If a person does not perceive peace to be everywhere, it’s because the peace in that person is not doing the observing.

Our personal, moment-to-moment state of being, informs and defines our perception of ourselves, other people, nature, and the world. In practice, our perception of ourselves, other people, nature, and the world is an automatic extension of our personal, moment-to-moment state of being.

We see the world, not as the world is, but as we are. There’s a saying: “You can’t BUT bring your state of being to expression. You can cultivate different states of being, but the expression of whichever one you occupy is automatic.”

“Happy people feel, find, attract, and create happiness. Paranoid people feel, find, attract, and create paranoia. Discontent people feel, find, attract, and create discontent. Relaxed people feel, find, attract, and create relaxation. Suppressed

people feel, find, attract, and create suppression. Content people feel, find, attract, and create contentment. Angry people feel, find, attract, and create anger. Lit up people feel, find, attract, and create lit-up-ness. Fulfilled people feel, find, attract, and create fulfillment. Dishonest people feel, find, attract, and create dishonesty. Confident people feel, find, attract, and create confidence. Miserable people feel, find, attract, and create misery.”

Life made every state of being available to us. Each state of being is part of our nature. Moment to moment, we choose one or another state of being, usually triggered as a reaction to outside events that we filter through concepts that were forced on us as children, and that we accepted and memorized to survive.

When we choose to enter the light of our being, we find that our state of being is independent. We are not victims of the external world’s influences. We can live in the light of our being, no matter what’s happening on the outside. In our “independence,” we find our power. In our power, we find our freedom. Then we can help others to also find their power and their freedom.

Other States of Being, Other Words

We could use any of the following words to describe a few other states of being and emotional states: greedy, reality-based, realistic, whole, light, envious, hateful, present, wise, raging, lustful, manipulative, magnificent, blessed, ecstatic, fearful, sad, grieving, heartless, compassionate, forgiving, vindictive, violent, calm, oppressive, pure, accepting, threatened, kind, deprived, victimized, bullying, fair, abused, just, pretentious, humble, loud, addicted, proud, simple, quiet, hurt, and many others.

Instead of the word “happy” or “peace” you could use any of the words in the above paragraph, and the general statement that “xxxx people feel, see, attract, and create xxxx” would still make sense.

The key point is: We always find “out there” the state of being that we occupy “in here”. The ramifications of knowing and identifying how our personal, private, inner state of being or our emotional state determines, defines, and constructs our world and the way we live in that world are profound.

Importance of Finding and Feeling Loved by Life

Every single one of us is unconditionally loved by life. Every moment of every day, through all our situations, dramas, circumstances, and traumas. Love is everywhere within us, around us and between us. It is truly magnificent! Our essential being is love, and we are magnificent. You’re loved by life. Feel loved by life.

There has never, ever been anything wrong with us. We may have felt disconnected. We may have thought mean thoughts. We may have spoken inappropriate words. We may have behaved in an unkind or unloving way. Even so, there has never, ever been anything wrong with us.

The Essence of Your Being

How can that be? Because we are not our feelings. We are not our thoughts. We are not our words. We are not even our behavior. We are life in our essence. There has never, ever been anything wrong with life. Life has always been whole, content, kind, and loving.

If that’s true, where do negative feelings, thoughts, words, and actions come from?

They originate from the pain and discontent that results when we disconnect our awareness from the life that we, in our essential being, are. Reconnection of our awareness to the essence of our being, where our contentment is embedded, is the only way forward to a life of wholeness, fulfillment, and feeling cared for.

Out of that feeling, we feel better and think, speak, and act less destructive and more constructive for the good of all, globally.

Global Goal of Human Evolution

If there is a global goal for human evolution, it must be to get to the place in everyone’s being from which all people can live together in harmony, with the basic needs for light, air, water, food, clothing, shelter, safety, acceptance, and sustainability of all met, with no one left out. The kingdom of heaven on earth begins with our reconnection to the core of our essential being.

A Foundation of Peace

Peace is a personal issue before it is a social issue. The feeling of real peace is embedded in life. It is the core feeling of every human being. Peace is the foundation of life.

Prosperity without Peace Leads to Chaos

A profoundly wise speaker once said that “prosperity without peace leads to chaos”.

Is it true? Sure, it is. The head terrorists in most countries are rich people. Think Osama bin Laden. Think ISIS. Also, think Russia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Libya.

But also think, at different times, of Germany, the UK, the USA, and Israel. Very rich countries create wars and chaos because they are prosperous but without personal peace as their innermost foundation or highest agenda.

War is not a Poor Man’s Game

Most wars in history were not driven by poverty. Affluent people with time on their hands start most wars. Think about arms races and defense budgets. These are not paid for by poverty and starvation. They’re based on spending priorities of affluent, power- and influence-hungry people with business ambitions, government interests, and religious imperialist agendas. These do, however, often create poverty and starvation.

The richer you are, the more means you have. The more means you have, the more damage you can do when you set peace-free, heartless agendas for your activities and actions. The richer you are and the more means you have, the more it becomes important to make the peace that has biological roots within each human being your foundation and guiding principle. Otherwise, you will, sooner or later, use your riches and means for destructive purposes that lead to chaos.

With personal peace comes calmness. With calmness comes the ability to perceive without bias. With unbiased perception comes clarity. Clarity leads to actions appropriate to situations. Appropriate actions bring beneficial results. Beneficial results bring prosperity. Prosperity follows peace. Prosperity does not precede peace.

“More money, houses, status, power, influence, or any one or more items on a long list of stuff will bring me peace," many people say.

But it doesn’t work that way. Peace has nothing to do with “stuff”. Personal peace is a feeling in your core state of being.

That feeling is foundational and biological in its nature. It is completely independent of any outer circumstances. Personal peace depends only on whether your awareness is in touch with itself, with consciousness. Peace is the nature of consciousness, which is the formless, indestructible, eternal ground of humans as well as the universe’s existence.

From personal peace, you can make good practical decisions in all areas of your life and, with consistent effort over time, build great fortunes. Peace is the foundation of full, rich, empowered lives.

Water Energy: Sustainability and Our Most Important Molecule

Water is the most important molecule on Earth. Why? It is more important than oxygen because water is indispensable for every creature that lives here, and the fact that creatures live here is what makes this a special planet in the known universe. All bacteria need water to live. All plants need water to live. All animals need water to live. All humans need water to live. Without water, there’d be no life on this planet.

Some people think that oxygen is more important than water. This is not true because many bacteria and most plants can live without oxygen. But none can live without water. For animals and humans, of course, oxygen is vitally important, and we cannot live without it. But because no creature can live without water, water is the more important of these two molecules.

Energy

As a species, human beings are super-addicted to energy. It heats or cools our houses. It does our physical labor. It fuels our transportation. It lights our streets and

buildings. It powers all our gadgets. For the past one hundred years, our energy needs have been fulfilled mainly by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.

The huge lethal downside of fossil fuels has become really apparent only in the past fifty years. It’s not the CO2 they produce, or the acidification of the environment, or the extremes of temperatures, and not even the warming trend of climates and the spreading desertification, that is the greatest danger from burning fossil fuels. The greatest downside is that they burn up the oxygen that you need to breathe to live.

Oxygen Burners

Cars alone, worldwide, now burn up to four times more oxygen each day than all the people on the planet burn by breathing. This number does not include trains, planes, ships, and trucks, or construction and farm equipment. How much more oxygen do these burn up?

It excludes the air burned up by food animals, which is about five times more than the world’s human population breathes. It also excludes forest fires, accidents, deliberate explosions, suicide bombings, and wars, all of which are increasing. Fossil fuels, our main source of energy, is now turning on us.

It does not account for how much less oxygen is being made by trees. In the past ten thousand years, we have decreased the number of trees on the planet from ten trillion to 2.5 trillion; down seventy-five percent. Some suggest we’re down almost ninety percent. Does it make a difference? How could it not make a difference? Trees cool summers and warm winters. They moderate extremes of weather and climate. They hold water and carbon. If you want to do your bit to deal with climate change, do less, but plant more trees. To plant 7.5 trillion trees, every living man, woman, and child would have to plant one thousand trees.

Recently, wind and solar energy have become small meals to help fill our gluttony for more energy. Atomic energy is declining, mainly because of the poisonous nature of radioactive elements. Hydrothermal power is the main source of energy for Iceland.

Our Source of Energy

A small amount of energy comes from the hot, molten interior of the planet itself. But the sun is the main source of surface energy, and the main energy source for living creatures.

Chemical Energy

The chlorophyll of all green plants on the surface of the planet traps solar energy, which ends up stored in the bonds between atoms that make the molecules of microbial, plant, and animal biology. Solar energy is also stored in carbon-based and carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuels that burn up the oxygen you need to breathe. Oxygen is a waste product of the photosynthesis process in plants, and you breathe and live on that waste product.

When plants die and are buried, the oxygen they made remains in the atmosphere as oxygen molecules. If plants die and are not buried, they rot. In the rotting process, plants use up again all the oxygen they made while living.

Animals and humans eat plant molecules and breathe oxygen, and these two react together (oxidize) in the body. The result is that the molecules break down into water and carbon dioxide, and the sunlight energy is released in your cells for chemical reactions. In other words, life (or life energy) is solar energy that powers chemical reactions in the space your body occupies.

Direct Solar Energy

The sun also directly warms air, water, and earth during the day, and that energy is slowly lost into the atmosphere at night.

Water Cycle Energy

Solar energy also evaporates water from oceans, lakes, and rivers. The water vapor rises in the atmosphere. It condenses into clouds. The wind blows the clouds over land. When mountains force clouds upward into even colder temperatures, the water eventually condenses into droplets and falls as rain, snow, sleet, and hail. Once it hits the ground, water begins a liquid journey downhill pulled by gravity until it merges back into the ocean from which it came.

This is the water cycle. It is natural and perpetual. It has been here, uninterrupted, for billions of years. It is one of the most reliable sources of energy. It has the least negative side effects. Water, properly managed, with the benefit to all in mind, can solve more global issues than any other substance on this planet.

Problems Addressed by Water

What global problems can water address? I’m glad you asked. It can address most of the greatest global ones. These include:

• Drought, desertification, crop failure, hunger, and starvation

• Thirst and dehydration

• Irrigation of food crops and other plants during dry spells

• Growth of green plants, which make fuel, nutrients, and oxygen

• Mellowing of temperatures, weather, and climate

• Removal of carbon dioxide from oceans and atmosphere

• Replenishment of oxygen to our breathing air, to replace the oxygen that is lost when we burn carbon-based fossil fuels (biofuels like alcohol, methane, and others are also carbon-based) for energy

• Carbon incorporation into green plants and roots

• Cooling the planet by absorption of heat

• Water storage to replenish diminishing water tables

• Heat and fire management

• Recreation: Swimming, diving, skating, hockey, skiing, surfing, windsurfing, boating, sailing, other water sports, fishing, transport, splashing around, and floating on inner tubes

• Conflicts and wars over scarce water, food, and land resources in many regions

• Many different, sustainable kinds of hydropower energy production are possible: hydropower dams, run-of-river, wave and tide energy, surface-flow harnessing, underwater turbines, drilled rock tunnel diversions of water flow for power production, waterfalls, and more

Principle

The principle of intelligent global water management is simple:

Slow down the rate at which fresh water that falls on land returns to the ocean.

There are many ways of doing it. Here are just two of them:

1. For energy, harness the energy of water’s downhill flow.

2. For drought, crop growth, land, and re-greening, move water from where there’s excess to where it’s scarce.

The principle is simple, but the project is huge. Globally, energy is a twenty trilliondollar annual industry, and it’s going up rapidly. Globally, water (hydro-electric) power could replace all other power sources except sunlight itself, with the least pollution and impacts on nature, in all places that have mountains, creeks, lakes, and rivers.

Many ways to harness waterpower do not require building huge dams across valleys. Water’s power can be harnessed with small environmental impacts.

Payoff

The payoff for converting from fossil fuels back to water is huge. Unlike natural gas, which eats up your oxygen, produces carbon dioxide and other fumes from burning carbon-based fuels (ads tell a different story), and is fracked, which has been shown in many places to be highly toxic to livestock and people, water is clean.

Most continents have mountain complexes that can generate the waterpower needed. In the few places that have no rivers to harness, wind and solar panels can make up the shortfall.

Water is the most important power source, not because there are no others, but because it is the cleanest. And, it has so many other important functions in nature and for health. It deserves more attention than any other environmental issue.

In the Age of Aquarius, let us all become water bearers.

Definitions and Goals

When you clearly define a goal, it becomes reachable. Without a clear goal definition, you don’t really know where you’re going. If you arrived by accident, you would not know that you had arrived. A goal remains unknown to you so long as you leave it undefined.

Let me say it another way. When you set a standard, you’re defining a goal. Once you set and commit to it, you notice every time you fall short. Learning results from each failure. Eventually, you achieve the standard you set as your goal.

The Nature of Journeys

To take a purposeful journey, you need a clearly defined goal, but you need one more thing. You also need a clearly defined starting point.

A clearly defined goal and starting point make the direction for your journey clear, define the steps you need to take, make the endpoint recognizable, and make evaluation and measurement of the effectiveness of each step and of your overall strategies for getting there possible. Is what you are doing getting you closer or farther from it? Are you getting colder, warmer, or hot hot hot? You would not know without knowing your goal, your starting point, and your direction.

Knowing both the starting point and the destination, you can see that the direction for your journey is the line you draw between the start point and the finish line. Then you can deliberately design the individual steps you need to take to get to your goal. You also know the steps that you should not take. Steps backward or sideways may not help you get to your goal.

The nature of journeys also applies to matters of health. You must have a clearly defined goal of health to shoot for. What exactly does health look like? You must also know your starting point. Where are you? Using highly sophisticated diagnostics, you can determine your starting point (symptomatically, but maybe not causally) with good accuracy. You can identify the symptoms of disease, which is a departure from health.

But you still lack a clear, step-by-step, practical, actionable definition of health. Health remains a vague concept. You don’t know exactly where you want to go. You

don’t have a clear track to follow. You don’t know how to get there. You don’t know when you’ve arrived.

You don’t know what exactly health looks like. You don’t know the principles of health. You don’t know all the component parts of health. You don’t know how to get started. Confused by your ignorance, you put yourselves into the hands of experts in disease symptom management, who also don’t know what health is.

Business Journeys

You know about goals and starting points in business. No one could have invented a cell phone without knowing the principles by which it allows us to communicate with specific people far away or without the collection of components that are necessary to make this gadget. No one would even try to invent one without clear knowledge of the principles and components.

Why not apply this simple, practical logic to the nature-made gadget that is the human being? In two hundred thousand years of big-brained smartness, we’ve been less than intelligent about the principles and components of our health.

“Deliberate” Effort

Deliberate is also called intentional, conscious, premeditated, intended, calculated, purposeful, systematic, willful, planned, painstaking, measured, meticulous, and thoughtful.

Deliberate is when we act with a specific goal in mind. When we keep goals in mind despite distractions, that’s deliberate. To set and pursue high standards rather than accommodating lower, more convenient ones is deliberate. Reaching for something better or higher needs to be deliberate. It requires more effort to raise standards. We do not drift uphill to the top of the mountain.

When we drift, we go downhill. If we drift long enough, we end up in the gutter. Drift comes from lack of effort, or from not going the extra mile.

Raising standards requires deliberate effort. Building to higher standards requires extra effort. Uphill always requires extra effort. Challenge requires extra effort. Excellence requires extra effort. Why do that? Extra effort leads to the enjoyment of greater quality of life. We can decide to fall in love with making the extra effort. So, let’s do it.

Lower standards require less effort. Higher standards demand more of us. What standards have we set for ourselves to live by? What standards do we want to set? Are we ignoring standards in any area of our life? Would it be helpful to raise standards in any area of our life?

In the high-standards areas of our life, things generally go well. In low-standards areas of your life, things tend to go less well. We tend to have more problems in our

low-standards areas. In areas of life in which we’ve set no standards, things tend to go downhill. Then, other people or institutions set standards for us.

Institutions never set really high standards. They set minimum or adequate standards. Higher standards come from inspired, passionate, single individuals. Inspiration and passion free our energy for increased efforts.

Conclusions and Highlights

We have come full circle in a summary of over forty years of work on oils: their nature and functions, our intake status, what is essential, their sensitivity to damage, how to make them, how much to take, how to package, store, ship, and use them with care, how to get all the good with none of the bad, why even good fish oils are not enough, why flax oil is unbalanced, why we call carbohydrates “undeclared fats”, what benefits good oils can have for health, and why our body needs an oil change.

We also discussed sources, applications, and how to get all they can give. We talked about where to find them, and about the one-stop product in the fridge.

I hope this book is helpful to you in practical ways to guide you in making the oil change that leads to a fuller, healthier, and more enjoyable time on Earth.

This is a review of four decades of effort to raise oil production standards, bring back the inadequately supplied omega-3, obtain omega-6 undamaged by processing or food preparation, and put this work, large as it is, into perspective.

I hope you enjoyed this journey as much as I did. It is my great pleasure to have shared it with you.

You can use this information to make a better life for yourself, your spouse, your family, your place of work, your community, your city, your country, your continent, your world, and your planet. In other words, your entire sphere of influence.

If you act on this information by making the oil change your body needs, you will benefit immensely.

APPENDIX 1

The 15 Categories of Physical Health

01. Life Energy: The life, light, or solar energy that powers you. I use these terms interchangeably when I speak of this category and its roles in your physical health. You cannot live for even a split second without this energy.

02. Oxygen: Your most precious atom. Animals require it for life, but plants can make it from carbon dioxide. Without oxygen, you die within a few minutes. Oxygen is more than sixty percent of your body by weight. Over your lifetime, you will absorb into your body about eighteen tons of free oxygen from the air that you breathe.

03. Water: Your most precious molecule. It makes up seventy percent of your body and ninety-nine percent of the molecules in your body. Without it, you die within 7-8 days. More than eighty-eight percent of the weight of water is oxygen. If you are normal adult weight (154 pounds; 70 kg) and drink 2.4 liters of water each day, you will absorb eighty-eight tons of water into your body over a lifetime of one hundred years. Every year, you drink more than fifteen times your body weight in water.

Much more complex in their nature than light, oxygen, and water, your body absorbs only four tons of nutrients from foods in your lifetime. Without food, you can live about 30-120 days.

04. Greens are your most important foods. They form the bottom of the food chain and are the foundation for the creation of all other creatures. They make available all the atoms and molecules in the 12 categories that follow, as well as the oxygen you breathe, and the solar energy stored in bonds between atoms to make molecules that become your life energy.

05. Fats and oils: The source of two essential fatty acids, which are originally made by plants. These, the most sensitive of all your nutrients, are easily damaged by light, oxygen, and high temperature. You need to treat them with care to protect their integrity and you also need to use them with care. Because that care is not usually given, damaged oils cause more physical health problems than any other part of nutrition. And oils made with health in mind improve more physical health problems than any other part of nutrition. Fats and oils make up about fifteen percent of your body.

06. Proteins: Complex structural and functional molecules that are made of nine essential and eleven non-essential amino acids. Plants create and every creature needs them for structural, enzymatic, signaling, and receptor functions. Proteins make up about ten percent of your body.

07. Fuel: Any molecule that enzymes in your body break down to release the solar energy it stores in the bonds between the atoms of this molecule. That is the energy that runs all your body’s biochemical reactions. Fuels are usually carbohydrates or fats and oils but can also be proteins. Plants manufacture them all for you.

08. Essential Minerals and Elements: twenty-four elements/atoms that plants get from air, water, and rocks (soils) and incorporate into their cell and protein structures. In this form, these become available to you when you eat the plants that absorbed and incorporated them into their structure. Plants can suck rocks and get minerals. You cannot do that, and so you depend on plants to do it for you. Minerals make up about four percent of your body weight.

09. Essential Vitamins: Thirteen complex co-factor molecules that take part in biochemical reactions in your body. Plants make all vitamins except for vitamin B12 (microbes make that one). Vitamins make up less than one percent of the weight of your body.

10. Digestive Enzymes: One group of thousands of proteins that act as catalysts to enable biochemical reactions to take place in your cells. Digestive enzymes break down complex molecules in your foods into smaller components (nutrients) that you can absorb into and use in your body. Digestive enzymes present in raw foods are destroyed when foods are processed or cooked, and you should replace them for the sake of your health.

11. Probiotics: Friendly bacteria that live in your gut and protect it and the rest of your body from the effects of ‘bad’ bacteria that can make you sick or kill you, and rot bacteria whose job is to recycle dead bodies. Probiotics are found on raw foods but cooking and processing kills them. For good health, you need to replace the good bacteria that industry and you killed.

12. Prebiotic Fiber: Non-digestible plant material that serves as food for probiotics and helps you with bowel regularity, colon health, blood sugar stability, and detoxification.

13. Antioxidants: Thousands of molecules made by plants to protect themselves from the damaging effects of light-, oxygen-, and heat-caused deterioration. When you eat whole fresh plant foods, the antioxidants they contain keep your tissues and cells from being damaged by the destructive effects of light, oxygen, and heat. They thereby slow aging and protect your health. Their anti-aging benefits (keeping you fresh and young longer) result from their ability to pick off and neutralize free radicals.

14. Phytonutrients: Tens of thousands of molecules that plants, herbs, and spices make for their own health and protection. When you eat these molecules, they protect you from inflammation, infection, and many other problems. Some of them have benefits for specific parts of your body, including the liver, kidneys, bones, heart and arteries, immune system, brain, nervous system, and so on.

Other phytonutrients have general effects on the body, such as improving circulation, picking off destructive free radicals, stopping infections by bacteria, viruses, and other microbes, resolving inflammation, and increasing energy levels.

15. Gene Modulators: Plant-based molecules that turn genes with specific functions in your cells on, off, up, or down. Examples are genes that make glutathione (a powerful antioxidant made in your body), detoxification genes in your liver, and many more.

APPENDIX 2

Food Details: What’s it Made of?

Foods provide most of the different kinds of essential building blocks necessary for the construction, maintenance, and repair of your body. Essential building blocks include:

1 Essential Light: The sun is the main source of the energy of life. It is stored in the bonds between atoms that make molecules. Plants absorb sunlight energy and use it to make these energy-storing bonds.

25 Essential Elements: Microbes and plants absorb most of these from soil; two (hydrogen and oxygen) come from water; one (oxygen), released by plants, comes to us from air:

• 4 basic non-metal elements: O, C, H, N

• 12 metal elements:

o 4 Major: 100 or more mg/day: Ca, K, Mg, Na

o 8 Minor: Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, V, Zn

• 3 metalloid elements: As, B, Si

• 6 non-metal elements: Cl, F, I, P, S, Se

13 Essential Vitamins: Microbes and plants make most of these. Animal foods can also supply them:

• 4 Oil-soluble: A, D, E, K

• 9 Water-soluble: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C

9 Essential Amino Acids: These come from microbial, plant and animal proteins, along with about 10 non-essential amino acids that your body can make from other molecules:

• Adults: His, Ile, Leu, Lys, Met, Phe, Thr, Trp, Val

• Children: +*Arg

• Premature infants: ++**Cys

2 Essential Fatty Acids: Microbes and green plants make them. They’re present throughout all levels of the food chain:

• ALA (omega-3)

• LA (omega-6)

Life is energy. It cannot make the forty-nine essential atomic and molecular building blocks from scratch in your body. All of them must come from the foods you eat or supplements you take.

If you don't get enough of any one of these, your health goes down. you get deficiency symptoms that are degenerative in nature and get worse with time. If you don’t get enough long enough, you die.

If you bring enough of them back into a diet that is too low in them, and you do this before you die (death, by definition, is not reversible), all symptoms of not getting enough are reversed. Life knows how to make a body that works (is healthy), provided you take responsibility for making sure that enough of all essential building blocks land in your body to enable life to do its job of constructing your body in the way that makes it able to be active.

Three more essential factors for health come from foods. They are not essential nutrients, but they are essential for health. They work mostly outside your body, inside your digestive system.

They include:

• Digestive Enzymes

• Friendly Bacteria (probiotics)

• Fiber

Now you’re up to fifty-two.

You also require

• Free oxygen and

• Water.

Free oxygen is an essential element provided by air, which is already listed above. Water is essential to health but is made from two elements: oxygen and hydrogen, also already listed above.

And More

Plants, herbs, and spices provide thousands of other molecules that are not considered essential nutrients but cannot be made in your body and benefit your health in major ways. We referred to these briefly under the categories of ‘phytonutrients’ in Appendix 1. They are what make plants, especially herbs and spices, so powerfully health-supporting and -renewing.

APPENDIX 3

Human Body Composition: Your body is made up of:

• Oils that include two essential fatty acids, and dozens of non-essential fatty acids

• Proteins that consist of nine essential amino acids, and about 11 nonessential amino acids.

• Mineral and non-mineral elements, which include:

o Seven major non-mineral elements used in your body (O, C, H, N, P, S, Cl)

o Four major mineral elements that are electrolytes (Ca, Mg, K, Na)

o Four minor non-mineral elements used in trace quantities in your body (B, F, I, Si)

o Nine minor mineral elements that are catalytic sites in proteins (Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Se, V, Zn)

• Vitamins that include:

o Four oil-soluble and

o Nine water-soluble ones.

• Seventy percent water

• 15 percent oil

• 10 percent protein

• 4 percent minerals

• 1 percent oxygen

• Less than one percent vitamins

Let’s look at all of these in turn.

Two Essential Fatty Acids:

The solar energy that is the life force of plants, using their genetic blueprint, powers the production of both essential fatty acids (EFAs). Life did not create a program for you to make them. That is why they must come into your body from foods or supplements. Whole foods are the basic source of all essential nutrients.

From (EFAs), your body makes derivatives, which are further converted into dozens of other derivatives including hormone, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunesupporting, and mood-enhancing molecules. EFAs are:

• Linoleic acid (omega-6):

o Omega-6 Derivatives: GLA, DGLA, ARA, DPA(n6)

• Alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3):

o Omega-3 Derivatives: SDA, EPA, DPA(n3), DHA

Oil sources

• Plants:

o Seeds and nuts: 10-60 percent oil

o Soybeans: 18 percent oil

o Beans, peas, lentils, and garbanzos: 4 percent oil

o Whole grains: 2-4 percent oil

o Green vegetables, fruit: 0.1 percent oil

• Animals:

o Wild: 2-5 percent body fat

o Domestic: 20-60 percent body fat

• Fish:

o Cod, snapper, red-meat tuna, and halibut: 1 percent oil

o Salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines, white meat (albacore) tuna, trout, and eel: 8-15 percent oil

Nine Essential Amino Acids:

Life created a genetic program to make about 11 amino acids but did not create a program to make the other nine, which therefore must come from proteins you eat. Essential amino acids come either from plant-based or animal-based foods. All creatures have the same 20 amino acids in common. What differs between creatures is the order in which these amino acids are strung together to make distinctly different proteins, and the amounts of each of the different kinds of amino acids. Different proteins fold in different ways, producing widely differing shapes and functions. Here’s a list of essential and non-essential amino acids, followed by some of their properties:

Essential amino acids (e) (with long and short abbreviations):

• (e)Histidine (His; H)

• (e)Isoleucine (Ile; I)

• (e)Leucine (Leu; L)

• (e)Lysine (Lys; K)

• (e)Methionine (Met; M)

• (e)Phenylalanine (Phe; F)

• (e)Threonine (Thr; T)

• (e)Tryptophan (Trp; W)

• (e)Valine (Val; V)

• Essential for Children (ec) (with long and short abbreviations):

o (ec)Arginine (Arg; R)

• Essential for Premature Infants (epi) (with long and short abbreviation):

o (epi)Cysteine (Cys; C)

Non-essential amino acids for adults (with long and short abbreviations):

• Alanine (Ala; A)

• Arginine (Arg; R)

• Asparagine (Asn; N)

• Aspartic acid (Asp; D)

• Cysteine (Cys; C)

• Glutamic acid (Glu; E)

• Glutamine (Gln; Q)

• Glycine (Gly; G)

• Proline (Pro; P)

• Serine (Ser; S)

• Tyrosine (Tyr; Y)

Amino acids can be grouped into families with similar chemical properties, structures, and functions. These are:

• Aromatic (hydrophobic side chain): (e)Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, and (e)Tryptophan

• Branched Chain (fuel for athletes): (e)Isoleucine, (e)Leucine, and (e)Valine

• Glutamate: Glutamic acid, Glutamine

• GABA, gamma-amino butyric acid is a neurotransmitter; not used in protein structure

• Important Metabolite: (e)Lysine, (ec)Histidine

• Carnitine: carries fatty acids into mitochondria for energy production; not part of protein structure

• Sulfur: (epi)Cysteine, (e)Methionine

• Taurine: not part of protein structure

• Glutathione: body-made, antioxidant made of 3 amino acids (Gln-Cys-Gly) bonded together; not part of protein structure

• Urea Cycle: (ec)Arginine

• Citrulline: not part of protein structure

• Ornithine: not part of protein structure

• Hydrophilic: (lipophobic; water-soluble)

o Basic (electrically charged side chain): (e)Lysine, (ec)Arginine, and (e)Histidine

o Acidic: Aspartic acid and Glutamic acid

• Polar with uncharged R groups: Serine, (e)Threonine, Asparagine, and Glutamine

• Hydrophobic (aliphatic, lipophilic: inside protein core): Alanine, (e)Isoleucine, (e)Leucine, (e)Phenylalanine, (e)Valine, Proline, and Glycine

• Polar (may participate in hydrogen bonds): Glutamine, Asparagine, (e)Histidine, Serine, (e)Threonine, Tyrosine, (epi)Cysteine, (e)Methionine, and (e)Tryptophan

• Charged: (ec)Arginine, (e)Lysine, Aspartic acid, and Glutamic acid

There’s enough protein in grass for cows, horses, rabbits, and elephants to make all their muscles from it. Most whole foods contain amounts of protein as great or

greater than grass. Amino acid deficiency is almost impossible for anyone who eats only whole foods. You do not need to give amino acids more attention than this, except for some specialty uses of individual amino acids, such as glutamine for healing and branched-chain amino acids for working out.

Bodybuilders and athletes on steroids may benefit from taking protein and/or amino acid concentrates in addition to whole foods.

Seven Major Non-Mineral Elements:

These make up most of your body. Here is the weight and percentage of each, using the average body weight, which is 70kg (154 pounds). If you happen to weigh less or more than average, you can use the percentage to find out the weight of each element in your body:

1. Oxygen (O) is the main part of water and is also present in carbohydrates, fats, and proteins; you also breathe in oxygen, in its free form from air. In total, oxygen makes up about 43kg (94.6lbs) or 61.4 percent of total body weight.

2. Carbon (C) forms the backbone of fats, oils, sugars, proteins, and nucleic acids; makes up about 16kg (35.2lbs) in a 70kg (154lb) person, or about 23 percent of total body weight.

3. Hydrogen (H) is found linked to nitrogen and carbon, as well as to oxygen in water; makes up about 7kg (15.4lbs), or 10 percent of total body weight.

4. Nitrogen (N) is found mostly in proteins and nucleic acids; makes up about 1.8kg (4lbs) or 2.6 percent of total body weight.

5. Phosphorus (P) is found in bone and in most energy reactions in the body; makes up about 0.78kg (1.7lbs) or 1.1 percent of total body weight.

6. Sulfur (S) is found in two amino acids, in many antioxidants, and in plants such as garlic, onions, asparagus, and cilantro; makes up about 0.14kg (0.31lbs) or 0.2 percent of total body weight.

Together, these six major non-mineral elements make up 98.3 percent of the weight of your body. One other major non-mineral element, which is not used in the construction of body tissues,

7. Chlorine (Cl) is part of stomach acid, acts as an electrolyte in your blood’s acid-base balance, kills bacteria, helps blood carry carbon dioxide, aids growth of bone and connective tissue; makes up about 0.095kg (0.21lbs) or 0.14 percent of total body weight.

Four Major (more than 100mg/day) Mineral Elements

Major mineral elements (daily intake more than 100mg) and some of their main functions include:

1. Calcium (Ca) is found in bones and teeth and is required for energy reactions, nerve conduction, muscle contraction, blood clotting, membrane permeability, energy production, immune function, and heartbeat; makes up about 1kg (2.2lbs) or 1.4 percent of total body weight.

2. Potassium (K) plays an important role as an electrolyte inside our cells and is vital for nerve and heart functions; makes up about 140 grams or 0.2 percent of total body weight.

3. Sodium (Na) plays an important role as an electrolyte outside our cells and in our blood, helps regulate blood pressure, keeps calcium in solution, keeps membranes charged along with K; prevents and treats heat stroke and cramps; makes up about 100 grams or 0.14 percent of total body weight.

4. Magnesium (Mg) is important in bone physiology and tooth enamel formation, plays a key role in more than 300 enzyme and energy reactions in your body, is vital for heart and brain health, is important in combatting stress, is required for ATP (energy storage molecule) reactions that release energy, and reactions involved in carb, fat, and protein metabolism; makes, breaks down, and stabilizes DNA (the genetic material), helps muscle relaxation and nerve transmission, heartbeat, and membrane stability & integrity, and helps the conversion of essential fatty acids into dozens of derivatives; makes up about 19 grams or 0.027 percent of total body weight.

Four Minor/Trace (less than 100mg/day) Non-Mineral Elements

Minor (trace) non-metal elements include:

1. Boron (B) is important in bone construction and the prevention of bone loss, helps heal bones and retain magnesium; body content of boron is not known.

2. Fluorine (F) is vital for the strength of bones and teeth. Body content is 2.6 grams.

3. Iodine (I) is vital in the functions of thyroid gland and ovaries, regulates the metabolic rate for all reactions in the body, assists performance of glands and organs, is important for physical and mental development, increases oxygen uptake, helps to metabolize excess fats, helps assimilate other mineral and elements, regulates development & growth; body content is 12-20 milligrams.

4. Silicon (Si) is important in the construction and health of connective tissue; body content of silicon is not known.

Nine Minor/Trace Mineral Elements

Minor (trace) mineral elements include:

1. Chromium (Cr) improves metabolism of glucose, improves glucose intolerance, improves insulin function, stabilizes blood sugar, increases lean

muscle, lowers high cholesterol, stimulates liver enzymes; body content of chromium is not known.

2. Cobalt (Co) is part of the vitamin B12 molecule, necessary for healthy red blood cells, important for brain and nerve function, necessary for folic acid (vitamin) function; body content is 1.5 milligrams.

3. Copper (Cu) plays roles in arterial strength, is an antagonist to zinc, is the active mineral in some enzymes, protects against lung tissue damage from smoke and pollution, helps iron absorption and has antioxidant function, is important in red and white blood cell synthesis, is important in stress and nerve function; body content is 72 milligrams.

4. Iron (Fe) is the carrier of oxygen in our red blood cells, is part of muscle myoglobin for sustained activity, is part of body’s detoxification system, improves learning and behavior, is part of brain neurotransmitters, helps in the synthesis of connective tissue, builds resistance to yeast and bacterial infections; body content is 4.2 grams.

5. Manganese (Mn) helps in making cartilage, discs, ligaments, joints, and bones, helps in inner ear development and balance, is necessary for RNA initiation & metabolism of proteins, nucleic acids, and amines, is necessary in synthesis of sex hormones & reproductive function, helps antioxidant & immune functions, is part of mitochondrial energy production functions; body content is 12 milligrams.

6. Molybdenum (Mo) helps mobilize storage iron, is part of an enzyme, helps in uric acid production, detoxifies sulfite preservatives, reduces high copper levels, detoxifies chemical carcinogens, increases muscle tone; body content of molybdenum is not known.

7. Selenium (Se) is important to antioxidant function and many of the body’s different detoxification systems, protects against free radical damage, helps anti-inflammatory functions, protects immune system, slows aging, extends life span in animals; body content is 7 milligrams.

8. Vanadium (V) may regulate activity in enzymes of cell membranes, helps functions in fat metabolism, may play a role in sugar metabolism, mimics insulin function, can take the place of other minerals in some enzymes, may inhibit cholesterol synthesis, may take the place of phosphorus in tooth enamel & decrease tooth decay; body content is 0.11 milligrams.

9. Zinc (Zn) is the active mineral in more than 300 enzymes in the human body is essential for growth, healing, DNA, and membrane stability, helps brain and sense development, is important for male reproduction, is part of proteindigesting enzymes, acid production in the stomach, elimination of carbon dioxide from the body, brain development, and the growth of hair & nails, is necessary for insulin function, immune cell power, essential fatty acid

functions, and genetic material synthesis & breakdown; body content is 2.3 grams. The following are the essential nutrients that foods need to supply you with for health.

Minerals and elements come from earth, stone, and soil. Plants dissolve and take them up, making them absorbable for us. Here is a partial list of their support functions in your body:

• Electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride)

• Buffers; active sites in proteins and enzymes (magnesium, manganese, copper, iron, and more)

• Structure of bones and teeth (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, boron, and others)

• Healing (zinc)

• Energy production (magnesium)

• Antioxidants (selenium, zinc)

• Connective tissue (silicon)

• Thyroid, ovaries, and energy levels (iodine)

• Arteries (copper)

• Sugar metabolism (chromium)

• Brain, reproduction, heart, and muscle function (zinc, magnesium, manganese, and others)

• Vitamin B12 structure (cobalt)

• Insulin regulation (chromium, vanadium)

• Oxygen carried in the blood (iron)

Thirteen Vitamins

Solar energy, the life of plants, uses plants’ genetic blueprints to manufacture vitamins, co-factors to help in chemicals reactions. Life did not create a human genetic DNA program to make these, so they must come from foods or supplements. Vitamins come in oil-soluble and water-soluble forms.

• Oil-soluble vitamins include Vitamins A, D, E, and K.

o Vitamin A is involved in growth, bone development, cell differentiation, reproduction, and sensory function, RNA & protein synthesis, thyroid & adrenal function, skin, and gut lining integrity; protect against infection

and help immune function, have antioxidant properties; important to growth

FYI: carotene, in which two molecules of vitamin A are joined end to end, is the plant-based form of vitamin A

o Vitamin D intake used to be restricted by regulations, but recently, the research found that 80 percent of people don’t get enough, and that it is safe at much higher doses than previously thought, important in bone, liver, kidney, lungs, intestinal, dental, and all other body tissues and systems, important in stable a nervous system and heart action

o Vitamin E is part of the body’s oil-soluble antioxidant system, protects cells against pollutants & free radicals, slows the aging process; protects membrane integrity in all tissues

o Vitamin K is important in blood clotting mechanisms, required for functions in bone & kidneys, part of calcium metabolism, transport, and deposition in bone; active in glucose metabolism

• Water-soluble vitamins include eight B vitamins and vitamin C.

o Thiamine (B1) is involved in carbohydrate metabolism, necessary to stabilize nerve cell membranes, and to make the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, synthesis of RNA, fat, and niacin, important in liver function, growth, and repair of all tissues, necessary for health of nerve, heart, muscle, and digestive tissue, necessary for production of hydrochloric acid & protein digestion

o Riboflavin (B2) works with vitamins C & E and is part of the conversion of proteins into energy, vision, proton transfer, respiratory chain in all cells; cells’ usage of oxygen, prevention of free radical damage, maintaining integrity of skin, hair, and nails, synthesis of glycogen (animal starch), synthesis of several hormones, uptake of iron & vitamin B 6 , making red blood cells in bone marrow, fetal growth & development, metabolizing fats for energy

o Niacin (B3) is necessary for energy production from carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in the respiratory chain in mitochondria in all cells, used in DNA, fat, protein, hormone, bile salt, and cholesterol synthesis, and important for the health of the mouth, digestive tract, skin, brain, and nervous system, and part of dehydrogenase enzyme systems in every cell

o Pantothenic acid (B5) is necessary for more than 70 enzyme reactions of lipid, protein, carbohydrate, amino acid, and energy metabolism, necessary for the porphyrin part of hemoglobin, needed for normal intestinal function, essential to acetate groups for neurotransmitter

functions & detoxi fi cation, involved in most physiological & biochemical functions, needed for the synthesis of growth hormone, cholesterol, and adrenal steroid hormones (cortisone), vital to tissue water balance, absorption of nutrients, immune antibody response, and energy-requiring processes in cells

o Pyridoxine (B6) is necessary for growth and is used in more than 60 enzymes, helps B12 absorption, improves immune function, helps keep heart & arteries healthy, turns homo-cysteine (cardio risk factor) into methionine, moves amine groups between molecules, serves a vital role in the metabolism of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, serves a vital role in lymph, muscle, and nerve tissue, helps convert essential fatty acids into eicosanoid hormones, regulates water metabolism through ratio of sodium to potassium, is a co-factor in the synthesis of fats & proteins, improves oral health and integrity of teeth & facial bones, is vital in forming heme (blood pigment), nucleic acids, bile, hormones, brain chemicals, and immune antibodies, is important in brain development & neurotransmitter (serotonin, histamine, and epinephrine), helps thyroid hormone metabolism, insulin, and growth hormone synthesis, helps DNA, RNA, and elastin protein synthesis

o Biotin (B7) is involved in liver carbon dioxide transfer reactions, synthesis of nucleic acids & ATP, and several enzyme systems in the growth and maintenance of nerve tissue, bone marrow, sweat glands, male sex gland, skin tone, hair quality, and blood cells, fatty acid oxidation & synthesis, carbohydrate, amino acid, protein, energy, and insulin activities, immune antibodies, pancreatic amylase, and vitamin B3, metabolism of branched-chain amino acids, glycogen formation, and healthy skin & hair

o Folic acid (B9) is involved in all cells’ protein and enzyme metabolism, porphyrin formation, phenylalanine to tyrosine conversion, tyrosine oxidation, brain long chain fatty acid metabolism, all methyl group transfer reactions, synthesis of DNA & RNA bases, methyl group transfers involving methionine, serine, choline (from ethanolamine), synthesis of histidine, rapidly dividing cells, gut lining, tongue, fetus, red & white blood cells, enzymes that control cell division, embryonic development of nerve cells, sex cells, nervous system, intestine, blood, and bone marrow, production of HCl, mental & emotional health, liver function, turning homocysteine back into methionine, neural development of a fetus, higher cellular demands during pregnancy, and the formation of red blood cells

o Cobalamin (B12) is part of growth and cell division of all healthy cells, DNA synthesis, and fatty acid & amino acid metabolism, fat & carbohydrate metabolism, liver, kidney, nervous system, heart, skin, muscle, and bone health, glutathione reactivation, one of the powerful

antioxidants made in the body from amino acids, folic acid, which helps develop healthy red blood cells, providing CH3 for DNA regulation & division, helping folic acid make choline; metabolism of iron, folic acid, and glucose, improved nitrogen retention in food animals, maintaining fertility, normal growth, and development, growth in underweight children

o Vitamin B12 is made, not by plants or animals, but by microbes found in soil, aquatic environments, and the gut of animals

o Ascorbic acid (C) is involved in the synthesis of connective tissue substances & the structure of muscle, blood vessels, bone, cartilage, and scar tissue, helps in wound healing & red blood cell formation, hydroxylates lysine & proline, prevents capillary rupture & bleeding into tissue spaces, is the most powerful antioxidant in the body, keeps bone capable of holding calcium & phosphorus, keeps cartilage capable of holding bones in place at joints, helps dentin layer formation in development of teeth, helps synthesize mucopolysaccharides with anti-cancer activity, protects against stress of chemical interventions, detoxifies histamine, relieves symptoms of niacin flush, hay fever, frostbite, and poisoning, helps produce carnitine to carry fats into mitochondria for energy production, helps make neurotransmitters serotonin & noradrenaline, helps in tyrosine metabolism in thyroid function, aids in pigment & adrenal steroid hormone production, helps regulate blood fats & conversion of cholesterol to bile acids, helps calcium absorption, helps absorb, store, and use dietary iron, reduces oxidized molecules to reduced (recharged) form, activates some iron-containing enzymes, and enhances bioflavonoid activity

How Health Works: Parts Designed by Nature

This is a short introduction to the big picture on comprehensive health. How does life and health work on planet Earth? Here’s a summary of what I now call Total Global Health, a topic I began an inquiry into in 1948 at age six and have helped develop aspects of with various teams and teachers over the past seven decades.

Total Global Health: Life, Brain, Body, and Energy

1. Life: The Power

Contrary to modern materialistic science, which focuses only on what the brain and the body do, the truth is that life is the power behind all doing, and awareness is the being behind all power. Your brain is life’s computer, and your body is life’s physical vehicle for physical activities. Life (solar energy) created the body out of oxygen, water, and food, using a genetic program (blueprint) that it also developed over eons. Life’s purpose for your body is to use it to serve life, body, nature, and others in different ways.

Designer and Creator

Life designed and built the genetic DNA program that holds the instructions for both body and brain construction. Life built, maintains, repairs, and rebuilds (heals) both brain and body continuously, for as long as these two instruments last, before their form predictably breaks down beyond repair.

Life designed the administrative central computer brain with senses that perceive the environment. Life designed this computer to interpret sensory inputs and give meaning to them in line with survival needs and thriving. Life also designed legs to respond to events by running toward or away from them; arms that can hold, hit, carry, or push away what comes at you; a digestive system that ingests nature to obtain building blocks for body construction and repair; a reproductive system for body replacement; and a very long list of other diverse parts with specific functions.

We could go on and on about the physical complexities that life created, and the genetic program that it also created and refined, to respond with finesse to energetic inputs from the intra-cellular, body, and external environments. But this briefest of descriptions should be enough to make the point that you would not be out of line were you to be in awe of the creative genius of life, which makes it possible for you to experience being human for a time.

Ruler

Even though it’s simple in its nature, life—not the brain, body, or any gland, organ, or other body part—controls everything human. Life is the ruler, the boss, the benevolent dictator, the CEO, the presence, the instructor, the mover, the knower, the self, the force, the source, the energy, the light, the master, the power behind

everything that is body/mind in all creatures. This applies to feeling, thinking, speaking, and doing. It applies to everything. Brain and body without life are nothing. Brain and body with life enable you to think and do an almost endless number of things.

Weighs Nothing; Runs Everything

Being energy, life does not require a body to be real and conscious. To know, life require neither mind nor thought. Many people over the ages have experienced this first-hand. Accounts of their existence separate from their body are not hard to find. My first reading on this subject was the classic book called: Life After Life by Raymond A Moody, which has sold 20 million copies. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Bestselling-Investigation-Experiences-ebook/ dp/B00JTYBWMI/ref=sr_1_1? crid=1KXKF4WHN5TVZ&keywords=life+after+life+raymond+a+moody&qid=166019 7797&s=books&spre fi x=Life+after+life+raymon%2Cstripbooks-intlship%2C137&sr=1-1

Many others have since written books on the topic. On the other hand, your body requires life to be able to function, and your mind requires life to be able to think.

2. Brain: Your Central Computer

Your brain is life’s administrative central computer. Life uses this central computer to gather information, sort, systematize, and interpret that information into a coherent narrative of meaning, and to translate situational input into responsive, thoughtful, calm actions or emotional, “knee-jerk,” automatic reactions, based on your memories of previous inputs, present emerging needs, and imagined future outcomes.

Your brain receives (perceives), computes, (interprets), and assigns meaning to your senses’ input, and instructs the body how to execute (carry out) appropriate responses to that input, according to your state of being, memories of past experiences, and the needs of the situation, always with survival and/or thriving as its goal. Life’s administrative central computer plays a complex and powerful role, but life is its boss and ruler.

How can we know that for sure? It’s simple. It comes from observing life and death.

Your amazingly competent and complex computer, your brain, is completely useless without life. Life does not just rule and run the computer. Life also designs, builds, repairs, and rebuilds that computer, ongoing, for an entire lifetime, using your genetic program to do so.

3. Body: Your Vehicle for Action

The body is life’s vehicle for action. It is life’s instrument for physical activity on the physical plane of planet Earth, based on situational input into the brain computer

and adaptive output instructions to your body after quick or slow processing by that computer.

Citations

Chapter One

Atomic Tune-Up: How the Body Rejuvenates Itself. (n.d.). NPR.org.

Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/ 2007/07/14/11893583/atomic-tune-up-how-the-body-rejuvenatesitself

How long does it take for most of the atoms in your body to be replaced by others? (n.d.). Quora. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https:// www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-most-of-the-atoms-inyour-body-to-be-replaced-by-others?share=1

Chapter Three

Gharby, S. (2022). Refining Vegetable Oils: Chemical and Physical Refining. The Scientific World Journal, 2022, e6627013. https://doi.org/ 10.1155/2022/6627013

Arris, F. A., Thai, V. T. S., Manan, W. N., & Sajab, M. S. (2020). A Revisit to the Formation and Mitigation of 3-Chloropropane-1,2-Diol in Palm Oil Production. Foods, 9(12), 1769. https://doi.org/10.3390/ foods9121769

Chapter Four

Beyond War Foundation. (n.d.). BEYOND WAR AWARD - 1985 - Five Continent Peace Initiative. Internet Archive. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/BeyondWarAward-1985FiveContinentPeaceInitiative

Chapter Six

CNN, J. C. (n.d.). Fish oil doesn’t seem to prevent heart problems, studies find. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/15/health/fish-oil-doesnthelp-heart-health-wellness/index.html

n–3 Fatty Acids in Patients with Multiple Cardiovascular Risk Factors. (2013). New England Journal of Medicine, 368(19), 1800–1808. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa1205409

Fish Oil Supplements Prove Ineffective for Depression, Anxiety. (n.d.). Neuroscience from Technology Networks. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/fishoil-supplements-prove-ineffective-for-depression-anxiety-326850

Fish Oil Fears: Study Finds Prescription-Strength Fish Oil Could Cause Some Harm. (n.d.). Www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/ama-fish-oil-studyresults/

Nayomi Chibana. (2015, April). Are You Wasting Money on Fish Oil Supplements? Science Times. https://www.sciencetimes.com/ articles/5235/20150401/are-you-wasting-money-on-fish-oilsupplements.htm

World Health Organization. (2016, October 4). Dioxins and their effects on human health. Who.int; World Health Organization: WHO. https:// www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dioxins-and-their-effectson-human-health

US EPA. (2018, April 13). Learn about Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) | US EPA. US EPA. https://www.epa.gov/pcbs/learn-aboutpolychlorinated-biphenyls-pcbs

Carpenter, D. O. (2006). Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs): Routes of Exposure and Effects on Human Health. Reviews on Environmental Health, 21(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh.2006.21.1.1

The World Counts. (n.d.). Www.theworldcounts.com. https:// www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-theplanet/no-more-fish-in-the-sea

Chapter Seven

Shining the Spotlight on Trans Fats. (2018, July 12). The Nutrition Source. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/ fats-and-cholesterol/types-of-fat/transfats/

Sun, Q., Ma, J., Campos, H., Hankinson, S. E., Manson, J. E., Stampfer, M. J., Rexrode, K. M., Willett, W. C., & Hu, F. B. (2007). A Prospective Study of Trans Fatty Acids in Erythrocytes and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease. Circulation, 115(14), 1858–1865. https://doi.org/ 10.1161/circulationaha.106.679985

Willett, W. C. (2012). Dietary fats and coronary heart disease. Journal of Internal Medicine, 272(1), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1365-2796.2012.02553.x

Willett, W. (n.d.). The Scientific Case for Banning Trans Fats. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-scientificcase-for-banning-trans-fats/

Tsai, C.-J. (2005). Long-term Intake of trans-Fatty Acids and Risk of Gallstone Disease in Men. Archives of Internal Medicine, 165(9), 1011. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.165.9.1011

Ginter, E., & Simko, V. (2016). New data on harmful effects of trans-fatty acids. Bratislava Medical Journal, 117(05), 251–253. https://doi.org/ 10.4149/bll_2016_048

Lobo, V., Patil, A., Phatak, A., & Chandra, N. (2010). Free radicals, Antioxidants and Functional foods: Impact on Human Health. Pharmacognosy Reviews, 4(8), 118–126. https://doi.org/ 10.4103/0973-7847.70902

LibreTexts. (2014, July 30). Free Radicals. Chemistry LibreTexts. https:// chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Organic_Chemistry/ Supplemental_Modules_(Organic_Chemistry)/Fundamentals/ Reactive_Intermediates/Free_Radicals

Choe, E., & Min, D. B. (2006). Mechanisms and Factors for Edible Oil Oxidation. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 5(4), 169–186. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1541-4337.2006.00009.x

Health Effects of Trans Fatty Acids Intake: Dr. Willett’s Testimony. (2006, October 30). The Nutrition Source. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ nutritionsource/2006/10/30/trans-willett-testimony/

How Heat, Light and Oxygen Harm Olive Oil. (n.d.). Www.oliveoiltimes.com. https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/world/heatlight-oxygen-harm-olive-oil/26626

The oxidation process in fats and oils. (2019, January 24). BTSA. https:// www.btsa.com/en/process-oxidation-fats/

Chapter Eight

Jensen-Urstad, A. P. L., & Semenkovich, C. F. (2012). Fatty acid synthase and liver triglyceride metabolism: Housekeeper or messenger?

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids, 1821(5), 747–753. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.bbalip.2011.09.017

Ronnett, G. V., Kleman, A. M., Kim, E.-K., Landree, L. E., & Tu, Y. (2006). Fatty Acid Metabolism, the Central Nervous System, and Feeding. Obesity, 14, 201S207S. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2006.309

Hodson, L. (2018). Hepatic fatty acid synthesis and partitioning: the effect of metabolic and nutritional state. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 78(1), 126–134. https://doi.org/10.1017/ s0029665118002653

Chapter Nine

Wang, G., Bai, Y., Fu, W., Feng, Y., Chen, W., Li, G., Wu, X., Meng, H., Liu, Y., Wei, W., Wang, S., Wei, S., Zhang, X., He, M., Yang, H., & Guo, H. (2019). Daily cooking duration and its joint effects with genetic polymorphisms on lung cancer incidence: Results from a Chinese prospective cohort study. Environmental Research, 179(Pt A), 108747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2019.108747

Jia, P.-L., Zhang, C., Yu, J.-J., Xu, C., Tang, L., & Sun, X. (2017). The risk of lung cancer among cooking adults: a meta-analysis of 23 observational studies. Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, 144(2), 229–240. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00432-017-2547-7

Svedahl, S. R., Hilt, B., & Svendsen, K. (2020). Work environment factors and respiratory complaints in Norwegian cooks. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, 93(2), 205–212. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-019-01473-w

Why cleaning the invisible in restaurants is important during COVID-19: A case study of indoor air quality of an open-kitchen restaurant. (2021). International Journal of Hospitality Management, 94, 102854. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102854

Chaitanya Thandra, K., Barsouk, A., Saginala, K., Sukumar Aluru, J., & Barsouk, A. (2021). Epidemiology of lung cancer. Współczesna Onkologia, 25(1), 45–52. https://doi.org/10.5114/wo.2021.103829

Fernandes, A. R., Rose, M., White, S., Mortimer, D. N., & Gem, M. (2006). Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fish oil dietary supplements: Occurrence and human exposure in the UK. Food Additives and Contaminants, 23(9), 939–947. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/02652030600660827

Malisch, R., & Kotz, A. (2014). Dioxins and PCBs in feed and food--review from European perspective. The Science of the Total Environment, 491-492, 2–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.03.022

Volume 21, M. G. M. D. F. · ·. (n.d.). PCBs in Children’s Fish Oil Supplements | NutritionFacts.org. Nutritionfacts.org. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://nutritionfacts.org/video/pcbs-in-childrens-fishoil-supplements/

Smith, M., Love, D. C., Rochman, C. M., & Neff, R. A. (2018). Microplastics in Seafood and the Implications for Human Health. Current Environmental Health Reports, 5(3), 375–386. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s40572-018-0206-z

Barceló-Coblijn, G., & Murphy, E. J. (2009). Alpha-linolenic acid and its conversion to longer chain n 3 fatty acids: Benefits for human health and a role in maintaining tissue n 3 fatty acid levels. Progress in

Lipid Research, 48(6), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.plipres.2009.07.002

Chapter Eleven

Belluz, J., & Radhika Viswanathan. (2018, September 11). Is plastic microwave-safe? The short answer: often no. Vox; Vox. https:// www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/11/17614540/plasticfood-containers-contamination-health-risks

Zimmermann, L., Bartosova, Z., Braun, K., Oehlmann, J., Völker, C., & Wagner, M. (2021). Plastic Products Leach Chemicals That Induce In Vitro Toxicity under Realistic Use Conditions. Environmental Science & Technology, 55(17), 11814–11823. https://doi.org/10.1021/ acs.est.1c01103

Evers, J. (2022, June 2). Great Pacific Garbage Patch | National Geographic Society. Education.nationalgeographic.org. https:// education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbagepatch

Chapter Twelve

Dyall, S. C. (2017). Interplay Between n-3 and n-6 Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and the Endocannabinoid System in Brain Protection and Repair. Lipids, 52(11), 885–900. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s11745-017-4292-8

Brown, I., Cascio, M. G., Rotondo, D., Pertwee, R. G., Heys, S. D., & Wahle, K. W. J. (2013). Cannabinoids and omega-3/6 endocannabinoids as cell death and anticancer modulators. Progress in Lipid Research, 52(1), 80–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.plipres.2012.10.001

Watson, J. E., Kim, J. S., & Das, A. (2019). Emerging class of omega-3 fatty acid endocannabinoids & their derivatives. Prostaglandins & Other Lipid Mediators, 143, 106337. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.prostaglandins.2019.106337

Charytoniuk, T., Zywno, H., Berk, K., Bzdega, W., Kolakowski, A., Chabowski, A., & Konstantynowicz-Nowicka, K. (2022). The Endocannabinoid System and Physical Activity—A Robust Duo in the Novel Therapeutic Approach against Metabolic Disorders. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(6), 3083. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ijms23063083

Is docosahexaenoic acid synthesis from α-linolenic acid sufficient to supply the adult brain? (2015). Progress in Lipid Research, 59, 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plipres.2015.04.002

Wu, A., Noble, E. E., Tyagi, E., Ying, Z., Zhuang, Y., & Gomez-Pinilla, F. (2015). Curcumin boosts DHA in the brain: Implications for the prevention of anxiety disorders. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease, 1852(5), 951–961. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.bbadis.2014.12.005

Omega-3 Docosapentaenoic Acid (DPA): What is known?( n.d.). Www.nutritionremarks.com. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from http:// www.nutritionremarks.com/2012/01/23/omega-3-docosapentaenoicacid-dpa-what-is-known-3/

Chapter Thirteen

Wu, C. W.-K., & Lui, R. N. (2022). Early-onset colorectal cancer: Current insights and future directions. World Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 14(1), 230–241. https://doi.org/10.4251/wjgo.v14.i1.230

King, G. (2019, September 11). Why are diabetes-related complications on the rise? - Harvard Health Blog. Harvard Health Blog. https:// www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-are-diabetes-relatedcomplications-on-the-rise-2019091117725

Serebrisky, D., & Wiznia, A. (2019). Pediatric Asthma: A Global Epidemic. Annals of Global Health, 85(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2416

Akdis, C. A. (2021). Does the epithelial barrier hypothesis explain the increase in allergy, autoimmunity and other chronic conditions?

Nature Reviews Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41577-021-00538-7

Rose, N. R. (2016). Prediction and Prevention of Autoimmune Disease in the 21st Century: A Review and Preview. American Journal of Epidemiology, 183(5), 403–406. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwv292

Doheny, K. (n.d.). Rise in Chronic Childhood Health Problems. WebMD. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.webmd.com/children/ news/20100216/rise-in-childhood-health-problems

Close to half of U.S. population projected to have obesity by 2030. (2019, December 18). News. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pressreleases/half-of-us-to-have-obesity-by-2030/

Adult Obesity Rates Predicted to Rise to 60-80% by 2050. (n.d.). Www.cabi.org. https://www.cabi.org/nutrition/news/12612

Chapter Fourteen

Dhaka, V., Gulia, N., Ahlawat, K. S., & Khatkar, B. S. (2011). Trans fats— sources, health risks and alternative approach - A review. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 48(5), 534–541. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s13197-010-0225-8

Mozaffarian, D., Aro, A., & Willett, W. C. (2009). Health effects of trans-fatty acids: experimental and observational evidence. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 63(S2), S5–S21. https://doi.org/10.1038/ sj.ejcn.1602973

Why Tarahumara ultrarunners fuel endurance with chia seeds. (n.d.). 33Fuel. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://www.33fuel.com/blogs/ default-blog/news-tarahumara-ultrarunners-endurance-chia-seeds ccadmin. (2012, September 23). Chia Seeds and the Tarahumara.

CIKIPEDIA. https://cikipedia.com/chia-seeds-and-the-tarahumara

Chapter Sixteen

News, M. F.-A. |, & April 27th 2021, F. I. |. (2021, April 27). Plastics and toxic chemicals are killing fish — and poisoning us. Canada’s National Observer. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/04/27/news/ plastics-toxic-chemicals-killing-fish-poisoning-us Oceans. (n.d.). NRDC. https://www.nrdc.org/issues/oceans

Editor, P. P. C. (2021, April 27) New Report: Chemical Pollution Causes Fish Declines. Plastic Pollution Coalition. https:// www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2021/4/27/new-reportchemical-pollution-causes-fish-declines

Belle, C. (2021, January 31). We could see Fishless Oceans by 2048. Medium. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/we-could-seefishless-oceans-by-2048-9a2ba269887b

Chapter Seventeen

Wu, A., Noble, E. E., Tyagi, E., Ying, Z., Zhuang, Y., & Gomez-Pinilla, F. (2015). Curcumin boosts DHA in the brain: Implications for the prevention of anxiety disorders. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA)

- Molecular Basis of Disease, 1852(5), 951–961. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.bbadis.2014.12.005

Reactome | alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) metabolism. (n.d.). Reactome.org. https://reactome.org/content/detail/R-HSA-2046106

Sjögren, P., Sierra-Johnson, J., Gertow, K., Rosell, M., Vessby, B., de Faire, U., Hamsten, A., Hellenius, M.-L. ., & Fisher, R. M. (2007). Fatty acid desaturases in human adipose tissue: relationships between gene expression, desaturation indexes and insulin resistance. Diabetologia, 51(2), 328–335. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00125-007-0876-9

Sæther, T., Tran, T. N., Rootwelt, H., Christophersen, B. O., & Haugen, T. B. (2003). Expression and Regulation of Δ5-Desaturase, Δ6-Desaturase, Stearoyl-Coenzyme A (CoA) Desaturase 1, and Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase 2 in Rat Testis. Biology of Reproduction, 69(1), 117–124. https://doi.org/10.1095/biolreprod.102.014035

Stokstad, E. (2006). ECOLOGY: Global Loss of Biodiversity Harming Ocean Bounty. Science, 314(5800), 745–745. https://doi.org/10.1126/ science.314.5800.745

Roach, J. (2006, November 2). Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says. Animals. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/ seafood-biodiversity

Watters, C., Iwamura, S., Ako, H., & Deng, D.-F. (2012). Foods and Nutrition Nutrition Considerations in Aquaculture: The Importance of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Fish Development and Human Health. https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/FN-11.pdf

Taşbozan, O., & Gökçe, M. A. (2017). Fatty Acids in Fish. In www.intechopen.com. IntechOpen. https://www.intechopen.com/ chapters/54572

Albert, B. B., Cameron-Smith, D., Hofman, P. L., & Cutfield, W. S. (2013). Oxidation of Marine Omega-3 Supplements and Human Health. BioMed Research International, 2013, 1–8. https://doi.org/ 10.1155/2013/464921

Šimat, V., Vlahović, J., Soldo, B., Skroza, D., Ljubenkov, I., & Generalić Mekinić, I. (2019). Production and Refinement of Omega-3 Rich Oils from Processing By-Products of Farmed Fish Species. Foods, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/foods8040125

Neelakantan, N., Seah, J. Y. H., & van Dam, R. M. (2020). The Effect of Coconut Oil Consumption on Cardiovascular Risk Factors: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials. Circulation, 141(10). https://doi.org/10.1161/circulationaha.119.043052

Coconut oil increases bad cholesterol. (2020, January 21). NewsMedical.net. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200121/ Coconut-oil-increases-bad-cholesterol.aspx

Adulterated / Fraudulent Extra Virgin Olive Oil | The Olive Oil Source. (n.d.). Oliveoilsource.com. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https:// oliveoilsource.com/page/adulterated-fraudulent-extra-virgin-olive-oil Anderson, L. V. (2014, January 27). Is Your “Extra-Virgin” Olive Oil Really Extra-Virgin? Here’s How to Find Out. Slate Magazine. https:// slate.com/culture/2014/01/adulterated-olive-oil-how-to-find-out-ifyour-extra-virgin-is-really-extra-virgin.html

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