Why Olive Oil is Good For You
Here is the 92nd article in this great series of 100 Weight Loss Tips. Each new article is here to bring you another new top tip on how to lose weight successfully.
The last tip looked at why it is better to lose weight slowly rather than go at it like a bull in a china shop.
This healthy weight loss tip looks at the reasons that extra virgin olive oil (and some other oils) is good for you and good for your overall health.
There are several commonly used oils in cooking and different countries around the world tend to favor a particular variation over others. This is usually down to availability and/or cost.
But it cannot be denied that one of the best oils you can use for health and to assist weight loss has to be extra virgin olive oil.
Why is Olive Oil Good For You?
If you think of it in the way that your car needs a really good, high-quality oil for its motor to function at its best and most efficient. So too your body needs a top quality oil to help it stay healthy. Unfortunately, not all oils are created equal!
There are several schools of thought on which oils are better for you and your health than others. Most do agree however that extra virgin olive, which is 100% natural as well as being rich in Omega 9 fatty acids, is one of the best all rounders for maintaining a healthy body and aiding a slow or even a quick weight loss plan.
Choose the variety of oil wisely for your own personal diet, though. There are several grades of olive oil and it depends upon the country of produce and other factors such as the rainfall for the year and other factors.
However, most of the time, you can usually see a good quality oil just from the price!
OK, that's not always the best way of gauging the quality of something, but generally the more expensive it is, chances are the better its quality. That is as long as the bulk of that price isn't swallowed up in bottling in extremely fancy bottles or importation costs with an oil coming from a faraway place that can't be brought in bulk.
Where it Comes From
Spain is the world's biggest producer of top quality extra virgin olive oil, with Greece and Italy also figuring in there. Brand names that are most popular there, where people know a thing or two about the oil they use liberally on just about everything, are Carbonell or Hojiblanca.
However, if you can't get either of those, don't worry as there are many fine varieties of extra virgin olive oil on the market and they're all as healthy as each other.
When it comes to using the oil, it is commonly used straight from the bottle, drizzled over bread in place of butter (very healthy when you do it with wholemeal bread!) and poured liberally over salads as a dressing combined with vinegar and freshly ground black pepper.
Good Fats
From a weight loss perspective, olive oil is high in mono unsaturated fats (particularly oleic acid) which are the healthiest kinds and very good for your heart. It also passes through the body much easier than other oils and does not add to fat storage, meaning if you use it for cooking your food will be leaner and healthier.
One point you should be aware of is that when frying, extra virgin olive oil becomes unstable at high temperatures, so is not recommended for this type of cooking except frying at low temperatures. For higher temperature frying, it is better to use a lighter olive oil (non-virgin or second pass) with a low acidity value of 4 or less which is more stable at higher temperatures and can safely be used for stir frying dishes.
One of the best healthy alternatives for high temperature frying if you really need to, is cocnut oil. It remains stable while also providing many good health benefits. Avoid using vegetable, sunflower, safflower, corn or canola oils as they have a habit of becoming carcinogenic at high frying temperatures when used to fry starchy vegetables like potatoes as well as having a high omega-6 content which is not healthy at high levels or unbalanced with equal amounts of omega-3 and -9 fatty acids.
This way it is better for your healthy diet and to keep things as natural as possible.
Mediterranean Diet
Olive oil is one of the main constituents of the famed Mediterranean diet and when used as part of your daily diet has a marked effect on cholesterol regulation, especially the oxidation of LDL cholesterol and therefore lowers levels of bad cholesterol. It also lowers blood sugar levels and blood pressure levels.
Particularly when used to replace unhealthy and potentially harmful animal fats in a daily diet, olive oil will help you lose weight over time and build a healthier and happier body from the inside out. Now isn't that something worth making the change for?
100 weight loss tips number 91 will follow in the next post!
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Posted on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 1 Comments
1 thoughts on "Why Olive Oil is Good For You"
tyson says:
I have kind of a different outlook on this idea of including olive oil in your diet for good health but basically talking, we are both on the same page.