Health Benefits of Olive Oil by Laura Ng

Besides coconut oil that protects you with its medium-chain lauric acid and flaxseed oil that supply you with plenty of omega-3 essential fatty acid (EFA) to balance up your body's EFAs ratio, the next good oil that provides health benefits is olive oil.

How olive oil benefits your health? It helps you:

1. Reduce coronary heart disease and stroke by preventing plaque built-up which in turn leads to hardening of arteries (i.e. atherosclerosis).

2. Regulate blood pressure levels.

3. Lower blood cholesterol levels.

4. Lower blood sugar levels.

5. Prevent brain damage and failure of your adrenal glands.

6. Displace omega-6 fats without impacting the quantity of omega-3 fats so as to keep the ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 in balance.

But what's inside olive oil that provides such powerful health benefits? Antioxidants such as vitamin E, carotenoids and oleuropein (a phytochemical that prevents LDL particles from oxidizing) contain in olive oil's monounsaturated fat (oleic acid - aka omega-9) are what protect you from the aforementioned health issues.

What's more, some people even lose weight with regular consumption of olive oil. Although it's not been clear why it promotes weight loss, some scientists speculate that it could be the monounsaturated fat that makes you feel satisfied easily which in turn suppress your appetite, especially your cravings for more high-sugar junk food.

Speaking of the weight loss effect of this liquid gold, how should you eat to maximize olive oil's health benefits?

Due to its unsaturated fat structure, olive oil can easily degrade in its nutritional values and health benefits when expose to light and heat. Having said that, you shouldn't use olive oil (especially extra-virgin olive oil) in cooking. You should choose its refined grade that is able to withstand higher temperature for cooking if you prefer olive oil to other vegetable oils.

But refined oil doesn't provide as much weight loss and health benefits as its best graded extra-virgin olive oil. This is something you need to take note of.

For my case, I certainly use only extra-virgin olive oil mixing with virgin coconut oil as salad dressings. I don't go with any refined or hydrogenated oils. That's because I want to get the most nutritional and health benefits out of these healthful foods. What about you? If you're like me who's health-conscious and definitely will go all out to improve your health and overall well-being, don't save on quality. Not worth.

Oh, just to share with you before I wrap this up. I use extra-virgin olive oil as an important ingredient in uncooked or chilled food, but when it comes to cooking, I use coconut oil since coconut oil doesn't "freak out" as easily as olive oil when expose to heat and light.