Olive Oil for Health
By Gloria Good
The hardy olive tree is an ancient giver of life. Fossilized leaves
from a stand of Greek olive trees date back to 37,000 B.C., and
amazingly enough, that particular stand still exists today.
Individual trees can live from one hundred to thousands of
years--the olive tree from Plato’s back yard lives on, but no longer
produces olives.
Next to salt, olive oil is the essence of civilization. The
cultures of the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans all
revered the olive tree for its fruit with a multitude of uses. Olive
oil has been used to moisturize skin and to fuel lamps, to heal and
to cook, and it has been so important that it has even been used as
a form of currency.
Olive oil is more than an artifact of the past. There are
approximately 800 million olive trees in the world, in places as
distant from each other as Angola, China and California. However,
most olive trees circle the Mediterranean, where people have based
their diets on the olive for 6,000 years. In Greece, every man,
woman and child consumes an average of five gallons of olive oil a
year!
Nowadays, olive oil is being rediscovered by Americans as a
delicious and nutritious addition to their diets. Science has
finally noticed what others have instinctively known for millennia:
Olive oil is not just tasty; it’s actually good for you!
Olive oil is very high in the antioxidants vitamin A and vitamin E,
which neutralize cancer-causing free radicals in our bodies. It is
monounsaturated, therefore it lowers the “bad” LDL cholesterol
without reducing the “good” HDL cholesterol. This results in
improved circulation, lowered blood pressure and less risk for heart
disease. Recent research also indicates that olive oil may be
especially effective in preventing both breast cancer and
osteoporosis.
Its high concentration of oleic acid not only keeps our arteries
supple, it is also partly responsible for olive oil’s popularity--it
is a fairly stable oil with a high smoking point. This means it is
suitable for all cooking except frying, and it stores for a year to
a year and a half in cool, dark storage conditions.
Interestingly, oleic acid is in a medicine used to fight a rare
degenerative disease known as ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy), which
occurs when a build-up of very long-chain fatty acids (C22 to C28)
destroys the white matter (myelin) in the brain. Made with twenty
percent erucic acid and eighty percent oleic acid, the medicine is
called “Lorenzo’s Oil”, named after a boy with this condition, and
was popularized by a movie of the same name. It is no relation to
our new line of olive oil, “Lorenzo’s Oil Tehama Gold.”
When choosing an olive oil, it is imperative that one buys only
“extra virgin” olive oil, rather than “virgin” or “pure” olive oil.
Extra virgin is the oil from the first pressing; it uses top grade
olives, with less than one percent acidity, and has the highest
nutritional value and the best taste. It is the only oil with which
the consumer can feel safe in knowing that it is truly cold pressed.
Virgin olive oil is also mechanically pressed, but with olives that
may not be top grade and are from the second or third pressing.
“Pure” olive oil is a marketing term; this oil comes from the third
or fourth pressing, and has been refined in a variety of processes,
all using extreme heat and chemicals to extract the oil from the
remaining pulp.
There is no standardization of terms, so the consumer is
confounded by such phrases as “cold pressed”, “first pressed”,
“expelled pressed” and “mechanically pressed.” As the goal is to
have as little heat applied as possible, one would think that cold
pressed would be best. However, some cold pressed oils could be the
third or fourth pressing, refined with heat and chemicals, which
strip olive oil of its nutrients and rich, fruity taste. Avoid fraud
by sticking to extra virgin olive oil, which is expressed from only
one mechanical pressing, and is not refined.
Olive oils are as diverse as wines; there are 700 cultivated
varieties of olives. The oils derived from them can be anywhere from
mellow yellow in color, to jade green. The taste can be peppery,
sweet and buttery, nutty, grassy, or it can taste like green apples.
An olive oil can be filtered, resulting in a clearer product, or it
can be unfiltered, resulting in sedimentation and juicy bits of
fruit. Some olive oil aficionados may have as many as a dozen oils
from all over the world so they can savor the different flavors.
As olive oil is such an important component to a healthful diet, we
at The Grain and Salt Society wanted to offer at least one brand to
our customers. We have chosen Lorenzo’s Oil Tehama Gold, which we
feel is an excellent product.
There are many qualities that distinguish this oil from some of the
others. It is grown organically in California, and we all know that
organically grown is a must. Rather than the younger green olives,
the mature fruits are harvested, which results in a creamy, buttery
flavored extra virgin olive oil. In addition, the manufacturing
process uses a dual-phase and tri-phase decanter for extracting
olive oil, which does not add warm water to extract the oil. This is
key, because heat alters the chemical makeup of olive oil, and
severely depletes its vitamins.
So do your heart and taste buds a favor and add olive oil to your
diet. Olive oil can be used in salads, stir-fries and sautes. It is
delicious on bread, in place of butter, and brushed on vegetables,
fish or poultry before grilling. Do not deep fry with olive oil
because temperatures in excess of 350 degrees begin to break down
the oil.
Remember to always store olive oil in a cool, dark cabinet, not on
the counter, or next to a stove, as both heat and light alter oil’s
nutritional value.
For more information on healthy oils, see the following articles:
"Change Your Oil, Change Your Life" in Spring 1999 "Ghee: an Ancient
Food for a Modern Era" in Spring 1999 "Going Co-Co for Coconut
Butter" in Winter 2000