`Foods Fried in Olive Oil May Not Be Harmful - Olive Oil Times
Enter keywords and hit Go →
enEnglish
enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी
enEnglish
enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Foods Fried in Olive Oil May Not Be Harmful

By Elena Paravantes
Jan. 26, 2012 08:59 UTC
Summary Summary

Frying food in olive oil may not be harm­ful to the heart, as sug­gested by a study of over 40,000 adults in Spain pub­lished in the British Medical Journal. Researchers found no asso­ci­a­tion between fried food con­sump­tion and coro­nary heart dis­ease events, indi­cat­ing that occa­sional fried food can be part of a healthy diet when pre­pared with olive oil that has not been reused.

According to data from the Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), fried food may not harm the heart as long as it is fried in olive oil.

In this study pub­lished in the British Medical Journal, researchers gath­ered infor­ma­tion over the course of ten years from 40,757 adults aged 29 – 69 who were free of coro­nary heart dis­ease at the begin­ning of the study. After ana­lyz­ing the infor­ma­tion, there was no asso­ci­a­tion noted between fried food con­sump­tion after adjust­ing for energy intake, age, and gen­der, with coro­nary heart dis­ease events.

Although fry­ing is gen­er­ally con­sid­ered unhealthy mainly because it increases calo­rie and fat intake, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances it can be a part of a healthy diet. But it is impor­tant to note that the fried foods in this sit­u­a­tion are fried mainly in olive oil that has not been reused.

The researchers noted these results were in the con­text of a tra­di­tional Mediterranean diet with greater use of olive oil, which is less prone to degra­da­tion dur­ing fry­ing. Frying with other types of fats, reusing oils sev­eral times, or con­sum­ing fried snacks high in salt may still be harm­ful, they added.

The les­son to be learned here is that olive oil is the pre­ferred oil for fry­ing, and if you do fol­low a Mediterranean style diet, occa­sional fried food might not be so bad after all.


More articles on:  ,

Advertisement

Related Articles