`'Food Is Medicine' Seminar Highlights Health Benefits of Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times

'Food Is Medicine' Seminar Highlights Health Benefits of Olive Oil

By Olive Oil Times Staff
Jun. 11, 2014 11:00 UTC

This month the orga­ni­za­tions Nutrition Australia and the Australian Olive Association are co-host­ing a series of free sem­i­nars on the health ben­e­fits of con­sum­ing extra vir­gin olive oil. The events are being held in Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Sydney and include a two-course lunch and pre­sen­ta­tions by three experts in the field.

Aimed pri­mar­ily at health pro­fes­sion­als, the Let Food By My Medicine” sem­i­nar fea­tures pre­sen­ta­tions by key note speaker Dr. Mary Flynn PhD, a nutri­tion­ist at The Miriam Hospital, a divi­sion of the Brown Medical School teach­ing hos­pi­tal; Dr. Richard Gawel, research sci­en­tist and head judge at the Australian National Olive Oil Competition; and Lucinda Hancock, exec­u­tive offi­cer of Nutrition Australia.

Flynn has taught Principles of Nutrition and Diet and Chronic Diseases at Brown since 1998. Her research focuses on the rela­tion­ship between diet and the devel­op­ment and treat­ment of chronic dis­eases. She devel­oped a plant-based EVOO diet and is cur­rently work­ing on a study com­par­ing the diet to one rec­om­mended by the U.S. National Cancer Institute for women with inva­sive breast can­cer.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion in Brisbane, Gawel shared infor­ma­tion sup­port­ing the claim that cook­ing with olive oil is not unhealthy as many con­sumers have been led to believe, par­tic­u­larly when the oil is of high qual­ity. Several health pro­fes­sion­als in atten­dance tweeted their sup­port for Gawel using the hash­tag #food­ismed­i­cine. TODAY show nutri­tion­ist Dr. Joanna McMillan wrote Let’s lose this myth for­ever! Yes you can cook with extra vir­gin olive oil!” and Good olive oil has high smoke point above even very hot cook­ing e.g. fried fish.”

Nutrition Australia is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with offices through­out Australia that aims to pro­mote the health and well-being of all Australians. Formed in 1995, the Australian Olive Association is the indus­try body rep­re­sent­ing Australian Olive Growers.

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