There is strong epidemiological evidence that olive oil offers significant cardioprotective benefits. In plain English, olive oil is good for the heart.
Heart disease. Like all vegetable oils, olive oil is 100 percent fat, and fat is a prime contributor to heart disease and cancer. So how could olive oil be good for the heart? The reason appears to be that it is neither saturated, like the fats in meats, butter, and dairy products, nor polyunsaturated, like the fat in many other oils. It is monounsaturated. Greeks and Italians consume almost as much total fat as Americans do - most of it in the form of olive oil - but have heart disease rates considerably lower than ours. In fact, Americans should eat like people in those Mediterranean countries. It was argued to junk the USDA’s new Food Pyramid, which recommends meat and dairy products two or three times a day, and replace it with a Mediterranean Pyramid, which discourages meat and dairy foods and promotes a semi-vegetarian diet with olive oil as the major source of fat. Of course, like any fat, olive oil should be used sparingly in the context of a low-fat diet. But recent research suggests that this tasty oil is a real healer. Read the rest of this entry »
Recent Comments