Olive Oil is an oily liquid fat extracted from olive leaves, a very old, traditional plant cultivation of the Mediterranean Basin. It's frequently used as a salad dressing or cooking ingredient, for cooking and frying foods. Olive oil has a high saturated fat content and therefore is typically a healthy fat. It's an "essential" nutrient that's required by the body, so it's wise to purchase products that are "essentially" pure olive oil (such as virgin olive oil). This way, you're getting the health benefits of the oil without having to use any other unhealthy oils or hydrogenated oils.
Olive oil is thought of as one of the "super foods" due to its wide variety of health benefits. The antioxidant polyphenols found in olive oil provide an array of cancer-fighting, cardiovascular disease fighting, and anti-inflammatory properties. It is often consumed as cooking oil, a food seasoning and even as pharmaceutical topical gels and lotions. In addition, olive oil may help prevent heart disease, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, and some forms of cancer. But is olive oil really extra virgin? Visit this homepage for more info on the benefits of using olive oils.
Extra virgin olive oils, also known as "virgin" olive oil, is created from a different kind of olive fruit than your typical olive oil, called the olive sepal. While both varieties of this fruit are grown all over the Mediterranean region, the extra virgin variety is cultivated in Greece, Italy, and Spain. It's produced with the skin and seeds still intact, whereas in regular olives the stem is removed and the seeds sunk to the bottom of the fruit. In other words, the olive oil you buy in a supermarket is not truly extra virgin.
Some researchers believe that extra virgin olive oil can actually lower your risk of certain kinds of heart disease, because it contains monounsaturated fat, which helps lower your cholesterol. But the evidence on this is extremely preliminary, so no one quite knows whether or not the extra virgin variety is any healthier for you. Still, many dietitians advise dieters to limit their consumption of olive oil to about one third of their total daily calories, or about half of what they eat in the typical American diet.
What's more interesting is that monounsaturated oil contains a number of antioxidants. As well as some of the vitamins A and E, linoleic acid (linoleic acid) is one of the preferred fatty acids when it comes to clinical trials of heart disease prevention. Linoleic acid is present in many plant oils, including linseed oil, and also occurs in small quantities in raw nuts and some fish. The reason for including this vegetable oil in your diet is that it has been shown to have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants can prevent damage caused by free radicals, the molecules that cause damage in our bodies; and linoleic acid has been shown to be particularly effective against these molecules. Here is more information about this product: https://morethanolives.shop/.
So olive oil is probably even better than you think at preventing free radicals in your body. And since we already know that there are several health benefits to adding foods rich in antioxidants to your diet, this seems like a good place to start. Another area where it seems to be most beneficial is in the prevention of cancer. Researchers have found that monounsaturated oils help to protect the body from the formation of tumors. While this doesn't mean that you should stop eating the great, delicious Mediterranean diet entirely, it does mean that you may want to add a bit of olives to your menu planning. Get a general overview of the topic here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_pomace_oil.
