Striving4Zen

It’s no surprise that the Mediterranean diet is linked to good health. Small reliance on meat and scant use of butter limit the saturated fat that raises blood cholesterol and possibly promotes development of some cancers.

The Mediterranean diet includes a large proportion of fish, which is rich in omega-3 fats that reduce inflammation, which seems to raise both heart and cancer risks. An abundance of fruits, vegetables and beans provides the many different phytochemicals that protect blood vessels and guard cells against cancer-causing substances. Now, studies show that olive oil may bolster each one of these benefits.

Originally, scientists thought olive oil’s primary benefit was its monounsaturated fat.

Because 75% of the fatty acid “building blocks” that make up olive oil come from monounsaturated fat, and only 13% from saturated fat, it’s easy to see why blood cholesterol goes down when olive oil replaces butter and high-fat meat as the main source of fat. Analysis relates olive oil to the Mediterranean diet’s link with lower blood pressure, as well.

Olive oil also offers several health advantages over more polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Monounsaturated oils seem to cause less production of the bile acids in the digestive tract that promote colon cancer development.

Because monounsaturated fat is more stable than polyunsaturated fat, it is less likely to generate the free radicals that create harmful blood cholesterol (“LDL”). LDL damages blood vessels and can create changes in genes that may lead to cancer. Finally, although olive oil does not provide the healthful omega-3 fat found in seafood, it does strengthen omega-3’s anti-inflammatory effects.

Research now shows that many of olive oil’s health benefits may actually come from the more than 30 plant compounds it contains. These compounds’ antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects promote heart health and protect against cancer.

Choose least processed
Olive oil compounds also increase enzymes that block activation of carcinogens and improve their removal from the body. These compounds appear to slow development of cancer cells and increase their self-destruction. While many of these benefits have been seen in laboratory studies rather than controlled human intervention trials, they are supported by what we see in population studies of the Mediterranean diet.

All types of olive oil provide the monounsaturated fat linked with health benefits, but to get the highest levels of the protective plant compounds, choose “extra virgin” or “virgin” oil, the least processed forms. Store it away from light and heat to maintain phytochemical content.

“Pure” olive oil is still high in monounsaturated fat, but has lost protective plant compounds in refining. “Light” olive oil is lighter in flavor and color, not fat or calorie content.

Some people may choose light olive oil for baking or recipes where an olive oil flavor is undesirable, but so many of the protective phytochemicals have been removed in refining those versions that canola oil may be a healthier alternative. (Canola oil also provides some omega-3 fat and more vitamin E.)

From a cook’s perspective, olive oil may not be the best choice for cooking at a high temperature. The sediment naturally found in extra virgin olive oil can make it more likely to burn or smoke. Canola and peanut oils have a higher smoke point.

No single oil is the best choice in all situations, but research now shows that olive oil is a major component of the Mediterranean diet’s healthy reputation.

Nutrition Notes is provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

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Labels: cancer, eating healthy, extra-virgin olive oil, healthy diet, Mediterranean Diet, olive oil, Omega-3s, phytochemicals, study

Everyone from health experts to Rachael Ray has touted the benefits of olive oil. As demand for expensive, higher-quality olive oil has grown, however, so has the problem of fraud. Last year, Connecticut officials discovered that some of that state's olive oil was a little too slick. As a result, beginning next month, the state will be the first in the country to set quality standards for olive oil.

The state's new regulations prohibit additives and define virgin olive oil as "obtained from the fruit of the olive tree solely by mechanical or other physical means . . . which have not undergone any treatment other than washing, decanting, centrifuging and filtration." California and New York have expressed interest in enacting similar standards because counterfeit olive oil poses a potential health risk to consumers. Some people experience adverse reactions from unscrupulous olive oil, possibly as a result of food allergies to soybeans, tree nuts, and peanuts.

Thanks Yum!

Labels: counterfeit, health and safety, olive oil, virgin olive oil

While it’s not obvious (or pretty), scarring is actually our body’s healing mechanism for injured skin. Post-trauma, we produce more cells to stimulate re-growth of the affected area…which leads to new, excess tissue (read: scars).

Today’s technology has made scar removal more effective, but there are also helpful tools right in your kitchen. Try these natural remedies on old and new scars alike:

Cucumber: Putting cucumber juice on a scar can reduce its puffiness and eventually depth.

Honey: Naturally antiseptic, it will keep the area clean while softening and nourishing the skin (thanks to its abundant vitamin content).

Aloe: When applied, it can reduce the appearance of darkness and eventually fade the scar.

Olive oil: Just rub the oil into the scar consistently for a long period of time and you will eventually see an improvement in its appearance.

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Labels: aloe vera, healing with food, honey, natural therapy, olive oil, scars

Here's what you'll need:

3/4 cup coffee beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves

Step 1: Put coffee beans, powdered clove and brown sugar in a coffee grinder.
Step 2: Grind coarsely, put in empty tub or Tupperware container and mix a little more.
Step 3: Add vanilla and oil and mix. Feel free to add more olive oil, but do it slowly, as it's easy to go overboard!

By being able to control the sizes of the particles in the scrub, you decide how rough you want it. The oil really does the trick in terms of keeping your limbs smooth. I shaved after using it, and my legs are super-smooth and soft, so don't be afraid to keep it a little chunky.

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Labels: body scrub, coffee, DIY, food, olive oil, skin care

Let's face it -- when it comes to our face, we're not always well-stocked...with beauty products, that is. Try these easy-to-find kitchen items next time you run out of your favorite...

Moisturizer: Apply olive oil liberally over parched skin (it mimics the oil that our skin naturally produces).

Toner: Rub half a lemon over skin to refresh and tone skin. Tomatoes work, too.

Exfoliator: combine 1 part sugar to 4 parts body lotion, apply to dry patches and rub.

Makeup remover: Olive oil (again!). It leaves skin clean and hydrated.

Zit cream: Chop up a banana peel and blend with milk. Apply paste to the infected area.

Shampoo: Sprinkle baking soda on your hairbrush and comb through to absorb excess oil.

Conditioner: Take 1 or 2 egg yolks and apply directly to hair. Leave for 20 minutes then shampoo thoroughly. For extra shine, mix with 2 tablespoons of olive oil or honey.

Tooth whitener: Rub mashed berries along your teeth (strawberries are particularly effective) to add sparkle to your smile.

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Labels: DIY, hair-care, olive oil, skin care

Cashew nuts might help the body maintain normal blood pressure by making arteries better able to expand and contract, according to a report published in the June 2006 American Journal of Hypertension.

Lemonade, with its abundant citric acid, might help in warding off kidney stones, according to the buzz at a recent meeting of urologists.

And the humble artichoke has emerged as an even better source of disease-fighting antioxidants than chocolate, blueberries, or red wine, according to a Norwegian study of 1,100 foods.

Reports like those might make you think you can protect your health by simply working a few star ingredients into your diet. But decades of research has convinced many experts that the overall pattern of eating--not just individual foods--has the strongest effect.

Case in point: The diet of people living in the Mediterranean region. Long known for its heart-protecting benefits, this dietary pattern might also help prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, new evidence suggests. And no single component of the diet appears to do it alone.

Brain food

In a study published in June 2006 in the journal Annals of Neurology, researchers at Columbia University analyzed the diets of more than 2,200 older adults. Those who ate closest to the Mediterranean model were about 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s over the follow-up period (four years on average) than those who least adhered to it.

A middle group, who followed some but not all of the Mediterranean pattern, cut their risk by 15 to 21%.

When the researchers investigated the data for individual foods, though, no single nutrient or food group had a measurable effect on Alzheimer’s risk.

The authors surmised that it’s the cumulative makeup of the Mediterranean diet that accounts for most of its benefits. It’s full of vegetables and legumes, low in saturated fat, and moderately high in fish, which supplies lean protein and omega-3 fatty acids. It also includes unsaturated fat from virgin olive oil and nuts.

What you can do

Maximizing the potential health benefits of food is more about following certain principles than eating certain “superfoods.” The foundation of the Mediterranean diet includes:

• Eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to increase your intake of different phytochemicals, the substances in plants thought to help fight disease. In studies of blueberries, pomegranate juice, chocolate, and even coffee, researchers nearly always attribute the health benefits to phytochemicals, which include antioxidants such as lutein and lycopene.
  
  
• Choosing real foods over supplements so that you get the whole range of plant chemicals in each, plus the fiber.
  
  
• Snacking on nuts. They’re rich in fiber and substances called sterols that can help lower cholesterol. But remember that they’re also high in calories, so keep portions to about an ounce.
  
  
• Getting at least two small servings a week of fatty fish, such as wild salmon or sardines. Pregnant or nursing women and young children should avoid fish that is high in mercury.
  
  
• Minimizing artery-clogging saturated fat and trying to avoid the even more dangerous trans fat, which comes from partly hydrogenated vegetable oil. Use heart-healthy olive oil instead.

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Labels: antioxidant, healthy diet, Mediterranean Diet, Nuts, olive oil, phytonutrients, salmon, sterols, superfoods, Whole Foods

If you think you're getting the full benefits of olives by including a little olive oil in your salad dressing, think again. Researchers in Heidelberg, Germany have looked at all different types and forms of olives-including black olives, green olives, extra virgin olive oil, and refined virgin olive oil-and brining processes used in the olive industry, and their results tell us that there are even more potential health benefits in olives than previously thought.

But to get all of these health benefits, you'll probably need to expand the forms and types of olives that you include in your Healthiest Way of Eating. For example, suppose you've been a devoted fan of green olives, but you have never ventured out into the black olive category. In this case, you are missing out on the type of whole olive with the greatest concentration of phenolic antioxidants and the greatest antioxidant capacity! Including some black olives in your Healthiest Way of Eating is going to increase your health benefits in this regard.

Or suppose that you only eat whole olives, and you have traditionally considered olive oil to be of little value when it comes to health. In this case, you're missing out on some particular antioxidants (like secoiridoids and lignans) that are especially concentrated in the oil. And you won't be able to settle for refined virgin olive oil, either. By insisting on extra virgin olive oil, you'll be doubling or tripling your intake of these unique antioxidants! (Since the processing of olives into oils can concentrate the olives' fat, it can also concentrate some of their fat-soluble nutrients. In addition, certain steps in the production process allow nutrients in different parts of the olive to combine with the oil, once again allowing olive oil to become more concentrated in certain nutrients.)

The olives you might want to focus less attention on are those prepared using the Spanish brining process. According to the research results of this study, this process seemed to take too great a toll on some of the phenolic antioxidants found in olives.

What potential health benefits might be associated with a greater emphasis on consuming extra virgin olive oil and an array of different types of olives? Researchers in this study concluded that olive oil and olives were very likely to be an even greater reason for the cancer-protective effects of the Mediterranean diet than previously suspected-and more specifically, more important for protection against breast and colorectal cancer, and in a somewhat surprising finding, against skin cancer as well.

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Labels: Anti-oxidant, eating healthy, health food, healthy diet, olive oil, olives

How Is it Made?
People have been extracting vegetable oil from plant materials for thousands of years. The very earliest methods of pressing vegetable matter probably yielded at best 10% of the available oil. More modern methods involving chemical solvent extraction can extract all but 1% to 2% of the oil.
Some cooking oils, including olive, peanut, and some coconut and sunflower oils, are expeller-pressed, meaning that the plant part from which oil is derived is crushed and pressed to produce the oil. The oil is then left crude or refined. Crude oils may have a cloudy appearance and are more flavorful, but they have a shorter shelf life than refined products.
Some manufacturers label their products cold-pressed to indicate that the plant materials were not heated during oil extraction. However, this label term is largely unregulated and cannot always be relied on to mean that the oil was never exposed to high heat.
Most cooking oils are extracted from ground plant material with a chemical solvent. After extraction, the oil is cleaned, refined, and filtered and/or distilled. This process produces a bland, clear oil.

What Happens When You Heat It?
All cooking oils will oxidize and therefore hydrogenate to a small degree if repeatedly heated to a very high temperature, as is done in commercial frying. This means the fats become more saturated and start to contain some trans fat over time. However, it is almost impossible to oxidize fat to this degree in home cooking.
Cooking oils differ in their “smoke point,” or the temperature to which they can be heated before they smoke, discolor, and break down. At the smoke point, the oil not only smokes and begins to emit unpleasant odors, but it also imparts unsavory flavors onto the food. Reaching the smoke point means you are approaching the “flash point,” which is when the oil can erupt into flames.
Cooking oils with a high smoke point can be heated to high temperatures before burning. Knowing a cooking oil’s smoke point gives you some indication of whether it is good for cooking and frying. In general, the best oils for high-temperature cooking methods such as deep-fat frying are safflower, sunflower, peanut, soy, and canola oils.

Storing oils
All cooking oils, whether refined or unrefined, are sensitive to light, heat, and exposure to oxygen (air). Cooking oil that is spoiled (rancid) will have an unpleasant smell and taste. To prevent spoilage, store oils in the refrigerator or in a cool, dark place. Oils may thicken in the refrigerator, but they will return to liquid if left standing at room temperature. Refined oils that are high in monounsaturated fats will keep for up to a year. Cooking oils high in polyunsaturated fats such as soybean, corn, safflower, and canola spoil more quickly: If stored properly, these oils will keep for up to six months. Some manufacturers put “use by” dates on product labels.

Choosing An Oil
For heart health, select cooking oils with the lowest levels of saturated fat and the highest levels of monounsaturated and omega-3 fatty acids. Examples of heart-healthier oils include canola oil, olive oil, flaxseed oil, and walnut oil. If you are looking for an oil to add flavor to your cooked dishes or salad dressing, choose a nut oil, toasted sesame oil, or an unrefined olive oil.

About Some Common Oils

Oils high in monounsaturated fat:
Olive oil. The oils extracted from olives range from light amber to green in color and from bland to very strong and even spicy in flavor. Olive oil can be graded or classified as virgin, refined, or pure. Virgin or extra-virgin means the oil has been produced by the use of physical means (expeller-pressed) and there has been no chemical treatment during processing, resulting in a full-flavored oil. Extra-virgin oil is the highest grade and comes from the first pressing of the olives. Refined means the oil has been chemically treated to neutralize strong tastes and acids. Pure olive oil and products simply labeled “olive oil” may be a combination of virgin and refined oil. Unfiltered means the oil contains small particles of olive flesh. Light refers to flavorless or refined olive oil; it is not lower in calories. Olive oil blends are mixtures of olive oil and other, often less expensive, oils.

Canola oil. This oil is extracted from rapeseeds (a plant in the mustard family). It is versatile, neutral tasting, high in omega-3 fatty acids, and very low in saturated fat. It can be used in salad dressings or in cooking.

Sesame oil. This pressed oil is made from either untoasted sesame seeds, resulting in a light-colored oil, or toasted sesame seeds, for a dark-colored oil. Light sesame oil has a nutty flavor and is good for frying, while dark sesame oil has a strong flavor and is generally added to dishes in small quantities for flavor just before serving. Sesame oil has a high smoke point and is the least prone among oils to turn rancid. It is a good source of both monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat.

Oils high in polyunsaturated fat
Corn oil. This tasteless oil is made from the germ of the corn kernel and is widely used in cooking because it is inexpensive and has a high smoke point. Corn oil is a common ingredient in margarine.

Cottonseed oil. This oil is extracted from the seeds of the cotton plant after the cotton lint has been removed. It is commonly used to make snack foods such as potato chips.

Flaxseed oil. This oil is made from the seeds of the flax plant and is often used as a dietary supplement rather than a cooking oil. It is high in omega-3 fatty acids and contains a group of chemicals called lignans that may play a role in cancer prevention.

Grapeseed oil. This light-tasting, medium-yellow oil is pressed from seeds of various varieties of grapes and is a by-product of wine making. It has a high smoke point and is typically used in salad dressings and marinades and for stir-frying.

Safflower oil. This oil made from the seeds of the safflower plant is almost flavorless and colorless. It is a favorite for salad dressing, because it does not solidify when chilled, and is also used in cooking. Safflower oil that is labeled “high-oleic” has a higher monounsaturated fat content than safflower oil that is not so labeled.

Soybean oil. This refined, mild oil is produced by cracking soybeans and chemically extracting the oil. Soybean oil is high in omega-3 fatty acids and is used extensively in commercially prepared foods but less often as a home cooking oil.

Sunflower oil. This light, odorless oil is pressed from sunflower seeds and is a good all-purpose oil. Like safflower oil, sunflower oil labeled “high-oleic” is higher in monounsaturated fat than sunflower oil not labeled with that term.

Oils high in saturated fats
Coconut oil. This oil, also known as coconut butter, is extracted from the inner flesh of coconuts. It has a longer shelf life than other vegetable oils and is highest in saturated fat of all cooking oils. Unrefined, or virgin, coconut oil is derived from fresh coconut. Refined coconut oil is derived from copra, the dried coconut meat.

Palm oil. Palm oil is obtained from the fruit of the palm tree. It is reddish in color because it contains high amounts of beta-carotene. It is also high in saturated fat and semisolid at room temperature. Palm oil is the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world and is used primarily in processed foods.

Palm kernel oil. Palm kernel oil is extracted from the seeds, or kernels, of the palm fruit. It is also high in saturated fat and is most widely used in processed foods.

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Labels: cooking oil, healthy cooking, healthy living, olive oil

The best type of olive oil is that which is "extra virgin." Extra virgin olive oil is made from the first pressing of the olives, contains the lowest level of acidity (the marketplace standard for labeling is less than 1%), the best taste, and the highest level of antioxidant phytonutrients.
The next best would be virgin olive oil. While it is also made from the first pressing of the olives, it has less antioxidants, more acidity (up to 2% is allowed here) and a taste that is not as rich as extra virgin olive oil.
"Pure" olive oil is actually refined oil that is created through chemical processing. One method of refining olive oil involves the use of a strong sodium hydroxide solution to "wash" the oil; other methods involve steam distillation of the oil. All refinement methods expose the oil to heats of at least 140-160F.
"Light" olive oils are only light in terms of their taste and color; they are not lower in calories or fat. To a certain extent, the richer and deeper shades of color in an olive oil correspond to the concentration of polyphenol phytonutrients in the oil. These polyphenols may be the most heart-supportive nutrients that olives have to offer. Once they are processsed out, the oil may become classified as "light," but light and other refined olive oils are nutritionally inferior to extra virgin and virgin olive oils because of this more extensive processing.
The other consideration would be whether or not to buy organic olive oil. There's no question about organic olive oil being your best choice. It's clearly your best choice. Although the nutrient density of the organic oil may not be vastly greater than the nutrient density of non-organic oil, the presence of toxic residues is likely to be enormously different. You're going to get a lot less potential toxins in the certified organic oil - especially pesticides and fungicides.

Labels: health food, olive oil, organic