Extra virgin olive oil: a fat that doesn’t make you fat!

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High quality olive oil could be defined as “a fat that does not make you fat”.

Although the precious “gold of the Mediterranean” has a high calorie content – equal to about 90 Kcal per spoon – Its beneficial properties are so many that the dose recommended by experts and nutritionists is 3 – 4 tablespoons per day. This is because the amount of calories, is not directly proportional to weight gain, rather the opposite. Let’s see why.

Extra virgin olive oil for weight loss, but with pleasure!

Extra virgin olive oil is an essential food for our health that improves metabolism without promoting weight gain. For this reason, it is a food that absolutely must find its place in our diet, unlike many other fats, some of which are considered healthy. The reason: olive oil behaves differently from high quality coconut or sunflower oil. It is the only edible oil that contains high levels of polyphenols, which give the oil some of its added value, it is long-chain and is absorbed slowly and constantly, and it is also rich in vitamins. The extremely short-chain coconut oil, which is very popular with athletes because of its rapid absorption and energy release, is not useful for weight reduction in people who exercise less than 3 times a week and are not on a ketogenic diet; the same applies to organic sunflower oil, despite its high vitamin E content.

The good fats in olive oil in combination with the other accompanying substances reduce the glycaemic load of a meal. They develop an anti-insulin effect , the hormone responsible for fat storage in the stomach: i.e. a meal without olive oil is not only less tasty, but also less healthy.

Flavour also plays a crucial role in maintaining a healthy weight. This is confirmed by a study conducted by the Technical University of Munich and the University of Vienna, according to which the aroma of the oil stimulates the
the feeling of satiety and acts as a brake against overeating. A nice advantage especially for those who want to stick to a diet and limit hunger pangs.

Virgin olive oil also for the beauty of skin and hair

Who said that olive oil should only be used for weight loss? This food is actually also excellent for its nourishing and moisturising properties. The benefits are mainly skin and hair, which are exposed to the attack of environmental factors every day.

Science has explained how virgin olive oil nourishes and revitalises the hair thanks to the fatty acids and vitamin E, it eliminates dullness and dryness and restores the natural shine.

Vitamins and fatty acids are also excellent for the skin, which needs more moisture to stay soft and smooth when exposed to sun or sea water. Olive oil also acts as an anti-ageing agent: massaging a thin layer of oil all over the body every day can tighten the skin and slow down the appearance of the dreaded wrinkles.

Read also: Olive oil polyphenols: Against cell damage and skin ageing

Acidity in olive oil

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Many olive oil suppliers advertise low acidity (and fool you with it).
(and lead you around by the nose with it!)

Some olive oil suppliers actively advertise low acidity. This is misleading because many people think they can taste the acidity in olive oil. But acidity has nothing to do with taste, because free fatty acids are tasteless. Therefore, in order to determine the acidity of olive oil, no taste test is necessary, but a chemical analysis is carried out. Because only in the laboratory can you determine how high the acid content of an olive oil is. You should know that olive oil, like all vegetable oils, consists largely of triglycerides. Triglycerides are always composed of three oleic acids that are bound to glycerol. Put simply, this means that the three oleic acids are held in place by glycerol, but this “holding mechanism” is not very stable. Through the effect of heat, oxygen (= oxidation) or the influence of certain bacteria (= fermentation), the oleic acids detach from the glycerol and so-called “free fatty acids” are formed. In chemistry, the acid content indicates how many free fatty acids are present in the oil. If the acidity is high, there are many free fatty acids in the olive oil. Conversely, if the acidity is low, the oleic acids are bound to glycerol and the vegetable oil consequently has a low acidity.  

Is there a connection between the taste and acidity of olive oil?

As already mentioned, the question “Does olive oil taste sour?” must be clearly answered with “No”. Nevertheless, it could be that the acidity can be tasted, if not by a layman, then at least by an expert. But that does not work either. The acidity of olive oil must always be based on a chemical analysis. Even the most trained and specialised palate cannot determine whether an olive oil contains many or few free fatty acids. Thus, many think that the high-quality olive oil they have bought is “sour” and confuse quality characteristics such as pungency and aroma with acidity. Conversely, many oils that are advertised as “mild”, like most supermarket products, are simply old and oxidised and therefore have an increased acidity that is perceived as pleasant and gentle by the unsuspecting consumer. Such olive oils no longer offer any health advantage over other oils, they only fill the tills of the supermarket chains.

Read also: Fat through fats

Bird massacre in the olive grove

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… and is olive oil vegan at all?
The emergence of a media myth.

On 01.06.2019, the magazin “Stern Online” headlined grandiloquently: “Millions of birds murdered – the dark secret of olive oil” and there it was, a myth was born! To add the necessary spice, the paper added another claim: “The massacre could easily be prevented, but the farmers earn too much from bird murder” and the culprits were unmasked and stigmatised! Now every vegan had a new NoGo (olive oil) and a new enemy image: the greedy and unscrupulous olive farmer.

Yet the facts were as thin as the ice during a late frost in May. It all began in 2017 with an alert from the Spanish ecological movement “Ecologistas en Acción” to draw the attention of the authorities to a new phenomenon: In order to put the overripe olives at less risk and to be able to harvest larger areas in less time, producers started harvesting at night – with huge machines. Like the cleaning brushes in a car wash, the harvesters embrace the row upon row of olive trees in these crops from two sides, shaking them and sucking the fruit from the branches. Songbirds, which overwinter in Spain in large numbers at harvest time from November to March and roost in the trees, had little chance of survival during this process. The strong headlights during the night harvest also blind the birds, so that they usually do not even try to escape the approaching inferno by flying.

So much for what the animal rights activists suspected. As a result, an expert opinion was drawn up, which, however, was not published as an official document of the regional government, as the authority emphasises. The unofficial result, however, is clear. The report, which was published online by Ecologistas en Acción, states that the night-time harvesting of olives in super-intensive plantations is a problem with far-reaching consequences: “The effects on the environment go beyond the geographical borders of Andalusia and Spain and also affect environmental values in various other countries of the European Union. It points out, for example, that the practice of harvesting at night with large machines and spotlights is probably illegal because it is a violation of the European Birds Directive, which all member states are bound by.

Letter to the editor turned into a “study”

The environmental experts counted up to 100 dead birds per hectare in some plantations and extrapolated that in the whole of Andalusia “even at a conservative estimate, 2.6 million birds are affected in any given year”.

While the analysis initially received only local attention, this was changed by a letter sent by Portuguese biologist Vanessa Mata and her colleague Luis P. da Silva to the renowned journal Nature, which the magazine published. In it, the researchers refer to the Spanish analysis and to a similar study in Portugal, which revealed a figure of around 100,000 birds killed.

Although the two concerned scientists only quoted the Spanish results and did not present their own findings, the short letter brought a breakthrough in public attention to the problem. A variety of articles appeared in Europe referring to the letter to the editor in Nature, although it was often mislabelled as a study.

“Millions of Birds Killed – The Dark Secret of Olive Oil” was the headline of “Stern”, “Millions of Birds Sucked to Death” of the British “Independent”.

Example of an intensive plantation run by large corporations.

Italy and France seem hardly affected

More precise information about the actual extent of the threat to migratory birds could already be available before the next olive season. Because at the same time as the provisional ban on night harvesting, the Andalusian regional government commissioned an official scientific study in autumn, in which the Spanish bird protection organisation SEO/Birdlife is involved. The field work has just been completed. An assessment should be available in the near future.

In Italy, the world’s second largest olive oil producer after Spain, night harvesting with suction machines apparently does not yet play a role. In France, too, there are no problems with the new method so far, according to the bird protection organisation LPO. Olive harvesting is still largely done in a more traditional way. However, French agriculture is also under considerable pressure to intensify, so the all-clear is only temporary.

Olive oil remains vegan so far…

In the final analysis, this problem is easy to explain and attribute. First the why: big corporations in the olive oil business have a priority to produce as much olive oil as possible and at the cheapest price! The quality of the olive oil is certainly not the first priority, only the yield. Now the how: the olives have to be harvested as ripe as possible (December) so that they give the highest possible oil yield, the oil is then inferior but “mild”, just as the German customer likes it. In order to keep the damage caused by oxidation within limits, harvesting has to be fast, hence the huge machines that no normal farmer can afford, and preferably at cool temperatures so that the acidity values of the olive oil do not exceed the permitted values for extra virgin olive oil. Then even this inferior oil is still considered extra virgin and can be sold for € 4,- a bottle over the supermarket counter.

The oil is adulterated in the large Spanish plants (where it is permitted) and then transported by ship to bottlers throughout the EU. Of course, there are enough farmers in Spain who produce excellent olive oil, as evidenced by the numerous annual awards. So the main problem is identified, it is not the greedy farmers, but a system that works price-driven, because the normal farmer, who brings in his harvest in laborious manual work, will never be able to produce at such prices. Ultimately, it is up to the customer, including the vegan. It is not about demonising a product in toto, but about making the right choice and staying away from the mass-produced goods in the supermarkets.

 

Read also: Acidity in olive oil

Pan-fried mild olive oil for the German consumer

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The free market for olive oil is not functioning properly. The connoisseurs are frustrated: Many customers do not understand the simplest things – that a good oil tastes bitter and grassy, and not mild and buttery. But the people who buy in the supermarket want the oil to be mild.

“We’ve only got as far as we did with wine thirty years ago,” moans Richard Retsch, a connoisseur, namely the head of the gourmet and taster association “Deutsches Olivenöl Panel”. He says on the sidelines of a big novelty tasting in the exhibition halls of Nuremberg: “The discrepancy between expert and mass taste is huge.”

Yet the experts have long since precisely defined what has to be good and bad. There is a questionnaire on which the gourmets note down all kinds of characteristics of the oils. Stingy, muddy, musty, aroma of wet wood, rancid: if only one of these notes can be tasted, the olive oil fails outright. Then it must no longer be called “extra virgin”. That is the highest quality class. The state requires such tests: at least eight experts have to do the taste test, and a number of laboratory values have to be correct, then an oil is also “extra virgin” or “extra virgin”.

For gourmets, that’s the least they can do. One of them, Richard Wolny, explains what flavours make an outstanding oil: “I can tell what the aroma is, whether the oil tastes like artichoke, green tomato, green banana, freshly cut grass.”

Demand for mild olive oil poisons the market

It is a big market. There are 3.3 million tonnes of fresh olive oil in the world every year. A farmer gets around 3 euros per litre for it, a little less in Tunisia and Greece, a little more in Italy. A bottle of pure, one hundred percent extra virgin oil costs the consumer at least 13 euros at the wine merchant or in online shipping. In the supermarket, you can get a litre for just over four euros – how can that work?

There are many figures on this market, but also many oddities. For one thing, the information on the labels is usually unclear. If it does not say that the olives are from the country of production, but only an Italian brand name, it is pretty certain that they contain blends. Italy harvests just about as many olives as its own population consumes – yet it is the world’s largest producer and also exporter of olive oil. Some of the oil or olives are imported beforehand, from Tunisia, Morocco, Greece, and – legally or not – relabelled.

The second oddity concerns quality standards. An oil sold as “extra virgin” does not have to be full and of the best quality. The mishmash is the rule. Large oil producers like Bertolli and Nestlé profit from consumers’ ignorance. After all, “extra virgin” is a category characterised by many taste features, mechanical pressing and a maximum content of fatty acids. However, it may well contain a high proportion of inferior oils. If a manufacturer mixes, say, 10 per cent excellent olive oil with 90 per cent tasteless, chemically refined third-rate olive oil, the end product still tastes “extra virgin” and passes the test.

“Unblended, the litre should cost at least 13 euros”.

A large part of the oils sold by Rewe, Aldi, Lidl and others are likely to be such blends. “Otherwise they would have to cost at least 13 or 15 euros per bottle,” explains an industry expert. That is easy to understand, since the producer already receives 3 euros for the litre.

Where there is a lot of confusion, independent experts have an important role to play. Stiftung Warentest is one of them. Most recently, it surprised in January when it published an olive oil test in which the mass producers were described as premium brands and the quality producers were downgraded to “pure taste winners”.

OLIVE OIL & FITNESS

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How a good olive oil works for sports and muscle building

Professional athletes have known for years that high-quality extra virgin olive oil benefits their performance. Initially, it was only used for the intake of healthy, easily digestible calories. Extra virgin olive oil is therefore becoming increasingly popular in fitness clubs, not least because of its easy digestibility. Recently, it has become common knowledge that extra virgin olive oil is full of antioxidants such as oleacein and anti-inflammatory agents such as oleocanthal, which help us build muscle, heal or prevent injuries, and regenerate muscles. Only extra virgin olive oil with a high polyphenol content works optimally. There are other benefits of polyphenols found in high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which contain anti-inflammatory compounds such as oleocanthal, a tyrosol derivative.

Olive oil from Coratina olives has the highest content of these anti-inflammatory phenolic components and contains oleacein, a hydroxytyrosol derivative with strong detoxifying effects. Vitamin E is another important ingredient found in abundance in extra virgin olive oil and its health benefits have long been established. Monosaturated fatty acids, oleocanthal, oleacein, vitamin E and numerous other components in olive oil form the basis for the superfood extra virgin olive oil. Many sports websites reference the information quoting nutritionist Dr Douglas Kalman of Florida International University

The monosaturated fat in olive oil appears to act as an anti-catabolic nutrient.

In other words, it prevents muscle breakdown because it reduces levels of a harmful cell protein TNF (tumour nectrosis factor-a), which has been linked to muscle breakdown and weakness.” In fact, TNF is associated with inflammation. As it turns out, olive oil does not increase it like other lipids, but is actually involved in decreasing TNF. Because of its anti-inflammatory effects, extra virgin olive oil helps build muscle. This is the decisive factor in building muscle mass. It is not really surprising that bodybuilders declare Extra Virgin Olive Oil an indispensable part of their diet.

Read also: Fat through fats?