ZOE Science & Nutrition - Olive oil: How to unlock health benefits | Prof. Tim Spector & Elizabeth Berger

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Olive oil could transform your health. It regulates blood sugar, helps with weight management and prevents long-term disease. That is if it's the right kind of olive oil. Distributor of the world’s finest olive oils, Elizabeth Berger, and Professor Tim Spector discuss its health benefits, debunk myths, and explain how storage and cooking can affect nutritional value. In today's episode, we learn how to get the most from olive oil, why choosing the right olive oil is crucial and the significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of this kitchen staple. Elizabeth Berger is the founder of Frantoi, which works with growers and millers across Italy to harvest exceptional extra virgin olive oils. Tim Spector is a true olive oil evangelist, as well as one of the world’s top 100 most-cited scientists and ZOE's scientific co-founder. Learn how your body responds to food 👉 zoe.com/podcast for 10% off 🌱 Try our new plant based wholefood supplement - Daily 30 *Naturally high in copper which contributes to normal energy yielding metabolism and the normal function of the immune system Follow ZOE on Instagram Timecodes 00:00 Introduction 01:05 Quick fire questions 03:15 How is olive oil made? 04:25 The 4 grades of olive oil 11:20 Olive oil in Mediterranean diets 13:15 The science behind healthy olive oil 16:35 Why we need healthy fats 21:05 What are polyphenols? 23:06 Extra virgin vs regular olive oil 27:03 Is there food industry misinformation about olive oil? 25:55 The power of seasonal eating 26:50 The best time to buy olive oil 28:00 The biggest myths about olive oil 31:25 How to properly store olive oil 33:00 How long do the health benefits last? 39:10 Is it safe to cook with extra virgin olive oil? 42:55 Tasting session of 3 extra virgin oils 55:10 How to identify high-quality olive oil 57:30 Tips to get more olive oil in your diet Books by our ZOE Scientists: Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector Fibre Fuelled by Dr Will Bulsiewicz Free resources from ZOE: Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition  Gut Guide - for a healthier microbiome in weeks Mentioned in today's episode Is Extra Virgin Olive Oil the Critical Ingredient Driving the Health Benefits of a Mediterranean Diet?, published in Nutrients 2023 Is There More to Olive Oil than Healthy Lipids?, published in Nutrients 15 Protective effects of oleic acid and polyphenols in extra virgin olive oil on cardiovascular diseases, published in Food Science and Human Wellness Only virgin type of olive oil consumption reduces the risk of mortality, published in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 77 Extra-virgin olive oil and the gut-brain axis: influence on gut microbiota, mucosal immunity, and cardiometabolic and cognitive health, published in Nutrition Reviews What do polyphenols do, and where can I find them?, published by ZOE What is fat, and how much do you need?, published by ZOE Evaluation of Chemical and Physical Changes in Different Commercial Oils during Heating, published by Acta Scientific Nutritional Health Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here. Episode transcripts are available here.

Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. Olive oil could transform your health. It regulates blood sugar, helps with weight management, and prevents long-term disease. But how it's made matters. It also matters how you store it, cook with it, and how long you've had it. In today's episode, olive oil expert Elizabeth Berger tells us everything we need to know to get the most from this kitchen staple. Elizabeth is the founder of Frantoi, which works with growers and millers across Italy to harvest exceptional extra virgin olive oils. We're also joined by Tim Spector.

Tim is an olive oil evangelist, as well as being one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists and my scientific co-founder at Zoe. Elizabeth and Tim, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for inviting us. Hello. So Tim knows this, but Elizabeth, we have a tradition here at Zoe where we always start with a quick fire round of questions from our listeners. Are you ready to give it a go? I'm going to give it a go.

Yeah. All right. And so the rules are very strict. You have to say yes or no, or if you absolutely have to, a one sentence answer. We know that scientists is particularly tricky, so I'm going to start with Tim. Could the right olive oil help prevent heart disease? Absolutely.

Should we be having olive oil every day? Yes, these are easy. Okay, Elizabeth, is one type of olive oil healthier than the rest? Yes. Are there ways we could use olive oil better to give us more of the benefits? Yes. Does storing our olive oil in a tin compared to a bottle make a difference? Yes, it does.

I see, it's quite easy. And then final question, and you can have a whole sentence here. What is the most surprising thing that you've learned about olive oil? Potentially, it's seasonality. So, olives are harvested at a certain point of the year, and the olive oil changes through the season as it evolves. Olive oil is definitely, it's a staple in my kitchen. I think it's increasingly a staple in many people's kitchens, certainly for people who are more affluent. And I use it basically every day because I've been listening to Tim for a long time. And I often heat it up on the stove as the

basis for cooking food. And although I've been increased, you know, I've been told often that like, this is okay by scientists I respect and trust at Zoe, there continues always to be like this little nagging thing at the back of my head about like, you know, when I, if I see it smoke, like, is this really okay? And I'm not alone because when we asked listeners for questions for this episode, like this was the number one question that came back about like, is it really okay to cook with olive oil? And you know, what are the restrictions? And I know that you have great answers for us on that question, along with a lot of others. Before I jump into these sets of questions for the listeners, though, I think we should maybe just start right at the beginning, as we often do on this podcast. Elizabeth, what is olive oil? How is it made?

Olive oil is rather unusual in the sense when you look at commercially produced cooking oils, because it's naturally extracted, naturally pressed from the fruit of the olive. It's the only commercially available oil that is actually totally just freshly pressed juice. So it's got its own set of natural preservatives in it. Nothing's added in. And rather like perhaps something like freshly pressed orange juice, the benefit of that is that you're getting a very, very fresh product, but it's got high polyphenols and antioxidants that protect it through the lifespan of about 18 months. So the shelf life of extra virgin olive oil is around about 18 months. And is all the olive oil in the grocery aisle the same or made in that

same way? Extra virgin olive oil is made in that way. Yeah. So it's very important that you look for extra virgin olive oil if you're looking for the highest quality of olive oil. Yes. And it doesn't say a blend of extra virgin olive oil with virgin olive oil. Which it may not even say, regrettably. So can I just for a second get a bit of clarity here because we've jumped from olive oil to extra virgin olive oil. Could you unpack that for me? Yeah. So there are actually four grades, classic grades of olive oil that you can find. There's extra virgin olive oil, which is the highest quality grade, and that is deemed to have the lowest level of free acidity, which must be below 0.8%. You then have virgin olive oil, which is a slightly lower

quality grade, and that should be written on the label. So you should be able to see that it's virgin olive oil that has a free acidity of 1.5%. And then you have further lower grades of olive oil as you go down, ending with just simple olive oil, which will have a very small percentage probably of extra virgin olive oil blended into it just to enhance the flavor. But it's quite a different product. Just to help me to understand, because you mentioned this like technical terms between them, are they made in exactly the same way of olives in exactly the same way? And this is some sort of test to decide whether this is high enough quality to be an extra virgin olive oil? They're extracted in a slightly different way. So extra virgin olive oil is just either using a centrifuge or a normal press in order to extract

the olive juice. Whereas with lower quality grades, there may be a little bit more of a process involved in terms of extracting it. They're trying to get more out of the olive, basically. So the more you squeeze out of it, you're getting the sort of dregs, the bits that aren't normally part of the fruit, the sort of fatty bits of the fruit. You're getting these extra components that aren't really the healthy bit. So the more you try and do it. And I guess the more industrial ones are actually using chemicals as well, aren't they?

They are. Chemical solvents, which get mixed up with the oil as well. So it's this huge range. There is a massive range, and it's a little bit difficult to navigate. And I feel that probably quite a lot of people have found that a challenge. And maybe that's why some people think, oh, maybe I won't try extra virgin olive oil because it is more expensive. There's a reason why it's more expensive.

And even within extra virgin olive oil as a category, you. There's a reason why it's more expensive. And even within extra virgin olive oil as a category, you can get quite different grades of quality. And that's all determined really on the harvest point. So olives happen to be green and they go black when they mature. Unlike grapes, which are determined to be red or white from the start of their life, all olives are green and they become black as they mature. And if you think about the consistency of an olive, so a green olive is quite firm when you touch it, whereas a black olive is actually softer. So a black olive will yield more oil. That's great if you're looking to make a lot of oil, but in terms of the quality of oil that you can get out of it, a green olive will deliver a much higher quality of oil. So

an olive oil, an extra virgin olive oil that comes from green olives is actually going to be better for you. All of that said, you can't just harvest super early because it would damage the tree to get the olives off. And also it would be quite difficult to get the oil out of the olives. So you have to find that point when it's exactly about to turn, just starting to blush, basically. It takes about seven kilos, doesn't it, of olive oil, olives to get a liter, or maybe it's even more than that for many varieties. Yeah, exactly. It depends on the cultivar because it also depends on the size of the pit and all of that sort of thing. But yeah. Hi, I want to take a quick break here and tell you about something new we've created.

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So can I just make sure, as an extra virgin olive oil novice that i've understood this is the danger i can see with elizabeth and tim together they're already like shooting off ahead of me sorry extra virgin olive oil means that the olive has just been pressed presumably they take the stone out and then they not necessarily no i mean mostly you don't okay it doesn't need to be taken out as it happens you can just crush it with absolutely everything goes put everything in it including the stone and you just squash it with something really squashed exactly and then from there the oil is coaxed out with a with a centrifuge so spun round and round and you get the oil out exactly and you're saying the difference between the extra virgin olive oil

and the olive oil is they're doing more than just squeezing it in order to get the oil out? So the quality that you would get out of that paste, you know, you'll get the highest quality from the sort of early part of the press. And then as you go on, you get the sort of, you know, the dregs, as Tim was saying. So there's some rules, therefore, in different countries about... Well, there's a European Council that sort of determines the level of olive oil that you've produced. And ultimately, it ends up in a taste test. And this is really, really important because, you know, I mean, this is how I came to olive oil is through taste. I've then subsequently discovered all of the additional benefits to it. But I think that, you know, taste is a fundamental part of it.

And they do judge ultimately whether something is extra virgin or not based finally on the taste of it. So it should have a superior taste. So my takeaway from this is, in a sense, it's less just the process that was used to extract the oil, which we often talk about elsewhere in food, right? We're very focused on the manufacturing to the signature. Here, it's like genuinely sort of the quality of the product that comes out that restricts the process to make it. But extra virgin olive oil is ultimately like a measure of the taste and quality of the oil that comes out.

It is, but the quality is determined throughout the process. So, you know, there are a million little steps here, and that's why it's important that you understand who you're buying your olive oil from. Because, for example, when olives fall from the tree, they come off the tree, often shaken off, they fall onto the nets, they're collected up, and they're put into baskets or crates, rather. And then they're taken to the frantoio, which is the mill. Oftentimes, this mill is not owned by the person who owns the olive grove. And so there's a little bit of a delay time. If you imagine you're harvesting throughout the day, you get to the end of the day and you've got your olives in a crate, you then can't get them into the mill because the mill's also closing for the day. And so what you might do is

you might keep your olives and then take them the next morning to be pressed. That's completely standard practice, by the way. So that's what, you know, 99.9% of people are doing. What, however, that means is that the second that you've taken the olive from the tree and it's detached from the branch, it does start to begin the process of oxidation, you know, exactly in the way that it would with grapes when you harvest them. And so, you know, the job that is quite important is to be able to get them to the press as quickly as possible to avoid that oxidation. So you're preserving the quality of the oil by getting them into the press as quickly as you can. Therefore, if you own your own press, that has a material difference because you can harvest all day and you can say, well, it might happen to be five or six

o'clock in the afternoon. No problem. It's my own press. I'll get them straight in there. And so you can control that process better. But as I said, 99.9% of producers don't own their own press because it's just not practical. It would be far too expensive. So I think, Elizabeth, you've done a great job of already helping us to understand that there's

a wide variety of ways in which olive oil can be made. And I think there's very clear distinction now between the extra virgin olive oil and these other forms of olive oil. I'd really like to switch over to Tim now, because in a way, why on this show about health and nutrition are we spending so long talking about olive oil? And the answer is because of the health benefits that are associated with it. Tim, what are they? Are they real? They are real, but it's been a slow process of us getting to the point where we can be so confident about it. Because in the 1960s was noted that mediterranean countries had much less heart disease than northern european countries and people thought it was something

in the diet they thought it was just it was about the wine or the lifestyle or they couldn't really know what it was but it was the vegetables and it turns out that it's been a slow bit of detective work to work out that the amounts of fats consumed in Mediterranean countries is actually quite high, which went against the sort of theories of 20 years ago that fats were bad for you. But it turns out the main source of fats in the Mediterranean is olive oil. So huge amounts of fats are consumed in the form of olive oil. So that started people thinking, well, maybe there's something in olive oil that's actually healthy, despite the fact that you can get up to 12% of it is saturated fat, which we're all told, you know, in the US and the UK is really bad for you. So you have these Mediterranean countries drinking a lot of saturated fat in their olive oil,

and they have much lower rates of heart disease. So people started then looking at olive oil itself, which, you know, it wasn't studied much because it was very low levels in the US and the UK where a lot of this epidemiology was being done. And so gradually, more and more studies have shown that people who drink olive oil regularly, compared to those in the same country that drink less amounts, have significantly lower rates of heart disease, stroke, and increasingly evidence that cancer is less. Now, this was all observational. There are at least 30 studies of observational cohorts showing this. And there are hundreds of smaller studies now showing that if you give, say, the normal diet type study of 20, 30 people,

give control groups, you can see changes in their bloods and their blood fats and inflammation going down. There haven't been any large-scale long-term studies until 2018 when they did something called the PREDIMED study. It was randomized but not blinded because they were delivering large amounts of olive oil to 7,000 Spaniards, large amounts of mixed nuts to another group, another group that were just giving the standard Mediterranean meals. And they followed them up for six years. And this was the best study that had been done and clearly showed that the olive oil group had these really significant reductions

in heart disease and strokes and breast cancer. So Tim, I just want to be clear, like the drug intervention in this study over six years was literally you just got sent bottles of olive oil. And the people who got sent bottles of olive oil actually had lower levels of strokes and things like this. And heart disease, yes. Which sounds crazy, right? And breast cancer. And some signs they were getting less brain dysfunction leading to dementia. And it was an amazing study because it was huge logistic exercise

to keep people stocked up with this. And they were giving them the equivalent of about four tablespoons a day, which actually is not far off some levels you'd have in bits of grease, for example, which would be seen as quite normal, but a hundred times more than you'd get in the UK or the US, where, you know, we're only really drinking

one bottle of olive oil a year, as opposed to one every two days in many Mediterranean countries. So this, I think, was a fairly pivotal study, but there have been other ones since in the US showing that it's not just a Spanish thing, because they were sponsored by the olive oil industry, and Spain does have a slight interest in promoting it. They're the biggest producer in the world. But in the US, the cohort studies comparing olive oil drinkers against non-olive oil have found virtually the same results. So I think we're now very confident that drinking extra amounts of olive oil and particularly extra virgin olive oil has these major benefits.

It seems to be that that is quite important, that the quality is important. And the few studies that have looked and compared extra virgin against virgin or basic industrial level olive oil have shown clear differences. So I think it suggests it's the extra ingredients in the extra virgin olive oil rather than necessarily just the fats themselves. So perhaps a combination of both. So it sounds like the evidence, like looking at what happens to human health, is quite compelling. Do we understand what's going on? Do we understand

what is inside this extra virgin olive oil that is creating this really rather remarkable, I think, health benefits, completely the opposite to how I was brought up with this idea that oil is a fat, fat is really dangerous talk about um you know my father having this high cholesterol there is like you know the idea that you know he should be adding olive oil to his food i think would have literally made his doctor explode with um you know anxiety yeah absolutely yeah that's how we were all taught that this is a fatty oil it's got saturated fat which we're told in meat is terrible for us. It gives you heart disease. And yet this thing is not working like that. So olive oil is complicated. So there

are a lot of components to it. It's not one single fat. It's not one single chemical. But as well as the saturated fat, there's a lot of these monounsaturated fats, which are smaller, simpler types of fat, what we call the good fats. And one of the key ones is called oleic acid, which just comes from olea, the Latin for olive. And that seems to be one of the most important healthy fats that have this effect on the body. So some of the studies that have tried to separate out the different components and see what it is suggest that, yes, it's these types of fats, like the oleic acid, that are beneficial to the body,

as we've discussed on other podcasts. You know, there are good and bad fats. It's this ratio that's important. And we've actually recorded recently a podcast on seed oils with Dr. Sarah Berry, who Tim and I know well. I thought the best explanation I've had to help me get my head around these different types of fats. So if this is something you are interested in, I definitely think that's an interesting follow-up. But it's not just the fats.

So the epidemiology study, which has measured things like fat levels changing changing suggests that it's actually the polyphenols. We've mentioned these before on a number of podcasts, these defense chemicals in the plant, and this time in the olive fruit, that are conveying the benefits to the body. Because they are the key antioxidants. They are the ones that nourish our gut microbes. And they're in huge numbers in olive oil compared to other foods. You can sort of see how if anyone's had olives or olive oil, there's some similarity. And it's because of those defense chemicals in your mouth

that as well as defending the plant end up nourishing our gut microbes and perhaps helping our immune systems to then fight disease and aging and all the stresses of life in the cells. And is the level of polyphenols in olive oil very high compared both to other oils, but I guess also to other plants that I might eat? There are 36 known polyphenols in extra virgin olive oil. And I guess if you would compare that to coconut oil, for example, there are six. So it's a much more complex mix of polyphenols that you're getting in extra virgin olive oil. And for example, one of those polyphenols is oleacanthal. It's the polyphenol that gives a slight burn in your throat when you're tasting really, really decisive extra virgin olive oil, so peppery olive oil. And oleacanthal exists naturally in olives.

It's one of the components in ibuprofen, for example. So it shows us that it's an incredible natural anti-inflammatory. Extra virgin olive oil is probably one of the best sources of polyphenols you can get, certainly in any oil that we drink normally, but it's also related to the quality. So the higher the quality, the greater the concentration and diversity of polyphenols in it, which I think is a really important message. And the lower your quality gets diluted and you don't get nearly the same benefit. So one of the big differences between that extra virgin olive oil and the regular olive oil

is the amount of these polyphenols that you're describing, which you were saying is so important for the health properties. Yeah, we think they are critical for giving these benefits to the heart, etc. And there'll be a lot of people listening who haven't heard of polyphenols before or very briefly. Tim, can you help us understand a little bit more why they matter? Do we understand what's going on? Polyphenols is an umbrella term for all kinds of chemicals you find in all kinds of plants that are exposed to the elements. There are perhaps, there are thousands

of them and we don't have names for them all yet. We're still discovering some of them. And it turns out that these chemicals in the plant are there to protect the plant against sunlight, against wind, against fungal infections, against pests, insects, all kinds of traumas, and allow it to survive and function. And that's why a lot of the best wines and the best olive oils are perhaps in extreme temperatures as well, because the harsher the environment, the the best olive oils are perhaps in extreme temperatures as well because the harsher the environment, the more polyphenols are produced. Now, we know now that polyphenols act mainly via our gut microbes. So when we drink olive oil, these polyphenols are released into our guts, into our colon,

and our microbes will feed off them. And that gives them energy to reproduce. They then interact with the cells in our gut and our immune system, sending signals that help our heart reduce inflammation, critically sort of calming down the whole system. And meaning that our vessels are in a much better healthy state than they would be if we didn't have these calming defense chemicals. So that's the sort of simple way to think about these. They're rocket fuel for your gut microbes. And up to now, we've had not nearly enough of them because we've not thought about it. Because we've had this rather reductionist view that everything's about fats and sugars and proteins, which of course we now know is really facile. And how many polyphenols are there?

Thousands. Okay, thousands. So just to get everyone to reset, because I think we're used to, you know, there's 10 vitamins or a hundred, there's like thousands of these chemicals. I mean, that's right. I mean, nobody can reel off the list of the known polyphenols. They have very long names. You know, they're in a group, the polyphenolic compounds and the anthocyanins. They give the color also to the grapes or the olive. They'll make it change, you know, those greens and those purples and those things, they're really important. They're signs that, you know, any plant is packed with these polyphenols.

And you see this in lettuces and tomatoes as well. So we're still at a very early stage of understanding them. We can give a rough idea of how many polyphenols there are, but we can't yet identify all of them by a long way. Some are probably more healthful than others, and we just don't yet know that. But we do know that in olive oil, not only it's really rich, but you have these real, even randomized control trials that you're describing that really show health benefit. Yes, and show differences between very basic olive oil, which has low levels of polyphenols, compared to very high-quality ones with high polyphenols, showing differences in changes in your blood and changes in inflammation,

et cetera. So I think the data is really pretty good now. And so those studies, just to confirm, it's not just Elizabeth saying like this olive oil tastes so much better, and we're going to talk about that later, which I'm very excited about, but genuinely, you know, there's health benefits because of course it becomes more expensive, doesn't it? As you go from olive oil to extra virgin olive oil. But the reality is there are real health benefits as you move to those more expensive olive oils. Absolutely. Yes. So if, you know, you're looking for something that can help everything from, you know, prevent dementia, cancer, your immune system, your gut health, your heart. This is something that is worth paying for.

As I said, we're in a position where we're drinking hardly any of it in the US and the UK. Most people are buying one bottle a year and put it in a cupboard somewhere. That amount really isn't going to make any difference to their health. So it's trying to change this mentality. And there's a lot of misinformation out there, but I think from the vegetable oil companies, Elizabeth and I were discussing this, that they've got the huge power, the canola companies, the rapeseed oil,

to just go in and keep spreading rumors about olive oil being bad for you or, you know, not good, it's not pure, you know, and you can't cook with it, all this other stuff. So it's all nonsense. Everyone should be switching to olive oil. You know, it's the simplest thing you can do for your health. I think as well, if you look at polyphenols, they take a journey. So if you want a deep dive into an understanding of polyphenols, it's possible to do it quite simply. And this was one of the light bulb moments for me when I moved to Italy. Because what happens, one of the real secrets to me about the Mediterranean diet is that you eat what's in season. As it turns out, when it comes to olive oil, we don't really think about that. We're very used to just putting a

bottle of olive oil in the cart and you move on as if you're perhaps buying washing powder or something like that. Olive oil should be considered in terms of seasonality because the moment that it's been produced, it has a very high dose of polyphenols and they taper off as the oil matures and goes on its lifespan. Because as I said, it's freshly pressed juice, so it's rather like orange juice. If you think about buying a freshly pressed orange juice, you know, the next day you wouldn't really be wanting to have it. Well, you know, that's because it's changed and it's oxidized with time. So the polyphenols do change in an olive oil as it's going through its lifespan. So having freshly pressed new season olive oil is incredibly good for you. What's

interesting about that for us is that in the northern hemisphere, for example, the harvest happens in October, perhaps into early November. If you are able to get hold of new season olive oil, therefore, it is the time when you need it the most. Those high polyphenols, they protect you through the winter. It's like having a sort of wheatgrass shot or, you know, an intense pomegranate juice or whatever it might be. It's incredibly good for you when it's new season olive oil. And that will taper off as time goes on. What actually happens as well from a culinary perspective

is that during the winter, you're perhaps enjoying more base notes. So I'm thinking root vegetables, grains, pulses, that sort of food. And when you've got a very peppery oil that happens to have very high polyphenols in it, that counterbalances those base notes wonderfully. So it works really, really well with those winter ingredients. I'd really like to just spend a minute on this sort of thing about the composition of the extra virgin olive oil over time. We've got a lot of questions around that. And I heard Tim mention that there'll be lots of American and British listeners who might have like a bottle of

extra virgin olive oil that might be sitting in the shelf for two years. Let's say it's been pressed. How stable is this extra virgin olive oil? How does it change in the following months and years? Yeah. So the process is that the olive oil is produced and then it then typically naturally decants. So it takes a little bit of time where the sediment falls to the bottom. You then have a choice as a producer, whether you filter or you don't filter. In terms of super high quality, you would wish for a light filtration of your oil. And there's a reason for that because an unfiltered oil, and I'm sure that this is one of those myths that's out there that, you know, an unfiltered olive oil is really great because you see it in those lovely clear bottles and it's got that lovely cloudy look lovely cloud. Must be real. Must be the real deal. It's actually not. That's actually not great for a couple of reasons. One,

you shouldn't have your olive oil in clear glass because it will change its quality. So you're looking for dark glass as the very, very best format for extra virgin olive oil. But the other thing is that that sediment that is in suspension in the olive oil will actually start to oxidize the oil with time. So anything that needs to be shipped, we have to think about these things. If something's being shipped globally, it does need to be stable. And so a light filtration won't change the quality at all. It will actually enhance the quality because it will give it a little bit of stability in terms of shipping. So to confirm, if you see a bottle of olive oil that sort of says it's unfiltered and has some sediment in, which I've definitely seen and always thought that looks pretty cool and

very authentic. Actually, that's like a complete no-no. Don't buy that because basically that sediment will have been continuing to react with the olive oil and I'm going to lose sort of the health properties we're talking about. Exactly right. Yeah. That's even if it's really bright green as well. Totally. Which is another marketing thing, isn't it? Well, that's to do with the cultivar. And when I say cultivar, I mean the variety. So when you start to dig deep, you've got over $3,000 cultivars in the world. In Italy alone, there are over 600.

So they are different varieties, and they will give a slightly different flavor of oil. And we're going to taste that, and we're going to see what that difference might be. But I think as well, heading a little bit back to the polyphenol point, there are certain olive cultivars that have a naturally higher polyphenol level.

Each area has got its own, and even within the variety, you know, when it's low-lying or high on a hill, you get very different. Exactly. Provenance makes a real difference. And I think the other thing to consider is whether something's a blend or whether it's a monocultivar. You know, having a pure monocultivar, what you get from that in an olive oil is just definition. So you will be able to taste its different points. Whereas a blend, as with wine, you know, it doesn't diminish the quality at all of the olive oil, but the blend should be greater than the sum of its parts. So the end result should be better than if those particular oils had been made as monocultivars.

So if we imagine that we've now learned to like reject the bottles that have all that really nice stuff at the bottom, not clear glass because that's going to damage the olive oil over time? It will oxidize, yeah. It's much more likely to oxidize because it'll get the light rays that will just damage it and change it. And so does that mean, back to the question I asked at the beginning about tin versus bottle? Yeah. So, I mean, in terms of the bottle, the very best is dark glass and you shouldn't keep it next to your stove. So all of the things that I used to do when I was just putting my olive oil in the cart, lovely clear bottle, looked really authentic, sort of Italian sounding perhaps,

nice and unfiltered, and then keeping it next to the stove, all of those things are wrong. So really what you want to do is you want to keep it where the temperature is constant. So away from the stove, away from a window where the temperature will fluctuate quite a lot. So if you can keep it, you know, you could always keep it in a cupboard, perhaps where you keep your salt and pepper and that sort of thing. And is a tin better than a dark glass, therefore, because no light comes through? So what happens with a tin is that it's a very good container. There's no question about that.

But the trouble is, is that as it depletes, as the oil depletes in the tin, that space is filled with oxygen, which is oxidizing the rest of the oil. There are ways around this. There is now a technology of bag in box, and the bag actually the rest of the oil. There are ways around this. There is now a technology of bag in box and the bag actually closes in around the oil. And that's very clever because then it's reducing the contact with oxygen, which is really important. But if you do like to have a tin and if you're buying your oil in quantities, the best thing that you can do is to decant it into dark glass and then put a proper top on it. Imagine that we have now learned also it's in

dark glass. It's been lightly filtered. But you know, I'm in America, right? Presumably it takes a long time for this to eventually arrive, you know, in my grocery store. How fast are these amazing chemicals decaying? You know, how many months or years does this olive oil remain good? Does it remain good forever? Yeah, so it goes on a journey. So you've got very, very high polyphenols just after the point of harvest. So really, the main point is to be able to get access to that oil as soon as you can. And so, you know, finding a way of getting new season olive oil into your life before Christmas is a great thing. That's when it's really going to have the greatest benefits for you. And you need to think about distribution, as you've quite rightly said, because, of course, if you're buying olive oil from a supermarket, it will have been stuck in the distribution chain for an amount of time.

There's no question that you would have new season olive oil in the US before perhaps March or April time. And the polyphenols have taken a journey during that time. So they will have gone down in there. They go down by about a half every six months or so, is that? If you think about the way that the Mediterranean's consume olive oil, they would be consuming that within a year because of course then there's the next harvest. On the two problems here, one is the amount of polyphenols you might lose with time yes and the other is whether you're oxidizing the fats and it's slowly going rancid exactly you must be it's just to tease those apart yeah absolutely so um so the polyphenols take this journey where they're very high at the start, just after they've been harvested, and then they taper off.

And they're protecting not only you, but they're also protecting the oil. They're protecting the oil, and that's the fundamental thing. So as they go down, the oil is getting less protected, and it softens. So that pepperiness that you get right at the beginning of the season, many people have actually never tasted. Because, of course, if you're buying your olive oil in a supermarket, already it's been around for probably six months before you take it off the shelf. If you look at the back label of any bottle of extra virgin olive oil, it will tell you the harvest date. And it's really, really worth

checking. Because there's no way that you want to be spending, you know, 20, 30 pounds on a really, or dollars for that matter, on a really, really good bottle of olive oil, and it's a year old, you know, it would be a shame to do that. You know, you really want to be trying to get it when it's as young as possible. So, there are a number of faults that you can get in the production process. Perhaps there was some imperfect fruit that went into the press. Perhaps something happened along the way of the production process, perhaps there was some imperfect fruit that went into the press. Perhaps something happened along the way of the production. Perhaps it's been oxidized prematurely. It's like a cold bottle, is it?

Exactly right. Exactly right. It's a fault for acidity, and you can definitely smell it. As I said before, the light filtration can avoid anything like that. If someone's thinking about this, it's like, I'm not as sophisticated about the taste as you. Price probably plays into my thinking here as well because it's expensive. And take it away from this that if it's been sitting there for five years, I probably really lost quite a lot of health benefits.

Oh, five years. Yeah, you wouldn't want to consume it for five years. So help me to understand, has all the health benefits disappeared at 12 months from an extra virgin olive oil? 18 months is what you're looking at. So after 18 months, then, you know, it's really lost the majority of its health benefit. It's still an oil that you could cook with. You know, you could roast your potatoes with it and that sort of thing. There wouldn't be, you know, there wouldn't be. And if I went into a grocery store and just picked an extra version of olive oil off the shelf, am I guaranteed that that will be within the,

that it will have been harvested within the last 18 months? I mean, it should have been, but that's why you need to check the label because, you know, distribution is a complex sort of a thing, you know, and it could well be that something could be on the shelf. I've actually seen it a number of times. I recall most recently in New York seeing a bottle of oil that was $50 on the shelf. And I turned it around and it was over 18 months from the harvest date. Oh, wow. So this is like a very, very premium bottle.

And you're saying that if it's not within 18 months, you're going to tell me that it accept you're not really getting the, you're going to tell me that doesn't taste very nice, but also that the health benefits are really not there. Totally different. You know, that works with many, many things. You know, shelf life is an important factor. You know, it's something that would happen, let's say, with face moisturizer. You know, it would have a shelf life. And so you would need to know when it had been bottled. It's really interesting because I think I've tended to think about this as being sort of completely inert. You know, there's sugar and flour in the cupboard. And of course, you know that, you know, maybe the flour, a very long time period, but I basically thought of it as being like completely inert. You know, if it's in the cupboard and there's not sun on it,

and you're saying it's really not right. It's not the case, exactly. When the bottle is open, however, that's an important consideration because that is also a slightly different point. So once you've opened your bottle of olive oil, it would typically have between three to four months, it will be absolutely fine. But of course, the fact of opening, so olive oil, extra virgin olive oil in particular, when it's bottled, they will probably put a little bit of inert, the fact of opening, so olive oil, extra virgin olive oil in particular, when it's bottled, they will probably put a little bit of inert gas just at the top, just to protect it. Something like argon or something like that, a heavy gas that will

just protect it. That's how olive oil is kept. And so once you've opened it, then of course, you know, it does start to go on a little bit of a journey. So the whole thing that you were saying about savoring a bottle because it's your really special bottle of extra virgin olive oil, never do that. Just enjoy it. It's a bit like a bottle of wine. Once you've opened it, you can't savor that for weeks because it goes off,

but we don't detect this in the same way. You've got longer with olive oil. I used to treat it a bit like a really good bottle of red wine that I might get as a gift, and I'd put that in the back of the cupboard because it's going to get better and I'll be enjoying it with friends who really appreciate it. If you do that with olive oil, it's ruined. Hi, I have a small favor to ask.

We want this podcast to reach as many people as possible as we continue our mission to improve the health of millions. And watching this show grow is what motivates the whole team at Zoe to keep up the really hard work of creating new episodes each week. So right now, if you could share a link to the show with one friend

who would benefit from today's information, it would mean a great deal to me. Thank you. So I want to ask the question that I asked at the beginning. Can you cook with extra virgin olive oil? And Tim, I think this is a lot about health risks. Yeah, so I think the PREDIMED study that I mentioned was really quite important in this

because the Spanish, unlike some other countries in Europe, use it for cooking as opposed to just putting on as a dressing on the finished product so they are heating it up all the time and and eating it and it turned out though although most of the oil was done in the cooking they were using it they were still getting the health benefits and there's various stories about you know are you destroying it when you you heat it up and is it dangerous when you heat it up? And is it dangerous when you heat it up? So dealing with the danger business,

and there was this idea that there was this smoke point that you got to with olive oil that made it dangerous or bad for your health or gave you cancer or this stuff. And I think a lot of this stuff probably propagated by the competition. And it turns out that normal levels of cooking, you don't really get above about 180 degrees anyway when you're frying stuff. It's only if you're doing wok frying that you might get to a point where you hit its smoke point, which is about 200.

So that's not really a problem. It's also very stable because of the saturated fat. And that was the other thing that I think Sarah discussed about the stability of these fats is the other factor rather than the smoke point. And it is very stable because having that saturated fat in there sort of keeps the whole thing together, unlike some of the other vegetable oils. So from a purely chemical point of view, it seems okay. Now, you do lose some of the polyphenols. And there was a Spanish study that looked at this that fried up different amounts of olive oil over time at

different temperatures and did show that by heating it under regular cooking, you lost about 40% of the polyphenols. But you still had 60%. And at high levels you did lose 75% but again you still had 25% so if you're starting with a good quality olive oil you're still going to end with something that is stable not causing problems they've still got plenty of polyphenols but if you cook with it you're not getting the same benefits as you would if you're having it on a salad or you're having it over your fish once you've cooked it. Exactly. And so therefore, if you've got a very high quality olive oil, you may prefer to keep that as a raw ingredient rather than cooking with it. But the benefit as well, whilst the polyphenols might be dropping down when you heat them

in the olive oil, they will improve the nutritional content of the ingredients that you're cooking. So let's say, for example, that you roasted some carrots with extra virgin olive oil. It will improve the nutritional content of the carrot, not just decrease the level of polyphenols from the olive oil. So there is an upside. So there's no question that you should be using it to cook with. Brilliant. So I would love to move to the next stage of this show. And I'm particularly excited about that, Elizabeth, because you brought a whole bunch of different olive oils with you. And they've been sitting on this table that's hidden on the corner, and I've been eyeing them up throughout the show. And I'd really love for you to help explain, like,

I have never done an olive oil tasting. I didn't even realize there really was such a thing as an olive oil tasting. And then I hope you're going to help us to understand what you might be looking for and experiencing as you're tasting olive oil, and then helping us to understand how you might apply that in your own life, going to your own grocery store to understand what you're doing. Absolutely. All right. Well, shall we start pulling these out?

Yes. Okay. So we're going to have three glasses each and we're going to taste three oils. And they come from three different areas of Italy. The only thing to know is that the olive tree thrives in a warmer climate, particularly a sort of a Mediterranean climate. It can't handle very, very cold weather. Explain what you've brought and maybe help us understand a little bit why they would be different. You mentioned the variety. Is it all about the variety or is there anything else?

Well, in this case, it's about origin and variety. So we've got three monocultivars here, and they're from three different regions, very distinctly different regions of Italy. So the first one that we've got is Tagiasca, which comes from Liguria, which is up in the far northwest of Italy, just heading sort of towards the French border. So we can pour a little bit of this in exactly into your left-hand glass so that you keep track of where you are. Liguria is a beautiful part of Italy. It's a very sort of slim region that's hugged by the coastline.

It's quite a rugged landscape. And you get a patchwork of different olive groves, many of which are very, very small and on incredibly steep inclines. It's very, very difficult farming. It's actually quite rare now to find an olive oil that's made from Tujasca. So this is the north. We're then going to the centre of Italy and then to the south of Italy. What I'm hoping that you will see is a distinct difference. This is the middle of Italy, in the middle. Yes, so then we go to the middle of Italy.

Central Italian oils are very different in style and this one comes from Umbria from a gentleman called Marco Viola and this is a mono cultivar Moraiolo so say that after you've been tasting it Moraiolo so it's a very distinctive cultivar with incredibly high level of polyphenols. So the further south, do you get more polyphenols? Not necessarily. It depends on the cultivar. So this is a carolea from the Librandi family in Calabria. So you're right in the sort of instep of the boot of Italy. You definitely, the texture changes slightly as you're going further south.

But typically, you might get an oil that's more aromatic. But this is also influenced by the sea. So I'm looking at the three of them now. And it's interesting that the last one definitely looks greener. So it's definitely a different color. The other two would look a little bit more like that sort of classic honey sort of color that I think of as olive oil. So you can see that they've also been on a journey. So these oils were harvested in October.

So you're telling me that it's already too late and it's really a terrible time to eat it. But I'm telling you that they would be more intense in color and the polyphenols would be higher if we were tasting these in November. So I would really actually, if I'd poured this out from that bottle six months ago, the color would have been different. It would be different. You can see a change in color. You can totally see a difference, yeah.

And actually, the thing that's really interesting about that as well, going back to the sort of food angle, is that your food, if you are eating seasonally, as we said, you're eating more robust sort of wintry base notes throughout the winter months. And then as you go into the spring, you've got sort of brighter flavors. The oil will have dropped back a little bit in terms of its intensity, so it pairs better. And then as you head into the summer, which is where we are now, and you start to eat tomatoes and mozzarella and things, the oils are more delicate again. So they pair with the seasonal food that you're eating.

That's amazing. So Elizabeth, tell us what to do. Yeah. Okay. So we'll take the first glass here. You just cup it like that in your hand and you place a lid on the top with your other hand. What we're going to do is we're just going to slightly warm the oil so that it gives off the best of its aromas. So you're going to spin the oil round, just warming it with your hand. Very, very gently. Wow, this is all a lot more complicated than I was expecting. And then when you're ready and you think you've just taken the coolness out of it, you just lift off the lid and you're going to give it a big smell. Oh, wow, that smells a lot.

So that's just livened up some of those aromas so that you can really get what's coming out of the glass there. This is a cool climate olive oil. So it's from the north of Italy where it rains a lot, certainly during the winter months and in the spring and the autumn for that matter. And so what you get is aromas such as, and I don't know whether you can get this, but a little bit of green bean, perhaps a little bit of sort of pea and some of those fresher, more delicate herbs that you might be getting. I'm really glad you didn't ask me any of those. I was really worried I was going to get asked what you smell. I'm like, olive oil. It does smell like olive oil, but it smells very pure. It certainly smells a lot better than olive oil I'm regularly drinking. Do I get to drink it yet? We're going to drink it now. And so what you do

is you just take a small amount into your mouth. And I don't know if you've ever done wine tasting seriously, but you take in a little bit of air because that will just expand the aromas in your mouth. What I should also preface to say is that when you're tasting very high polyphenol olivose, it can give you a little prickle in your throat, and there is a chance that you may feel the need to cough. That is perfectly normal and absolutely fine. Perfectly respectable. It's very respectable. And there is some apple here, which is the one thing that will stop you from coughing.

Okay. I'm looking at Tim. So you want to go first? Do it's poisoned no it's fine i'm not worried about that i just you know don't want to embarrass myself all right i'm going for it i see exactly what you mean the prickle in your throat is the oleocanthal, which is one of those polyphenols. And it's extremely good for you. So it's great when you cough, strangely. Well, what's interesting is I taste it.

I think it's very smooth. It has this really nice smell. I'm not getting any cough at all. And then about three seconds later, I'm like, there it goes. Wow, I feel this burn down the back of my throat. That's a sign of a good oil though, isn't it? It is.

It's a delayed reaction. So that's a positive sign. Absolutely right. Yeah, that's what you're looking for. But you should always have an apple handy just in case. So Tadjaska is really, really good with lettuce-based salads, with freshwater fish, a little bit of seafood. It's the almost perfect match for potatoes. So if you're ever making a potato salad, you know, use a Tadjaska olive oil. It's really good if you're making pestos, mayonnaise, or any of those kinds of sauces. There really is a suitability of certain oils to certain dishes. So we'll move now to Umbria in the center of Italy. Let's go to Umbria. And this is the moraiolo, which is a very decisive cultivar.

So it gives a very, very peppery oil. Just so you know, I'm quite intimidated now. If that was my cough on the mild one, the final 10 minutes of the podcast is just me choking in the corner. Sorry, Jonathan, we've got the medical team on standby for you. So yeah, so morayolo is much more decisive. And if you put that on lettuce, you would actually find that it overpowered the lettuce. And so, you know, many people, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, are still using olive oil just to dress salads. And I'm here to tell you that that's not the only way that you can actually enjoy olive oil.

Tim's about to take his hand off it. I want to know what he smells. I'm not getting as much as on the Ligurian one, interestingly. Yeah, so it's a little bit more restrained on the nose. I have to say, it doesn't feel quite as strong. I'm getting a little bit strong. It's like straw. Yeah, and it certainly has more vegetal notes to it. So a little bit more, perhaps, along the spectrum of artichoke, thistle.

I can very strongly smell the difference between the two. Right, Tim, I'm going to go and have a... Nostrovia. And then on the finish, you get a little bit more black pepper, those kind of really spicy tones. Tastes really different, interestingly. As I swallow it, it feels much stickier somehow going down the back of the throat. Yeah, it is. It's got a broader character to it.

Actually, I didn't cough in the same way. Maybe you didn't take quite as much. Probably I was, is that what you're saying? I was just much more, I have to admit, I was quite gung-ho on the first one. I've been much more cautious on the second. I'm like, ah, a bit more dangerous than I'd realized. But it was, yeah, more gluey, smoother feel as it went down. Yes, exactly.

So the text was a little different. I was a bit suspicious about whether I could tell any difference between these because I am by no means an olive oil aficionado, and the two taste very different. I pick that up very strongly. And Tim, I know you're much more of an expert here, but they're very different, aren't they? Oh yeah. Looking at them, they're not that different, but just by the smell alone, you can tell. And then as soon as it's in your mouth, it's a different mouthfeel. Yeah. It's got much more of a bitterness to it as well, actually, in terms of what you're left with, I think, on your palate.

And so it's very good with grains and pulses, excellent on pasta, and very, very high polyphenols. So take us to the bottom of Italy now. And then we're going further south, and this is Carolea, so this is an indigenous cultivar to Calabria. And here, this is actually on the nose, I think, quieter still. So it's a little bit more of a gentle cultivar. It doesn't give a particularly peppery character, but it's more aromatic.

So it's more towards the kind of herbal spectrum, which makes it great with seafood, but particularly good as well with vegetables. I'm just talking about Italy. Northern Italy, you get much more sort of mineral, pure styles, which would probably be better suited to lighter dishes, salads, fish, potatoes, rice, that sort of thing. Central Italy, much more peppery, so decisive characteristics that would be better with grains, pulses, bread, pasta, all of those sorts of things, root vegetables. And then further south, more aromatic, and they would be better with vegetables. It's a really easy hack, but anybody that's putting butter over their vegetables to glaze

them, stop doing that. Just put olive oil instead. You know, it's super easy to do. It takes seconds and it raises the nutritional value of the food and it tastes pretty good. So Tim, what are we smelling now? Well, this has gone more aromatic again. Again, I'm getting sort of, well, generally grassy notes. Yes, very good. That's the predominant one for me.

I'm going to try drinking it now. And you've got a little bit more of the things like oregano and rosemary, those kinds of hedgerow sage, a little bit of sage. Definitely much herb. Oh, Tim is coughing. It's good. I'm feeling it's not just me. It's good for you.

Gotta kick that one. It's good for you. Definitely more herby, sort of different tastes. Yeah. I say maybe a little sourer as I'm swallowing. So like quite distinct across the three. I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to tell the difference. They're very different. You're at the very high end of this

business. I'm thinking about this as being like very premium wines that we're drinking here, which is very exciting. We're very lucky to have you talk through this and also experience them. Presumably all of these from a health perspective are at the very high end of what you would get. They are. Yeah. So within each category, so within a Tadjaska monocultivar, this will be the highest polyphenol one that you can find. And the same with Moraiolo and the same with Carolina. We specifically look for the very best quality in its class. So imagine, I want to sort of pull this back to sort of the actionable advice from this, because I think, you know, listeners are not going to be able to just buy your olive oils, and I know that they would not be able to afford them.

You talked about some of the characteristics of finding good quality olive oil, but you didn't really talk a lot about the place. Imagine people are trying to figure out for themselves what else should they be looking for that you haven't already covered. So I think if you're going into a supermarket to buy your olive oil, and I mean, you know, don't think that I'm saying that you shouldn't do that because I really think you should. That's how people shop and that's what we do in life. So, you know, you're facing the shelf and you think, gracious, you know, what on earth should I do? How can I navigate this?

There are a few things to remember. So one, you're looking for dark glass. Two, you're looking for provenance. So where does it come from? Can you tell? Can you see on the label, you know, does it say made in Italy or made in Spain or whatever, or does it come from? Can you tell? Can you see on the label, you know, does it say made in Italy or made in Spain or whatever, or is it just say made in the EU? When you mentioned

looking for provenance, does that mean that if it says comes from Italy, that's better than produced in the EU? And if it says made in this particular village, is that better than made in Italy? Just to understand from what I would say almost certainly because at that point you know that it's been on less of a journey and it's probably you know I mean if it's made in Italy you might have had olives that have been trucked from one side of Italy to the other before they've been pressed or even with Greek olives because they're cheaper quite often and also you know there are all sorts of even murky things that might happen, such as oils that might be mixed in that a small proportion may not even be olive oil.

You know, there are many, many different things to consider. You know, when you're looking at a really, really high quality producer, you know, they will have things like a special top here that is a one-way valve that will allow less oxygen in, but it also means nobody can refill it. You know, so you've got to check all of these things, especially if you're spending a lot of money on olive oil. The last thing you want is to be buying something that you don't know what it is. So choose carefully, you know, make sure you look at the back label and make a considered choice for what you're buying. I think I'm coming away just even more reinforced with this idea that olive oil is really great for my

health and I should be trying to have more of it. Could both of you maybe share a tip on an unexpected way to incorporate olive oil so that we can get more of it each day? I would replace butter at every step of the way with extra virgin olive oil because I think it's an extremely good thing to do for your health but also for the flavor and so I would start with breakfast so on your toast if you like marmalade on toast try to put a little bit of olive oil underneath your marmalade it's wonderful it's uplifting you know it makes you feel brighter in the morning. If you make granola, make it with olive oil. And if you favor sweet things at breakfast time and you perhaps,

I don't know, make a cake of some sorts, certainly as they do in Italy and the Mediterranean, then make it with olive oil because it'll make a moister cake. It'll hold for a few more days and you're just upping the level of olive oil in your diet. Agreeing with most of those. Certainly, really, I hardly use butter at all. I just reach for the olive oil every time. The other thing is putting it on the end of it as soon as you're serving anything up,

a drizzle of olive oil on it. And people often think you have to cook with olive oil for things like fish, but actually cooking it in very little olive oil on it. And people often think you have to cook with olive oil for things like fish, but actually cooking it in very little olive oil and then adding the olive oil at the end as you're serving it is often how it's done in Portugal, for example, or southern Spain. And I find they're really, really useful tips. But I think it's just replacing, you know, what we've been doing for ages, you know, a rather neutral health item like butter with olive oil is the way to really boost your health and the amount of olive oil you're getting.

As well as eating healthily, because the healthier you eat, the more salads you're getting, the more olive oil you're going to get. We've hit time, but Tim, I know you've brought your own special taste scene for all of us, which I think is new for Elizabeth as well. This is. Could you just very quickly explain this little jar that you've handed to each of us, which I think is new for Elizabeth as well. This is. Could you just very quickly explain this little jar you've handed to each of us? Yeah, this is called olefinolia. And we talk about ways of quickly getting olive oil into you.

This little jar has about the same polyphenols as half a bottle of olive oil. So it's got over 240 milligrams of polyphenols. So this is like concentrated olive oil. So this is like a couple of weeks consumption for that study, the PREDIMED study you were describing. So what am I supposed to do? Just open the bottle? Open it.

It's a shot. So you just drink it. I'm now really scared. You don't have to taste it. It's just a shot. Give my response to the last one. It's packed with polyphenols, right? But you've got the apple here. All right, I'm getting an extra apple. And this comes from a Tuscan farm. And I think we're going to be seeing more of these kind of products. And maybe people will start seeing polyphenols on

labels as well to give them an idea because there are huge differences. So what do you reckon on the nose you're getting from this? It's very interesting. It smells as if it's got some sort of prune juice or something in it. Can you smell that? They say it's pure olives. There you go. Alright. I'm watching Tim down there. One, two,

three, go. Well, it tasted like medicine. It must be good for me. There you go. So we might be seeing more products, polyphenol-rich products, because we now finally, after all these years, have worked out what is good about the Mediterranean diet and distilling it down, hopefully, into many other products

that we're going to be seeing. So it's fun. Amazing. Well, I would like to do a quick summary and as always please keep me honest i think we start off by explaining that extra virgin olive oil is extracting this very simple way from olive so it's very close to you know the fruit itself and the difference between the extra virgin and regular olive oil is really important so So the key takeaway really is make sure if you're ever buying olive oil, it's extra virgin olive oil

because otherwise you're not getting any of the benefits. You might as well get something else. The health benefits are really real. And Tim, you talked about the fact that it's not just observational information. They've now done a number of studies. And I think you particularly talked about this PREDIMED study where they actually managed

for years to get people to take olive oil in one arm versus another. I think you said they were like sending them a bottle of olive oil effectively every couple of weeks. And amazingly, these people had fewer strokes, fewer heart attacks, like a profound difference to what we really care about, which is these health outcomes. Even less cancer as well, yeah. Even less cancer as well. We understand quite a lot about why, and it's partly that the types of fat with a lot of monounsaturated fat is quite healthy. But the thing that's really important about the olive oil compared to these other oils is really the huge amount of polyphenols in it. You said that there's just much more polyphenols in olive oil than in any other oil. And in fact, compared to almost anything else that we eat,

and a wide variety of these different polyphenols. And although we don't understand exactly what each one is doing, there is now lots of data that helps to explain through the way they interact with the microbes in our gut, they have all of these health benefits. Now, all of that said, not all extra virgin olive oil is the same. And Elizabeth, I think you gave some great tips actually about how to think about it. The first is it's only harvested once a year. So it sounds to me that,

you know, once you're getting to like September, you've got to be really careful because it's probably already a year, but there should be a date on the back. And so if that date is within 18 months, you should feel good about it. If it's beyond 18 months, don't buy it. You'll be able to find another one. Once you open it sort of three to four months, you should still be getting the benefits. But if you're keeping it in the back of the cupboard because it's special and you're letting it last for like a year or two, you're actually not getting any of the value. Cooking is safe. Tim, you explained you can lose some of the polyphenols from it, but there's no danger. And on balance, you're still better off because you're still ending up

with this high level of polyphenols, which is why you've convinced me to cook with olive oil. You do want the olive oil to be filtered. So I have been a victim for this idea that it looks really natural. That's bad. So you want it to be filtered. You don't want it to be in glass that is clear. So again, that looks really nice. You see the color, but it's going to damage it. So you want this like dark green glass that is, meaning you can't really see what the color is. Don't store it by the stove. Ideally, you're putting it somewhere where it's not getting sunlight. And anyway, you should be going through this quite fast, ideally, if you want to get the benefits. And I think the final thing I took away from this is, you know, most people are not going to be able to buy your olive oil, Elizabeth, but this idea

by looking where it's coming from, sort of the narrower the description of where it comes from, the more confident you can be. And you described like a lot of extroversion, all of all might say, you know, product of the EU or something, that's really bad. It's a mix from everywhere. But even if it says like produce of Italy or produce of Greece, actually, that will be nothing like as good as something that's saying it comes from this particular sort of small location, it's much more likely to be genuine and therefore higher tasting, but also higher quality for health. Exactly. And if you can find somebody that owns their own press, then, you know, you know that they will have got it, they would have got the olives faster

into that press. Yeah. Like in many things in food is pretty crucial knowing that chain. Which is, I guess, another one of the reasons why if you're listening to this and you're in america or you're in the uk and you're very disconnected from because it comes from a whole nother country is very different than when you go on holiday and the people in spain or italy or whatever say oh we only ever buy the olive oil from like around the corner it's a lot easier if you live in a country where they grow but also trusting your shop and asking you know speaking to them and and you know like you would a wine merchant i think it's a lot easier if you live in a country where they grow olive but also trusting your shop and speaking to them like you would a wine merchant I think it's the same principle really we should just have a higher quality the way we're picking our food

like we do some items but not others wonderful Elizabeth Tim thank you so much for taking us through that and thank you so much for the amazing taste test thank you very much great fun now if you listen to the show regularly, you probably already believe that you can transform your health by changing what you eat.

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