Extra Virgin Olive Oil is among the most healthiest natural oils- Suzy Cohen

I believe extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is among the most healthiest natural oils you can consume. There are so many benefits of EVOO. It has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer and of stroke. I don't recommend the use of vegetable oil, rapeseed oil, canola oil or even organic canola oil. I do recommend olive oil, grape seed, avocado, tea seed and pumpkin seed oil. I am also a fan of good quality butter. 

When it comes to buying EVOO though you do have to be a wise shopper because it is hard to find real, 100% EVOO. See my article on this subject here.

Buying pure EVOO is especially important if you are trying to follow a Mediterranean diet because much of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet is from the EVOO.

To find out more about the benefits of EVOO see this exerpt from Suzy Cohen's article:

Olive Oil Reduces Cancer and Risk of Stroke

Olives are something I’m fanatic about. I’ll eat any kind, any flavor, and time of day or night! I’m obsessed with them.

Olive oil is the liquid fat which comes from the olive tree. It is extremely high in oleic acid, which is known to reduce blood pressure. It also contains a good amount of natural vitamin E, carotenoids and oleuropein. That compound has strong anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects.

Olives are fruits, and both the fruit and the oil have medicinal benefits. The main active ingredient in olive oil is oleic acid, some phenols and squalene.


Extra virgin olive oil or EVOO is sometimes referred to as cold-pressed. This type of oil is higher quality, better flavor and lower acidity than plain olive oil. When you see “extra virgin” on the label, that means something good. It means that the oil was mechanically pressed out of the olives, as opposed to using a bunch of chemicals to extract it. When the oil is squeezed and pressed from the olives mechanically, the vitamins, amino acids and fatty acids are not destroyed.


As far as the phenols go, the main ones are hydroxytyrosol and oleuropein. I give you their names so you can look up all the medical(TM) research at pubmed, and see all the incredible studies that prove pharmacological value when it comes to activities. These include:

To find out what studies have shown about the links to improved health and longevity see the rest of the article here.  What I really like about EVOO is it's link to reducing the risk of cancer and stroke. 

To Your Health

Dr. Barbara (TM)

Celiacbrain.blogspot.com (TM)

Food Fraud and the Mediterranean Diet: What You Can Do About It!

Have you been asked to eat a Mediterranean diet? Well, you can't eat a real Mediterranean diet unless you eat authentic olive oil as part of that diet. Olive oil has many health properties. It is high for example in phenolic substances which are highly anti-inflammatory in nature and likely the reason why studies of the Mediterranean Diet, high in olive oil, have indicated a decrease in heart disease, among other conditions. 

And to source and buy the real olive oil, for that you need to know about food fraud. And the best article I have seen about fake food is at Dr. Mercola's where he interviews Larry Olmsted, the author of the book "Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It". 

The whole interview is gripping. It covers fake seafood and this subject will sadden most people. It did me and motivated me to do more research on the seafood I buy and eat. And it covers Parmesan and the legal cover up of inferior foods with "brand" names to entice you into thinking you are getting the real thing.

I've written about the olive oil fraud and how to find authentic olive oil. We all think of Italy and those pastoral hills dotted with olive trees when we cook with olive oil, but the truth is an Italian olive oil has a good chance of being an inferior seed oil. You get what you pay for. Real olive oil can be pricey with a few exceptions, like Costco's extra virgin olive oil which has been consistently found in testing to be authentic.

To maintain the health benefits of olive oil, one should not cook with it, but put it on cold or room temperature dishes. For high heat cooking such as stir fry or sauteing use a temperature resistant fat such as avocado oil, animal fats like chicken fat and lard from pastured animals, organic red palm oil or coconut oil.


Here is an excerpt from Dr. Mercola's interview with Larry Olmsted:

Olive Oil Fraud


Olive oil is a $16 billion-a-year industry fraught with fraud. Tests reveal anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of the olive oils you find in grocery stores and restaurants are adulterated with cheap, oxidized, omega-6 vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil or peanut oil, that are pernicious to health in a number of ways.


   "Italy makes some delicious extra-virgin olive oil and they make some very good real extra-virgin       olive oil. The problem is a lot of what is exported from Italy is not their best product," Olmsted           says. "People associate olive oil with Italy … The thing that they look for most is that the oil               comes from Italy. But coming from Italy is not the same as being made in Italy.


    Italy is the world's largest exporter of olive oil, but they're also the world's largest importer of olive     oil. They buy up oil from all over the Mediterranean basin — from Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Spain     — blend it, bottle it. Often it's labeled "bottled in Italy," which is technically true. It was shipped to     Italy and put into bottles, but it's not Italian olive oil. When people buy that, they're relying on            some sort of myth of Italian quality.


    Italy doesn't even produce enough extra-virgin olive oil to meet its own domestic demand. While         you can get very good olive oil from Italy, it's trickier than from some other countries … What           people need to understand about olive oil is that it's essentially closer to fresh-squeezed fruit juice       than it is to most of the other oils we're familiar with … As a result, olive oil has a fairly short shelf     life compared to other oils."

How to Identify High Quality Olive Oil


Part of the problem is that olive oil is shipped by boat, which takes a long time. Then it's stored and distributed to grocery stores, where the oil may sit on the shelf for another several months. Moreover, the "use by" or "sell by" date on the bottle really does not mean a whole lot, as there's no regulation assuring that the oil will remain of high quality until that date.

The date you really want to know is the "pressed on" date or "harvest" date, which are essentially the same thing because olives go bad almost immediately after being picked. They're pressed into olive oil basically the same day they're harvested. High quality olive oil is pressed within a couple of hours of picking. Poorer quality olive oils may be pressed 10 hours after the olives are picked.

Ideally the oil, based on the "pressed" or "harvest" date, should be less than 6 months old when you use it. Unfortunately, few olive oils actually provide a harvest date.

As for olive oil in restaurants, more often than not, the olive oil served for bread dipping is typically of very poor quality and is best avoided. For more information about olive oil — how it's made and what constitutes extra-virgin olive oil, please listen to the full interview, or read through the transcript, where Olmsted goes into more details about pressing, grading and testing............

Where to Find the Best Olive Oil

Surprisingly, the big box stores actually do a better job with their supply chain of most foods, including olive oil and seafood.

"Let food be thy medicine", so Hippocrates famously said. With the ever more increasing pressures of finding the real food, it may be best to cook at home more. Be more careful when choosing a restaurant and what you choose to eat in the restaurant. I suggest asking more questions but be sure to do this only when the restaurant is not busy.

When it comes to sourcing out your food, it is a good idea to get to know your local fish monger, and your local farmers. And starting a small balcony or patio garden is not a bad idea too.

To Your Health

Dr. Barbara (TM)

CeliacBrain (TM) is the trademark and copyright of Dr. Barbara Powell. The right of Dr. Barbara Powell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Patent and Designs Act 1988.

Would the Real Olive Oil Please Stand Up?

Celiac disease causes a 12 times increased risk of autoimmune disease ( Dr. Farrell, NEJM, 2002). This can cause a considerable amount of pain and suffering. But there is hope in reducing many of the symptoms by using diet. I especially like the GAPS diet, sometimes called the "Real Gluten Free diet" or S.C.D.. It promotes a reduction in inflammation on many fronts: healing the bowel and increasing nutrient absorption, especially vitamin D, reducing bad organisms in the bowel,  bringing omega 6 (O6) to omega 3 (O3) ratios more in line with the best ratio of O6 to O3 being  2-4 to 1 ( for anti-inflammation).

When thinking of healthy oils, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is part of the solution. So I look for high quality EVOO to supplement my use of butter and coconut oil.

I have been concerned with fake olive oil for some time. When one doesn't get pure olive oil, one doesn't get the healing benefits one thought one was buying. 

This is an excerpt of the best article I've read on EVOO and the problem of fake olive oil. It is written by Eileen over at Phoenix Helix, Healing Autoimmune Disease through Diet ..and more!

When Labels Lie

When you start eating for your health, you begin to watch labels closely. But what happens when the labels aren't telling the truth?Olive oil fraud has become so rampant that an entire book has been written about it. Why has it become such a problem? Because extra virgin olive oil is big business. Touted for its health benefits in both mainstream America and the healing diets featured on this website, US consumers can’t get enough of it. And therein lies the problem. There isn't enough to go around, yet suppliers don’t want to miss a potential profit. Although standards exist for what “extra virgin” is supposed to mean, there are no teeth behind those standards, so producers can slip other oil into the bottle, slap on the coveted label, and sell fake oil quite easily to unsuspecting consumers.

First, it might help to know what extra virgin is supposed to mean. This is the highest quality and most expensive olive oil classification. The oil is mechanically pressed from the olives, without any heat or chemistry applied. In order to claim this label, the oil is supposed to meet both a chemistry standard and a sensory one, established by the International Olive Council and the USDA. The oil should have zero defects and greater than zero fruitiness. However, neither the IOC nor the USDA enforce these standards, so basically, it’s an honor game. Oh, the world would be a wonderful place if everyone was honorable.

When a dishonorable company doesn't have enough oil to meet this standard and wants to commit a little fraud, what do they do? The most common deception is to mix it with a lower standard olive oil, but some producers take it even further and mix in a variety of neutral-tasting refined oils, such as soy and canola. If you're on a healing diet, you're meant to avoid both of those oils, so it’s upsetting to realize you might be consuming them unknowingly.

Testing for Truth in Labeling:

In September 2012, Consumer Reports published its results from testing 23 olive oils from Italy, Spain and California, and only 9 passed the test as actually being extra virgin olive oil, as claimed on the label. Two that failed? Bertolli and Goya. Two that passed? McEvoy Ranch and Trader Joe’s California Estate.

As it turns out, the brand I like to use in one of the 9 brands that passed Consumer Reports testing...Kirkland Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. But I've recently discovered I can buy organic EVOO from     a single estate from Greece from the owner, right here where I live. It has a heavenly taste. 

Read Eileen's entire article for some marvelous tips on how to find pure EVOO, the full list of the brands that passed the Consumer Reports testing, and she debunks some common myths about EVOO. 

To Your Health
Dr. Barbara