Health Benefits of Olive Oil: Why Olive Oil is Good For You, and How You Can Get the Most Out of It
Good & Bad Fat
People in the US and the Mediterranean generally have the same amount of fat in their diets, but Americans have significantly higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer than their Mediterranean counterparts. Our bodies need fat to function well, but the American diet is too high in saturated fat and LDL cholesterol, the type of cholesterol that is harmful. These build up in the arteries, causing them to harden and become clogged. Mediterranean cooking uses olive oil more than other kinds of oil, so even though the fat content is high, the types of fat consumed are more easily digestible and less likely to remain in the arteries.
A tablespoon of olive oil contains the same total amount of fat as a tablespoon of lard, and more fat than the same amount of butter. So why is olive oil better for you? Olive oil is low in saturated fat and high in monounsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats can lower the amount of fat in the blood and can lower LDL cholesterol. In fact, HDL cholesterol (the beneficial type of cholesterol found in olive oil) can actually clean existing LDL cholesterol deposits from the arteries. Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil also contains nutrients that other types of oils don’t. Olive oil is rich in polyphenols which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and vitamins E and K, two antioxidant vitamins that many people don’t get enough of in their diets. Antioxidants are necessary for cell repair and regeneration, and help protect the body against cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
Get the Most Out of Olive Oil
If you’ve ever looked at the array of olive oil in a supermarket, you know that not all olive oil is equal. Some kinds are comparable in price to other vegetable oils, while others cost as much as an expensive bottle of wine. When choosing an olive oil, read the labels carefully. The most beneficial (and usually most expensive) is cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. This type of oil is extracted by pressing fresh olives without using any heat or chemicals, with the highest-quality oils coming from hand-picked, single-source olives that haven’t been damaged or left to over-ripen, which is often the case with machine-picked olives. This is the strongest tasting oil, and is best used unheated on salad, vegetables, or as a dip for bread.
Less expensive olive oils are often labeled “virgin,” “pure,” or “refined.” Virgin olive oil is processed the same way as extra virgin, but has a slightly higher acidity and is often a mix of olive oils from different sources, using lower quality olives. Although it doesn’t taste quite as good as extra virgin olive oil, the nutrient contents and health benefits are much the same. Pure and refined oils are made from lower quality olives and pressed with heat to extract the maximum amount of oil. Chemicals are added to improve the taste, since these oils can be quite acidic. The heat and chemicals used to process pure and refined olive oils cause the polyphenols and vitamins to deteriorate, so their health benefits are greatly reduced.
A good, single-source olive oil is bottled directly after pressing, and stays fresh for about a year when kept in a cool, dark place. After a year, the flavor becomes stale, although it can still be used for cooking oil. It’s best not to cook extra virgin and virgin olive oils at very high temperatures (above 350F) since this burns the unrefined particles, compromising the taste as well as destroying the polyphenols and vitamins. Pure and refined olive oils are best used as cooking oils, since they are much better for you than vegetable or animal fats, which begin to hydrogenate at high temperatures (remember that trans fat is hydrogenated fat). Pure and refined olive oils can even be used for deep fat frying, though their smoking point is around 350-400F.
Health Benefits of Olive Oil: Summaries of Recent Clinical Studies