Choosing the Right Fat Diet: Using essential fats to optimize your long-term health
Udo Erasmus
AUGUST 2025
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Despite their many claims, the popular fat-focused diets that have been sold to us over the decades don’t deliver the good health or long-term weight loss they promise.
The Atkins Diet promised weight loss with a diet high in fats, but they were the wrong fats. Low-fat diets like Pritikin left followers deficient in vital nutrients that fats contain. Vegan and no-fat diets become lethal in the long term for the same reason.
The fake fat diets using Olestra resulted in fat-phobia-driven diarrhea and the inability to absorb fat-soluble essential nutrients. And while many see short-term results on Keto, that diet is unsustainable if it doesn’t emphasize, prioritize, and optimize the essential fatty acids: omega-3 and omega-6.
That’s why I follow what I call the Right Fat Diet, which is based on optimizing the intake of essential fatty acids (EFAs). It is sustainable and will work for you, lifelong. I’m 83, and I’ve been following this diet for over 40 years. I have no pain in any of my joints or anywhere else, except briefly after hard workouts or when I bang into something.
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What is the Right Fat Diet? Let’s start with the basics. There are two EFAs that you must have to live and be healthy. Omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), is plant-based and present in a few sources, including flax. Omega-6, linoleic acid (LA) is also plant-based and present in all seed and nut oils.
Essential fatty acids are called “essential” because they ARE essential for good health. You can’t make them in your body and must, therefore, bring them in from outside. Getting too little for too long damages your health in all sorts of ways and will eventually result in death.
But if you return enough of these essential nutrients before death, all the symptoms of getting too little are reversed.
Unfortunately, intake of omega-3 has fallen to the point where 99% of the population doesn’t get enough through the standard American diet, while the intake of omega-6 has more than doubled over the past 150 years, mostly from oils subjected to harsh industrial processing. This means that most people get enough omega-6, but with the addition of toxic molecules from industrial processing, and these are made even more toxic by high-heat food preparation. More about that later.
There are also many lies being told about essential fatty acids and their role in health by so-called experts who have not done their homework. They say that the body can’t convert vegetarian sources, which is untrue. We’re also all familiar with the outrageous claim that seed oils are toxic when the truth is that it isn’t the seed oils that are dangerous, but the toxic processes that damage the oil to make it more shelf-stable. When we use those damaged oils for cooking and frying, additional damage occurs, which results in damaged oils coursing through your system.
Think about it like this: Do you know how many damaged molecules are in one tablespoon of damaged oil that has been used for frying? 60 quintillion. That’s over one million damaged molecules for each of your body’s 60 trillion cells. Damaged oils do a lot more harm than you think.
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Fried foods fry health, and fried oils fry health. They increase inflammation and the risk of cancer. Cooking oils line store shelves on every continent, usually packaged in plastic bottles, or sometimes in tin cans or large tins. Processing these oils to extend their shelf life is a toxic, destructive process that leaves you with a colorless, odorless, tasteless oil that millions of people use to cook otherwise nutritious food.
Most people think that they couldn’t live without eating fried foods. But this fried taste
overpowers the thousands of nuances in tastes and fragrances that fresh, plant-based foods by nature have, as well as destroying vital nutrients.
In nutrition, damaged oils cause the most health problems, but oils made right bring the most health benefits. My new book, “Your Body Needs An Oil Change,” spells this out in more detail, but in terms of weight loss, there are some important things to know.
In the 80s, the low-fat craze came out of a belief that reducing the amount of fats we
consumed would result in a reduction of calories and, therefore, weight. But the truth is that good oils are one of the best sources of nutrients that will keep your body healthy.
And despite many people’s unfounded aversion to fats, the right fats help keep your body at optimum weight.
The “right fats” suppress appetite. The “right fats” are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant in your body. The “right fats” will give you soft, smooth, velvety skin. They increase stamina and performance while speeding recovery and healing. The “right fats” will give you stable energy without blood sugar and insulin swings, cravings, overeating, fat production, and carb addiction problems.
Following the Right Fat Diet is easy:
Choose whole-food, plant-based, and mostly raw and organic foods as much as possible.
When you do cook, cook in water.
Add healthy oils after the food comes off the heat source.
It really is that simple. I go into how to make the most of your lifelong diet in my new book, “Your Body Needs an Oil Change,” available on Amazon.
BIO
Udo Erasmus has extensive education in biochemistry, biology and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Adler University. He is the author of Fats and Oils, Fats That Heal Fats That Kill, Choosing the Right Fats, Omega 3 Cuisine, and Your Body Needs an Oil Change. Udo is the creator of Udo’s Oil® 3·6·9 Blend, a multiple award-winning mix of plant-based, unrefined, certified organic food oils made with health in mind.
