Benefits of using Udo's oil?

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Comments

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    In fairness there are also a lot of credible advocates of Udo (and his book). Just 'cos some charlatans approve of it doesn't mean it's rubbish.
  • It's a stupidly expensive way of getting omega oils into your body.  In my opinion that's a scam.  Eat some pilchards!
  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    Then thank God I'm stupidly rich.
  • I would rather pay £16 quid a pint than eat Pilchards imageimageimageimage
  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    Omega-3/healthy fat snack-for-one recipe recommendation (I made this one up myself...)

    Sardines with mushrooms, garlic and pasta

    Ingredients:
    1x tin sardines in olive oil
    150g pasta (runner's portion) image
    100g mushrooms
    1/2 cloves garlic
    black pepper, mixed herbs and hot pepper sauce (Encona) to taste
    grated parmesan

    Boil pasta. Drain off olive oil from sardines into a saucepan. 5 mins before pasta is done, grill sardines and fry mushrooms and garlic in the fishy oil.  Add pepper, herbs and hot pepper sauce for a bit of zing.  (Alternative recipe: using sardines in tomato sauce, use your own olive oil to cook the mushrooms and garlic, add fishy tomato sauce once they're cooking.)  Mix the mushrooms with the pasta, add parmesan.  Serve grilled sardines over the top (extra pepper).

    Total cost: about £1 - £1.50.

    My fave post-run snack, that.

  • Yum.  I do something similar with rice and the ubiquitous Encona. image

  • We had a cona once...... I liked it when it went schlooooop -whoosh at the end.

    image

  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    It definitely works as well.  Had it a couple of Saturdays ago then went out on the Sunday and blasted a whole minute off my 10k pb!

    imageimage

  • Hi all, just stumbled across this thread whilst googling about. I  work for Savant Distribution, and we are the importers for Udo's Choice, so I thought I'd add my tuppence here.

    Firstly, Udos is not some wonder elixir, it is simply an easy way to get a good balance of fatty acids in your diet. If you already cater for this perfectly, that's great; if you don't, then this is a way to take the pain out of it. Whilst it will not be 100% perfect for everyone's diets, it will be right for most people - that is as good as you can hope for ANY nutritional component of a diet. It's main goal is to introduce good amounts of undamaged EFAs into the diet. Put simply our diet used to have more in it than it does now.

    The reason we are in the sports market is because of people coming to us and telling us the benefits they were receiving - the main remit of the blend is general health. This is why we are now sponsoring various sports people across multiple disciplines - they just get oil from us,and only because they have shown to us that it benefits them, so we're not buying them if that's what you're wondering.

    With regards to how it can help people run faster, there is more than 1 reason.  By getting your EFA intake sorted, you basically sort out your cell membranes. This in turn makes them better at doing their job - from O2 in and CO2 out, to all the other nutrients/waste products you're interested in shifting about. You also improve the pliability of RBCs. This translates as improved VO2 max, and better muscle growth/repair. Muscle repair is also governed a lot by inflammation - something that EFAs help manage. This reduces delays between training.

    There are more reasons, but I'll not bore you for now. I will happily answer anything you've got to ask though.

    Cheers,

    Tony

    (oh, and the Gillian McKeith bit is just there because she is a name that people can align to - Patrick Holford is IMO a far better proponent - either way, it doesn't make a product quackery!)

  • i would just like to say thank you tony as i felt undefended with regards to using Udo's and getting benefits, as said before i never felt it was a wonder oil but have heard good reports and as my husbands has used it in the past with body building and felt great benefits i thought it was worth a try with my running and general diet as you said most people don't get all the oils needed in their diet and i need all the help i can get,

    So thank you Tony for the support

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    Before getting shot down as spam, I'd like to genuinely mention that Savant have been spot on for years with deliveries of Udos. A really good company, never had a problem with them.
  • No probs Laura - bodybuilding was one of the first sports to "come to us" as it were, and is still an area we're expanding in. I'm personally a big fan now. The applications for endurance sports are possibly greater than those for bodybuilding, 

    Thanks XK - we try our best image

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    You could try harder image and start importing Green Magma Ultra, I can't find it anywhere in the UK.
  • Interesting stuff - dehydrated barley grass juice powder. I know who a good manufacturer will be - same guys who do our dehydrated wheatgrass juice powder image.

    Barley grass was actually on our "to look at list" not to long ago, but we had other commitments. Interesting to have someone after it specifically - one of the things for me was I wasn't sure there was enough of a differentiation between barley & wheat for our market.

    Hmm, looks like Nutricentre do it - http://www.nutricentre.com/p-27198-panacea-green-magma-powder.aspx

  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    Tony, if I can make a constructive comment then - from what I understand of the product it is a convenient way of getting fatty acids into the diet, and if people want to pay for that convenience then why not, but IMO any association with Gillian McKeith is not a healthy one.  She has been discredited as a 'Doctor' and I'm sure a number of people see her as a quack, so there's a danger that they will do the same with the product by association.

    Or do Joe Public still hold up GK as being a genuine authority on nutrition advice, without knowing any better?  I just think that if it was my product I'd only want it associated with professionals with bona fide credentials.

    And anyway, I'll stick to my sardines and olive oil.  image

  • lol - I probably should look at us mentioning her on our site, as I do understand what you mean, the copy isn't that "fresh", so could maybe do with a once over anyway. That said I don't think public perception of her is too bad at the minute - probably mostly forgotten about by now.

    Fair enough, though between them they're not a good source of ALA, just preformed EPA/DHA and mostly monos/LA from the olive oil image

  • A question for you Tony - as I mentioned in my previous post, Udo's book Fats that Heal ... is one of the text books for the course I'm on - nutritional healing.  So I decided to try Udo's Choice to see what the effects would be for me.  I didn't get on with it and felt nauseus after taking it in a smoothie in the morning with lecethin to emulsify.  My theory was that my diet is so well-balanced and rich in all the appropriate oils that I was overdosing.  Or, another theory, that my body needed to adjust to the new intake.  What do you think?
  • How much did you take? What is your weight?

    Your liver is the first port of call for processing fat, and it can let you know if you're taking in more than it's used to by making you feel iffy. If you start with a max of about 10ml in a serving, and increase from there, you shouldn't have an issue. If you are bigger, or used to fatty meals, you can start with a higher amount. The oil will go ito your system a lot quicker than say eating meat or nuts, which is why this feeling can be a surprise to people.

    However (!) the fat will slow gastric emptying (though will not impact on the first release of chyme), which can also make some people feel sluggish at first. So can be a double edged sword if you overindulge on your first time ttrying it.

    The lecithin wasn't needed - there's soya lecithin already in there to help with that side of things, plus uptake for EFAs in the gut is close to 100% anyway.

    I have 50ml in my morning soup without any sort of nausea issue - and could hit 100ml nowadays without concern (though it would be a bit squanderous). The only time I've had nausea was one day when I was being VERY lazy, knocked up a smoothie with ~150ml oil and 50g spirulina... felt like I'd been half knocked out...

    So yes, theory #2!

    Where are you doing your course?

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    "Hmm, looks like Nutricentre do it - http://www.nutricentre.com/p-27198-panacea-green-magma-powder.aspx"

    Unfortunately that's not the Ultra.
  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    I used to wretch when I started out with Udos but I'm glad I stuck with it. I use loads on salads and love it. It's amazing how your body changes what it likes and dislikes with training.
  • Doh, yes, you're right, my bad. I can't even find "ultra" referenced anywhere... what's the difference with it?

    Hah, can I use that as a testimonial?!!

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    Sorry Tony, I was talking garbage, it was Green Magma Plus (I'd just been reading about ultras so that word lodged in my typing finger).
  • Ah, right. Well, you're correct, that's not obviously available over here..!! Nice formulation though, I like products that hark back to hunter gatherer levels of different food types.
  • Thanks Tony - that info's helpful to me and does make sense with my (currently) limited knowledge of nutrition.  I've still got a lot of studying to do but getting there.  I prob took the recommended dosage for adults (don't have the bottle anymore) but I'm a small woman and weigh 52 kilos.

    My course is run by the Nutritional Healing Foundation who are based in Wells but I've been doing one day a month at a centre in Bristol - they run courses at centres in Scotland and England at the moment on a one day a month basis with lots of on your own studying in between those times.  They also offer 'phone support and the occasional workshop as a booster.  I'm loving it.

  • I'd also like to make one comment

    Tony - well done on coming on here and defending your product. I don't have an issue per se with people using Udo's where they aren't getting the EFAs in their diet like XK who I seem to recall is a veggie but like PhilPub I'll stick to fish ta.

    But I still have a BIG doubt about the original poster's claim that it helped them knock 4 mins off a PB after taking it for a very limited period. that is way off beam imho....

    comments???

    and yes - drop that McKeith woman - bloody charlatan.....
  • err I don't think Patrick Holford is much better than McKeith. Another one of those with dubious qualifications and ideas who have managed to appear mainstream simply by hanging around long enough and making enough noise.

    Would refer anyone and everyone who cares about not being sold bollox to Ben Goldacre's Bad Science (www.badscience.net)

    Not slagging off Udo's oil by the way. Read 'Fats that heal, fats that kill' and enjoyed and also have only every heard good things about Savant.
  • Parklife - ok, at that weight you're looking at 30ml a day, so 10ml 3 times a day would probably be best. That's the "average amount" that most people respond best to (15ml/25kg bodyweight) - some people need more, others less, depends on diet, genetics, lifestyle, etc, etc, etc. Course sounds interesting, nutrition is a big and regularly advancing topic.

    fat buddha - ok, but as per my earlier post, fish only contain preformed EPA/DHA. This is great for heart/brains, but of less benefit to the rest of your body. If you look at the subcellular organelles where ALA is used rather than EPA/DHA it becomes clear how it can have more of a whole body effect. (pet hate of mine - EPA/DHA are not EFAs, your body makes them as required from ALA in the diet. If it didn't vegetarians/vegans would be retarded, blind and sterile..)

    Regarding the time, yes, possible, from a number of angles, but typically you're looking at a 4 to 6 weeks before you start seeing improvements like that. We've seen cyclists improve on times that they set at far younger ages, powerlifters happily cruise through PBs, etc. Everyone does get something different from it though - so some might get a massive speed boost and nothing else. Others might just recover faster after training, or find training less taxing. Another will get a lot stronger, and another lose a load of flab. And so on. Everyone is different in that respect. You do get people who luck out and get all the benefits, but in honesty that is the exception rather than the rule. We did a survey of about 300 users (not sport specific) as to why people use it, as well as the 8 things we chose and thought would be most popular, another 20 odd reasons popped up. 

    Gymaddict - I've seen them both speak, and Holford carries good logic, typically backed by recent science. He does have a genuine passion for helping people, regardless of the fact that yes, he does do very well out of it.

    Hah, yes, you've got to love Goldacre - I do definitely agree with some of the stuff he writes, but also catagorically disagree with other aspects. He can be a victim of his own contradictions IMO (i.e. you can't hang proof on that, then goes and does the same himself in another article). Still always good to stir debate IMO

  • XKXK ✭✭✭
    "If it didn't vegetarians/vegans would be retarded, blind and sterile..)"

    I think I'm proof of that.
  • I think we will just need to agree to differ on Holdford. image As you say - debate is always good. I have not met him in person - just read one of his books - I wasn't impressed and having read some of Ben's comments did kind of firm up what i had thought myself.

    I am coming from a hard science background and have seen a lot of the things Ben talks about first hand and so have more sympathy for his point of view than that of his opposition. He is human however and is allowed to contracidct himself like we all do.

    Holford and his ilk, I feel, sell people snake oil - and the types of peeps who will fall for it will be those who need help the most - THAT i cannot abide. - again have seen too much of the 'alternative medicine' bollox being used by people who then reject orthodox medicine and do not get better (surprise surprise). It has made me very cynical re alternative medicine.
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