Benefits of olive oil for heart and overall health are still being discovered. Olive oil benefits are part of the Mediterranean diet.
Organic extra virgin olive oil is an outstanding health food!
Fats are critical nutrients in your diet, and getting them wrong can add up to a world of trouble, but getting them right can guard against almost all of the chronic disease that strikes us over time and with age.
Fats can heal, and they can kill. In the world of fats, olive oil is one of the “good guys” and will provide you with a number of benefits that will enhance your health.
The key to understanding olive oil benefits is in it’s structure. It is a mono-unsaturated fat, which means it is as close to a saturated fat as you can get, and still be unsaturated.
Why is this good?
Because mono-unsaturated fats are highly stable, and much less prone to be reactive. Stability in fats is VERY GOOD!. It means that they tolerate heat very well and you can even do some cooking with them safely.
It also means they don’t oxidize in your body and cause problems with free radicals. So just what are the benefits of olive oil, and what is the best olive oil? Ok…I will get to that soon.
Olive oil benefits:
Reduces the risk of heart disease
Helps to lower blood pressure
Potentially protects against colon cancer
Helps reduce inflammation
Has beneficial effects for diabetes
Can help sooth gastrointestinal problems
Olive Oil and Cholesterol
The ability of olive oil to help lower cholesterol is another huge benefits for this healthy fat. Even though there is more to preventing heart disease than lowering cholesterol, it is the process that really matters.
Olive oil has anti-inflammatory benefits, which help prevent damage to your arteries. It also has antioxidants that lower oxidative stress in the body. Olive oil also stimulates bile acids in the large intestine which are what bind with and carry cholesterol out of the body.
In doing all of this, olive oil does not lower HDL levels (the good cholesterol) which also protects against heart disease.
Best Olive Oil
The best olive oil would logically be organic extra virgin olive oil. This is the highest level of purity and the least amount of refinement. You may find the taste to be somewhat different than most commercial grade olive oil. It will be a little bitter to the taste, again because there has been far less “refinement,” to it and thus the olive oil benefits will be significantly enhanced.
Since fats are very chemically delicate substances, the less refining done to them the better. That may not always result in the best taste, but then again, our tastes have been shaped by eating so many processed foods we don’t know what natural foods taste like.
Organic extra virgin olive oil may taste different to you and will certainly be pricier, but you will acquire a taste for it, and in time you will not want anything else. You will also know that you are getting the in terms of the benefits of olive oil, and you will be healthier for it.
All oils are fats, but they are not the same. They can have VERY different effects in your body. Don’t be afraid to add the benefits of olive oil to your antiaging nutritional plan. It is a tasty and healthy way to improve your health.
A Heart Healthy Diet for Antiaging