`More Misconceptions About Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times
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More Misconceptions About Olive Oil

By Elena Paravantes
Feb. 3, 2014 19:47 UTC
Summary Summary

Several veg­etable and seed oil com­pa­nies are claim­ing that seed oils are health­ier than olive oil due to lower sat­u­rated fat con­tent. However, the main sources of sat­u­rated fat in the American diet are not olive oil, but rather cheese, pizza, desserts, and other junk foods. Additionally, olive oil con­tains polyphe­nols that pro­vide health ben­e­fits not found in other seed or veg­etable oils.

Recently there has been an appear­ance of sev­eral veg­etable and seed oil com­pa­nies that have been assert­ing that seed oils have less sat­u­rated fat than olive oil, sug­gest­ing that these oils are health­ier choices com­pared with olive oil.

One of the main points they make is that olive oil has dou­ble the amount of sat­u­rated fat than other seed or veg­etable oils. They con­tinue by claim­ing that by switch­ing to the seed or veg­etable oil you can cut your intake of sat­u­rated fat dras­ti­cally. This is prob­lem­atic for two rea­sons:

1. The main sources of sat­u­rated fat obvi­ously do not come from olive oil, which is 75 per­cent monoun­sat­u­rated fat (known as the good fat). According to NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) data, olive oil is not even in the 25 top sources of sat­u­rated fat for Americans con­tribut­ing less than one per­cent of sat­u­rated fat, (it was not even on the list).

The top ten sources of sat­u­rated fat in the American diet are: cheese, pizza, grain based desserts, dairy desserts, chicken and chicken mixed dishes, sausage, franks, bacon, and ribs, burg­ers, Mexican mixed dishes, beef and beef mixed dishes, and reduced fat milk. Therefore, the argu­ment of switch­ing from olive oil to seed oil in order to reduce sat­u­rated fat intake is a weak one and deceiv­ing, con­sid­er­ing the main sources of sat­u­rated fat are basi­cally junk food.

If one wishes to reduce sat­u­rated fat intake, it would be much more effec­tive to cut down on cheese, pizza, desserts and other foods.

2. Saying that olive oil has more sat­u­rated fat than a seed oil, and is there­fore health­ier, is sim­plis­tic and sim­ply not true. Olive oil is high in monoun­sat­u­rated fats and low in the polyun­sat­u­rated fats asso­ci­ated with inflam­ma­tion that Americans and other west­ern­ized nations are already get­ting too much of in processed foods.

What they do not say when they make this claim is that extra vir­gin olive oil has sev­eral other sub­stances, mainly polyphe­nols, that are respon­si­ble for the mul­ti­tude of ben­e­fits. These polyphe­nols are not present in other veg­etable and seed oils, and that means that they do not have any of the health ben­e­fits asso­ci­ated with olive oil.

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