Olive Oil

There is a lot being talked about oil at the moment. We know it is good for us, but how much should we have and how hot can we heat it .. and does heating it at all change how good it is?

I have seen many posts recently that advise that olive oil can be used "for all forms of cooking including deep fat frying". I have also seen many posts about drinking olive oil from a small glass in the morning. so I thought I'd better look into what it's all about.

Firstly a brief paragraph on the cooking and heating:

The start point here is that no oil should be heated above it's smoke point.

It seems from literature that depending on the individual extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) the smoke point will sit around 190-220C. (The difference depends on the Free Fatty Acid content).

Refined olive oil may have a higher smoke point (some up to 260C), but there is difference of opinion online on whether refined olive oils are therefore better for frying. Firstly EVOO with a smoke point of 190C or more should be high enough for most frying anyway and secondly, even though the smoke point of refined olive oil may be higher, evidence suggests that many of its FFAs (just like other refined oils) start to convert to carcinogenic compounds and trans fats long before they reach their smoke point, whilst EVOO is incredibly stable and it's polyphenol content (the compounds that make it greenish and are so good for us) protect from instability even as it nears it's smoke point range.

Secondly, drinking olive oil

This seems to be a bit of a trend at present, but I have to say that I tried it for a week and I both enjoyed it and think I felt benefit. I think that for that week I had a bit more energy and I also had a very calm gut all week - not a common thing for me.

Internet searching as always reveals a plethora of opinion. The British Heart Foundation are (as usual in my opinion) the most circumspect and constantly quote the NHS and Public Health advice to "eat a balanced diet"... "rather than relying on olive oil alone". However they were quoting things about not seeing much difference when you swap 1 tsp of butter for 1 tsp of olive oil and talking about not having more than that as heart health needs a low fat diet .... I often don't see eye to eye with the BHF who still want everyone on statins and eating a plateful of unrefined carbohydrates. Looking further afield, the Cleveland Clinic, University of California and the NIH (in a meta-analysis) show positive results with anything from 1-4 tbs olive oil a day. The NIH meta-analysis talks in their dicsussion about studies showing lowering of systolic blood pressure, lowering of blood sugar levels, improvement in lipid profiles, improvement in hormone balance and improvement in gut microbiome

Whilst I do not consider myself an expert I do think that the current evidence suggests we should ditch all other oils for cooking and salads etc and we should embrace EVOO. There could be a problem with everyone jumping on the band wagon at the same time - demand may outstrip prodution - and we don't want to accidently cause either a lowering of EVOO standards or a greater divide where greater wealth continues to mean greater health. ... That said, if you can afford the really top end stuff - go for it.

On my internet trawling I came across a website I rather liked:

https://oliveoillovers.com/