Udo's Oils
FAQ's

In This Section, Udo addresses enquiries that are commonly made regarding the role of fats and oils in diet, disease and human nutrition. These answers can be helpful in broadening our knowledge base concerning health issues. Remember to check our "Articles" section for a more in-depth examination about current health topics; Udo's Product Descriptions also offer relevant information on product composition and health benefits.

Please note that the information provided is meant for educational purposes only, and is not intended, nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice.




Index of Frequently-Asked Questions
Please click on the appropriate question - "return to index" will bring you back here.

Why is Udo's Choice Oil Blend so effective for health?
What is the maximum advisable dose of your oil blend?
How much of your oil blend should we give to children?
What does your oil blend taste like?
How should the oil blend be used?
What oils can we use for frying?
What about the "oil-protein" mixture?
Why is there no EPA and DHA in your oil blend?
Are other GLA, EPA, and DHA-containing oils compatible with your blend?
I've heard that n-3 oils interfere with GLA function. Is that true?




Abbreviations
GLA - gamma-linoleic acid
DHA - docosahexaenoic acid
EPA - eicosapentaenoic acid
EPO - evening primrose oil
BO - borage oil
LA - linoleic acid
LNA - linolenic acid






Q: Why is Udo's Choice Oil Blend so effective for health?

A: The effectiveness of the blend rests both on its ingredients and on the methods of production, packaging, storage, and use.

The blend is very rich in the more therapeutic n-3s (omega 3 fatty acids). It contains the best oils (flax, sunflower, sesame) from organic sources. It is rich in "minor ingredients" with major health benefits. It contains 65mg/tablespoon of phytosterols, which block absorption and re-absorption of cholesterol from our gut, and both normalizes and stabilizes immune function. It contains lecithin. It contains medium chain triglycerides, and also rice and oat germ oils. It contains the anti-oxidants vitamin E, tocotrienols, and rosemary oils. Additionally, the ingredients are blended together in just the right amounts for best health.

The oils in the blend are unrefined. The blend is pressed at low temperature under exclusion of light and oxygen, packaged in brown glass, then put in a box to eliminate light leakage. It is refrigerated during storage and all but short-term (2 week maximum) shipping. Additionally, the oil is never used for frying.

Thus, made right and used right, the blend provides the health-enhancing n-3s, n-6s, and "minor ingredients" in the best possible way for the body's needs. (return to index)


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Q: What is the maximum advisable dose of your oil blend?

A: I've seen as much as 10 tablespoons per day used in cases of cancer, AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, and weight reduction. I once ingested 15 tablespoons in one day, and on another occasion, I had 17 tablespoons of the oil blend mixed in fruit juice for breakfast. I had no problem digesting it but I also wasn't hungry for the rest of the day.

In the beginning, you may want to start with smaller amounts and gradually increase to optimum levels which is approximately 1 tablespoon per 50 pounds of body weight; especially if you have a history of being on a low fat or a no fat diet, or if your liver is weak.

Should your liver be unable to handle the amount you are taking at any one time, you will feel heavy or become nauseous. If you took even more oil at this point, you would vomit. Why? The liver has to process the oils and fats you eat. If you exceed its processing capacity by taking more oil at any one time than it can handle, it will protect itself from overworking by making you hurl.

If you do become nauseous, you must begin with smaller amounts. How small? If you can't take three tablespoons, take one. If one is too much, use one teaspoon. If that's too much, take a few drops. If that's too much, take a lick. And if that's too much, take a whiff. But don't quit. Your body requires essential fats in order to function and for you to live. Someone once asked me: Can I just think about it? And I said yes, because if you think about it, you will eventually end up taking a whiff.

So start small, and eventually increase the amount you take. Sometimes liver function is poor because of essential fat deficiency. Then you must give this organ time to recover. Build up liver capacity again by starting with small amounts of the precious essential fats. Be gentle with yourself. Do what you can. (return to index)


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Q: How much of your oil blend should we give to children?

A: Administer the oil in proportion to weight. If you weigh 100 pounds and use 2 tablespoons each day to get soft, velvety skin, a 10 pound child should take about 1/10th as much as you. However, because children are more metabolically active than grown-ups, they may need a little more oil than is proportional to their weight.

An approximation of the amount may also be calculated by giving one teaspoon (5 ml) of the oil per each 7 kg (15 lbs) of body weight. A child of 7 kg would take one teaspoon per day, whereas a man of 70 kg would use 10 teaspoons (50ml) per day. (return to index)


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Q: What does your oil blend taste like?

A: Udo's Choice tastes better than medicine, much better than cod liver oil, but never quite as good as ice cream.

Most people like the taste of the oil blend. I sometimes drink it out of the bottle. I can identify the flavours of flax, sunflower, sesame, and coconut. Different people report different tastes from the same batch of oil. Let your tongue instruct you. (return to index)


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Q: How should the oil blend be used?

A: Mix the blend in foods. Oils are compatible with all food groups. They go with vegetable dishes such as greens, salads, steamed vegetables, and soups; with starches such as grains, cereals, pasta, oatmeal, potatoes, and yams; with proteins such as meat, eggs, dairy, and fish; and finally, with fruit. You can layer oil on fruit juice (oil shooters), mixed in applesauce or over fruit pieces. Some people take the blend by the spoonful, but most don't like the taste of oils by themselves to take it that way.

The blend can be used on cold, warm, and hot foods; but the blend (and all essential fat-rich oils in general) should never be fried. Frying destroys oils and makes them toxic, and then they, in turn, destroy health.

You can use Udo's Choice oil blend in salad dressings; mix it with yogurt; blend it into shakes; use it in fresh or bottled vegetable juices; in soups; pour it over steamed vegetables; mix it into hot cereals; put it on corn flakes; mix it with the yolk of soft-boiled eggs; mix it into mashed potatoes. The blend brings out the taste of bananas and fruit juices - it makes them taste almost psychedelic! Use equal parts Udo's Choice Oil and extra virgin olive oil for Mediterranean dishes; it improves the nutritional profile of the oil and lightens the dish, while retaining the Mediterranean flavour. Use equal parts Udo's Choice Oil and butter for spreads. Dip bread in the blend, like people in Italy do. There are an infinite number of ways to use the blend.

There are two good reasons for using the blend with foods. First, oils enhance food flavours. Second, they improve the body's ability to absorb health-benefiting oil-soluble phyto-nutrients, especially abundant in vegetables, which are poorly absorbed without oils. (return to index)


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Q: What oils can we use for frying?

A: The only oil I recommend for frying - if health is what you want - is water. Return to steaming, poaching, boiling, and pressure-cooking your foods. Then place the food on your plate, and then add essential fat-rich oils. By doing this, you avoid burning your food, you don't destroy the oils and make them atherogenic and carcinogenic, you get the essential fats you need, and they still bring out the food flavours. Many food flavours are oil-soluble, and one of the reasons for using oils in food preparation is for the flavour enhancement that oils have on your foods.

If you do fry in oil, use butter. But if you turn the butter into smoke, you make it toxic. Also remember that butter will increase your EFA requirement. So before you use butter, make sure that you have optimized your intake of properly made EFA-rich oils in the right ratio of n-3 to n-6 to make your skin soft and velvety. Then you have some leeway on the use of butter. Contrary to what you have been told, olive oil is not good for frying. Its health value is completely lost in the frying pan. It is a more sensitive oil than people lead you to believe. We tested it; that's how I know! (return to index)


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Q: What about the "oil-protein" mixture?

A: Contrary to what you may have heard from advertisers, protein needs oil for its metabolism, but oil does not require protein.

Oil and protein do not have to be given together. It's just important that you get enough of both for your body's requirement. An oil-protein mixture is simply one way to do this. This particular mixture was designed specifically for terminal cancer patients, but it is not necessarily the best combination to use even in this situation. In the North America diet, what we are missing are the essential fat-rich oils. These, brought into a deficient diet, provide the essential fatty acids necessary for health.

As a cancer treatment, the oil-protein mixture has some drawbacks. Excess protein puts an extra load on liver and kidneys. In cancer, a disease of body toxicity, the liver and kidneys have already maxed out their detoxification capacity, so it is preferable to spare them the extra work that proteins can put on these organs.

The best natural treatments for cancer, which take about two years to completely clean out, detoxify, and repair the body, are rich in greens and relatively low in protein. They give as much protein as necessary to make enzymes, immune proteins, and body structural proteins, but not more than that. When you take a load off the liver, you speed recovery.

The oil-protein diet takes about three to five years to be successful because of the extra protein load. Also, since the protein in the oil-protein mixture is dairy protein, it is counterproductive for people with dairy allergies, and can make them worse instead of better.

Protein needs oil, but oil does not need protein. EFA-rich oils are good on all types of foods: vegetables, proteins, and even fruit juices. They are also good on starches, but be careful, because any starches in excess of what your body burns for energy can turn into fats, and make you put on undesirable weight. (return to index)




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Q: Why is there no EPA and DHA in your oil blend?

A: The oil blend builds the foundation for essential fat nutrition. Essential fats are major nutrients and we need quite a lot of them. They serve functions in our membranes and our cells in addition to their roles as EPA, DHA and other derivatives, and prostaglandins.

If given enough of the starting material (n-6 LA and n-3 LNA), the body can usually convert essential fats into the derivatives and prostaglandins, but cannot convert prostaglandins and derivatives back into essential fats again. Therefore, the essential fat-rich oils are an important function in this regard.

I recommend that one first lays down a proper foundation. Then, if there remains specific problems (such as premenstrual syndrome or rheumatoid arthritis) that are not addressed by an optimum intake of essential fat-rich, properly balanced, organically grown, freshly made, properly packaged, and properly used oils, add EPA and DHA to this foundation.

I prefer toro (belly) sushi from albacore (white) tuna as my source of EPA and DHA. Salmon, mackerel, sardines, and rainbow trout are other good sources. You may find further benefits from eating such fish. Most people will not need them, but they may help a small percentage of the population.

I prefer eating fish to swallowing fish oil capsules because of the processing damage that occurs in fish oils. Fish oils are very difficult to work with. The "fishy" flavour of encapsulated oils or cod liver oil is actually rancidity. Fresh fish does not have this taste or smell. I also have concerns about fish liver oils. They are most likely to contain (and concentrate) highly toxic industrial chemicals such as PCBs. (return to index)




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Q: Are other GLA, EPA, and DHA-containing oils compatible with your blend?

A: All oils are compatible with one another. (return to index)




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Q: I've heard that n-3 oils interfere with GLA function. Is that true?

A: No. N-3s and n-6s compete for space on the enzymes that convert them into derivatives. But n-3s do not block or prevent conversion. They simply compete. The "block" story was concocted by a provider of GLA-containing borage oil. I found it remarkable that in his book, n-3s and fish oils, which have a long list of beneficial effects and a lot of convincing research behind them, are mentioned only twice, and for less than a page each time. They clearly merit more time in a balanced presentation on essential fats' effects on human health.

Here is other information on GLA oils that may interest you:

First, black currant seed oil, which contains both n-3 and n-6 fatty acids, is always refined because, I'm told, the seeds carry a virus that US Agriculture does not want to have imported. This means that the black currant seed oil is usually refined and deodorized, has been overheated, and has had most of its "minor" ingredients removed.

Second, borage oil (BO) contains n-6s but no n-3s. Although it contains more than twice as much GLA as evening primrose oil (EPO), which is also an n-6 oil without n-3s, BO is not necessarily a better therapeutic oil. There is some evidence that more than tiny amount of BO can lead to increased platelet stickiness due to increased production of thromboxane A2, one of the detrimental Series 2 prostaglandins. In studies comparing BO and EPO, EPO was more effective even though it contains less than half as much GLA as does borage..There are also as yet unpublished indications that BO may contain traces of liver-toxic "minor" ingredients. Of course, BO suppliers hotly contest this. For these reasons, I do not use BO. In the same way that "minor" ingredients can have major benefits on health, "minor" ingredients can also have detrimental effects on health. This is why the oils being used in nutrition and in therapy must be carefully chosen. This is also why the oils present in blends should be chosen with great care.

On the positive side, BO contains more GLA and is cheaper. That is the main reason for its spreading use.

Third, we should remember that the studies that established the usefulness of GLA and EPO were carried out in a generally n-3 deficient population. We know from experience that the n-3 essential fat (LNA) and the n-6 derivative (GLA) have overlapping functions, because their molecules are quite similar in structure and in chemical activity. I believe that GLA would not look nearly as impressive if it was studied in an n-3-adequate population. The GLA studies should all be repeated in an n-3-adequate population. I can hardly wait for the results of such studies. (return to index)