I have changed my diet following comments on Zoe about keeping your gut healthy. These days I now have 4 spoons of extra virgin olive oil on my lunchtime salad. Is there any chance you could make two version of your videos, the extended version like this, and then a shorter 10 to 15 minute version for people who are working for a living and do not have the time for a 71 minute long video? I think you could reach a lot more people with an shortened version.
@@Timytc1 Yes, that is a great tip, which often works as someone says these are the three key points which they take 71 minutes to get too, and because it is so drawn out, you might mis. Zoe's big ideas are very good but the presentations are not as good. TBH their presentational style is rather self centred, which is a shame.
Dr Neal Barnard recently discussed the negative effects of olive oil including the 14% saturated fat in olive oil, and its potential contribution to insulin resistance, and weight gain. I'd never heard this emphasis on the negatives of olive oil, although he did say it improves health if it's adopted as a substitute for chicken fat or butter or ghee. He also acknowledged the benefits of polyphenols but recommended eating olives rather than the oil. Seems the blue zone centegenarians have not found olive oil to promote cardiovascular disease or insulin resistance. I was quite surprised at his assessment of olive oil. It is very confusing to decide what to do as a consumer.
I think it's ok up to moment that you rich the level 8 percent of saturated in general. So calculate 14percent saturated in olive oil to 8 percentage limit of saturated
I live in an olive growing region of Portugal and my own olives are harvested by my neighbour. They go to a co-operative and are mixed with other smallholders olives. The oil is mixed and distributed according to the weight of the olives when they arrive. We use it for cooking and buy extra virgin olive oil for dressings, etc. None of our bottles of Extra Virgin olive oil have harvest dates, only expiry dates.
But you’re not grifting people into thinking they must have that harvest date, which is without doubt a sales gimmick. Sorry, but these people are now taking the piss.
@@ak-id1yh . Because those trying to sell you more expensive oil told you so. These people, whilst being well versed in science, invite people onto their show who receive re numeration from or have financial interests in the olive oil industry. There’s a “ Doctor” or FB selling the same line that we all need this special olive oil…it £120 a litre!
Is organic extra Virginia olive oil significantly better than just extra virgin olive oil? I use Pompeian brand, which has the certification labels on the bottle. They offer both, but organic is more expensive. Is the benefit of organic very important for olive oil as it can be with a food like oats?
Yes, it’s the same in the area of Italy where have our house, the Lunigianna(north west Tuscany); the local frantoio takes all the local growers olives as they arrive which in some ways us better because the olives are not hanging around as they are constantly being fed into the mill.
In Greece, we cook with olive oil and all the other foods, salads and such ❤❤ I just bought, 17 kilos of olive oil, for the year, it was made in the spring, of 2024 ❤ we buy oil for the year 🙏 it cost 150 euros it’s abit expensive last year and this year, the trees had fewer olive, otherwise, it was 80 euros for 17 kilos ❤❤❤we are fortunate 🙏
Would be useful to know the difference between olive oil and eating whole olives. When dealing with fruit juices it has been said that the fresh whole fruit is far more beneficial than the squeezed juice, even when fresh. Is it the same with olives?
I have been priced out of using olive oil. It has just become too expensive for my budget. Like in so many other ways, a healthy lifestyle is unfortunately linked to income.
I wouldn't recommend olive oil, but compare price per calorie. Olive oil is actually very inexpensive as compare to other foods. Not sure what olive oil you want to buy, but the Costco brand supposely has high ratings and has been tested that it's not cut with canola oil. Canola oil is probably healthier anyway. I don't use any oil. Buy olives leaves (whole, powder, or extract) if you want the polyphenols in olive oil. *_Prices:_* For example, with the Costco EVOO, you get about 16,000 calories for $26. That's 16 cents per 100 calories. Broccoli is about $2 per pound. There's between 150 and 200 calories per pound of brocoli. That's around $1 per 100 calories. You decide which is more healthy for you, but olive oil is cheap (even the expensive stuff) compared to other foods like broccoli. For the Blueprint Bryan Johnson Extra Virgin Olive Oil, you get 750 ml for $35. You get 6,000 calories total. That's 58 cents per 100 calories. Still cheaper than broccoli.
It's not the first time I hear that extra virgin olive oil contains polyphenols but their amount is actually very low. You can see in Phenol-Explorer that the amount is only about 55 mg/100 g. Then you can find this study [1] and see in the first table that this amount may be even lower: around 41 mg GAE/100 mL which is only 4 mg for a 10 mL tablespoon. Now, what's the amount of polyphenols in orange juice for example? If we consider that the values of Phenol-Explorer are correct, it's around 49 mg/100 mL so slightly more than olive oil though it's around 20 times less calorific. On this website, coffee is said to be about 267 mg/100 mL which is around the same as in this study [2]. It's probably even more for hibiscus infusions and there are also raw whole lentils at 3697 mg/100 g (even if a big portion is lost during cooking it's still a lot) and non-alkalized cocoa powder at 5624 mg/100 g. With all that, it's impossible for me not to consider extra virgin olive oil as a negligible source of polyphenols, especially for people with a decent diet. Personally, I'd better take canola/rapeseed oil since its amount of omega-3 is not negligible (or at least much less) in top of having more polyunsaturated fatty acids which are linked to lower cardiovascular disease (including omega-6) when they replace saturated fatty acids (monounsaturated fatty acids predominant in olive oil don't seem to help much [3, 4]) though this oil also contains some trans fat, 3-MCPD, and glycidol in its refined version. Even if they don't seem to be noticeably harmful at such low amounts, there's also the possibility to use the unrefined version to avoid those 3 substances but its smoke point seems to be around 100 °C so it's probably better not to cook with it. No oil is perfect. 1: Antioxidant Properties and Fatty Acid Profile of Cretan Extra Virgin Bioolive Oils: A Pilot Study 2: Stability of phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity of regular and decaffeinated coffees 3: Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease 4: Circulating Fatty Acids and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke: Individual Participant Data Meta‐Analysis in Up to 16 126 Participants
This is extremely interesting and has changed my approach. Elizabeth Berger is also the most perfect speaker, clear, knowledgeable, with a smile to melt mountains, using limited but appropriate hand gestures, totally fluent. Thank you for this.
So you fancy the rep, but that does nothing to remedy Zoe’s constant peddling of products. Evoo does have many health benefits when used in moderation, and I want to like Tim Spector but truly - I am done with Zoe and their money making nonsense. Always wheeling our some “expert” invested in the industry of whatever they are peddling, their ridiculously expensive membership and app and yada yada - their new sprinkle product available in - yes - Waitrose!! Honestly how has everyone fallen for this? I’m not saying they are scammers, I’m saying they are profit driven. Which is at best the top of a very slippery slope, with skewing of truths at the next step down. Shame on you, Zoe.
I am living in Portugal, where most of the Spanish people buy that oil, dilute it with crap and sell it as Spanish Olive oil. Glad that I can enjoy the REAL staff which I produce myself
TIP: Pour EVOO into a sealable tub and freeze to a solid block (takes a few hours). Then transfer to the back of your refrigerator where it will soften to form a spreadable butter.
I live in Spain, and I would still go to a small shop that specialises in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I have one in my town, and as soon as the owner saw me looking at the olive oil, she came over to tell me all about it. The one I buy is harvested in October, and comes from Andalusia, the olive is a royal olive, which is milder, they also sell olive 🫒 oil made from the picual olive, which gives the bite in the throat. The olive oil is green and tastes delicious 😋 And makes an amazing salad 🥗 dressing. Loved this video, my take away is the 36 polyphenols, wow! 😃
I love this video, really insightful. I’m Spanish and we have been always cooking with extra virgin oil at home, like everybody else in Spain. My family coming from Jaén, one of the regions with higher production of very high quality and quantity of this oil so I’m quite disappointed that the three oils you test during the video are Italians. Kudos to Italians though who are much better doing marketing than us… we do have top quality oil, why wasn’t it at least one bottle from Spain? Thanks!
Glad to know. As someone not from the region, this was helpful information. I always see olive oil from Spain, but like you said marketing makes it feel like true olive oil only comes from Italy.
Agreed, It was very informative, but did cast shade on any other producer than Italy. I think the Greeks came off worse than Spain, with their 'cheap' oil.
Well this depends on the fact that Ms Berger lives in Italy, so she talks about what she knows best, I guess. You might suggest some variety of Spanish EVO that is particularly interesting
Thank you for this great podcast and giving us a scientific lesson on Olive Oil and the health benefits we get from it. I will certainly apply myself better to it and think about the many things covered here when purchasing, storing and using it. Thanks again for an insightful and inspiring discussion.. 🙏
I have been buying oil from Aldi which is from Puglia and comes from a legally defined region with PDO status called Terra di Bari - “Castel del Monte”. Seems to have the desirable characteristics described by the panel, and was, until recently (in the UK) £3.79 per half litre. Pretty good eh? However it is shame that this video has been posted at a time when there is a crisis in olive production due to disease and climate which has led to the prices rocketing putting it out of the reach of ordinary people 😢
@@zimba5194 Yeah and Dunnes stores has major limit on Toscana Extra Virgin Olive oil which has shot up in price from 8 euro to 13 euro and that's if you can get it. I put a good few glugs mixed in my porridge. Believe it or not works really well.
Very interesting. We love lots of EVOI and luckily can afford the best supermarket offers. £ 30 a bottle..... no ! As a retired GP living in a poor area where people's diet is appalling and highly processed it shows up the great divide between the haves and have nots. I sense a launch of polyphenol shots coming to another posh supermarket to join the bug shots and 30+ sprinkles. I do hope that at least some of the profits are going to fund further Zoe research.
Thank you Zoe. I love your videos and podcasts and follow your advice. I am a senior on a fixed low income. I do not spend my money on pre-packaged, processed foods or meat. Therefore I can afford good quality olive oil, lots of fruits, vegetables and legumes. If people actually followed your advice and stopped wasting money on unhealthy "food" they would more likely be able to afford to buy and eat better quality healthy food. Just sayin'...
There are a good many people on low incomes that don't waste money on unhealthy food, which is often very inexpensive. Good for you that on your fixed income you can afford and can access good quality olive oil. But not everybody can. Being judgemental doesn't help anyone.
I know this Q is to Zoe but I can share that, yes, in Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy, olive oil has been used on skin and (sparingly…) hair (at the ends, not the roots!) for centuries. It is also used with a liniment to soothe and protect babies’ skin from nappy rash (including in commercial products available in pharmacies, also available in France, where I live).
PLEASE, Zoe! Surely there is a way you can transmit this relatively limited, but nonetheless extremely valuable, information to us without demanding 70 minutes of our time, much of it in repetition and badinage?
This is Zoe's biggest mistake. Everyone has a time budget. Most people have a job and or family commitments. Making 60-90 min. videos is wasting everyone's time. If you haven't the wit to say it in 15-20 min. Don't bother.
When I was a child, my grandmother (who grew up in Bologna) hid the olive oil, which I happened to discover. When unobserved, I would retrieve it (not without difficulty) and drizzle it down a long rib of lettuce. It was so delicious.
I thought this was really interesting and informative. However the advice is not so easy to follow. I looked at the olive oil in my local Asda today. Some of it was in dark green bottle, However not one single bottle had a harvest date on it, only best before dates. What would the recommendation be for people that shop in places like Asda and don't have a good income?
Costco Kirkland brand 2 litre 100% cold pressed Italian EVOO comes in dark bottles but it’s plastic, as are many supermarket bottles. There was no mention of the difference in longevity or quality when stored in dark plastic as opposed to glass.
12:42 "...people that drink olive oil...", I'm from the south of Spain, where most of the olive oil is produced, and not even us "drink" olive oil 😂😂. I know what Tim meant, but I just imagined someone going to a bar and asking for a pint of olive oil 🤣🤣
@@tincanguru Yes, I guessed that. I don't know anyone that takes olive oil by itself, it always goes with something: bread, vegetables, salad... So I wouldn't say drink in any case, but we can understand
@@XSD.1. That's not too much... is it? 😂 I haven't checked my consumption, but I'd say it should be around there, more or less. But maybe that's not "normal", I don't know 😂 In any case, I don't care, it's nice 😊
If I ever had any doubts that ZOE is for well off middle class people this video has put them to bed … £45 for a 500ml bottle of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil you recommend here … and sarcastic remarks by Prof Tim about keeping it in a cupboard and not using it … at that price I’d put it in a (darkened) glass cabinet and charge an entrance fee to look at it
Mate. These ones they have showed are top end. The Viola Il Sincero Extra Virgin is 25 euro which isn't too bad, but I hear you you can't be drinking that every 2 days as Prof said. Honestly though. That burn at the back of the throat is so important. You get that it's almost the same as a good chilli. Great burn, but not lingering.
It never ceases to amaze me that in the UK, people always find money for alcohol on a night out. Will pay over £10 for a 50ml of alcohol, but pay anything for something that benefits their health and it's too expensive 😅😅
@@jaspaltoor3486and there are many people on low wages who might like to eat healthier if they could afford it … think it’s about time ZOE got together with the NHS and other organisations to do something about enabling people other than the middle class rich with time and money to watch these podcasts and buy expensive food … ZOE at the moment are helping people who are already healthy to get a bit healthier
This was fantastic! I’m in the US where we can get quality olive oil from California. Thank you so much, and Jonathan I want to say a special thank you to you for always thinking of questions that your listeners and participants are also wondering about. It shows that you really are quite conscious of all of us, and that means a lot ❤
In Southern Spain, they add it to their pastry too when they make empanadas (pasties). It changes the texture, but in a good way and makes a pasty that is robust enough for your lunch box.
Very interesting. I already consume organic EVOO as the main cooking fat in my diet, but I'll now be looking out for harvest dates on labels, and thinking more about how I store my EVOO, to ensure I'm making the most of my investment.
Olive oil at high temperature 🌡️ is not great for cooking 🍳 it gets oxidised. It's best to use other healthy more heath resistant oils like avocado 🥑 oil
I buy my EVOO through New Dawn Traders. Harvested, containerised, then shipped by sail to the UK every Autumn. I get through about 20 litres a year. Have used only olive oil for cooking for nearly 40 years.
@@mountaingoat1806 I agree with you both would definitely be better. I have been doing both. But for most people in America(~70% overweight or obese which I am not one of them) if they had to choose one or the other, wondering what is healthier? Or if some people do not have access or cannot afford really good EVOO, which one would they benefit from more?
We can't eat olives unprocessed, a natural bitter compound, oleuropein, has to be removed. Salt remains from the processing. Maybe the salt puts nutrition experts off recommending them over olive oil, which contains no salt? They're certainly good for us, but not in big quantities.
Yes much better to just eat the olives. Theres far more polyphenols in the olive than the oil, a single olive will have a polyphenol count of about 16.6mg. A tablespoon of olive oil, which came from roughly 100 olives, has the polyphenol count of 6.94. To get the equivalent polyphenols of a single olive (3-4 calories), you'll need to eat about 2.4 tablespoons of olive oil, 288 calories. So yeah the whole polyphenols idea is kinda silly. Although olive oil does have benefits beyond its polyphenol content, most of the data surrounding health benefits from olive oil are not solid imo, there’s a lot of correlation and not so much actual causation.
You are allowed to answer yes, no or a short sentence if you have to, and Tim says "absolutely" without consequence, This is not within the rules of just a minute, the chairman should have given an extra point to Elizabeth
@@tutacat we liked the interruption so you get a point, but it's an incorrect challenge and Elizabeth has the subject of olive oil with 3 seconds remaining
ZOE: Health for the affluent. Why can’t they give tips for buying olive oil on a budget? Why not choose several cheap brands and test their polyphenol content. Put your science where your mouth is ZOE and make healthy eating more available to all.
I’m not sure you can get good olive oil, very inexpensively. Olive oil is one of the most towns are fitted and adulterated product in the world. Unfortunately.
@@johnnyxmusic I guess. But it would be really enlightening to see a proper testing of some widely available brands (Including Berio in the UK and some supermarket brands too). I think we deserve to know what the ratio of polyphenols is per £. Is that unrealistic?
@@AbsenceLacksNothing I totally agree they have tested the best Olive Oil money can buy but most of us can’t afford these prices especially if we’re consuming it at four tablespoons a day as suggested here and elsewhere … maybe Berio, which I buy at Tesco isn’t the best but tell us how far off the mark it is … my guess is not that far. Where was Sarah Berry as she does a good job of keeping it real
Spain produce half of the world EVOO. It is a fact that Italians buy Spanish oil (just look in a map to see the differences in terms of territory and production capacity) to resell it. Italians are much better at marketing than Spanish. But the truth is that one day in the future, Spanish oil will be recognized as the best there is. Yes and we do use it for everything, salads, cooking, Gazpacho, etc. My father is 94 years old and still kicking... Also a one glass of wine a day kind of guy ;)
No chance sadly as with much of food in Spain it’s adulterated by the method of production (like Hydrology) and worse yet by “refining” and blending and etc. etc. Spain buy so much Olive Oil from Portugal where I live and mixing it to make it “Spanish”.
I have two bottles of biological Extra Virgin Olive here from two different Dutch supermarket brands, but I cannot find a harvest date on either of them anywhere.....
Olives and olive leaf extract? As some others already asked, I am curious about the comparison to olives (as you buy them in the supermarket) and olive leaf extract. You can eat much more olive for the same amount of energy and if it's instead of sessoning it can sometimes be instead of oil. The leaf extract is more of a supplement but would be interesting to at least hear a comparison when talkning about the benefits of olive(oil).
I had a taste of olive oil from a small producer, Hunters I think, in Marlborough, New Zealand (there for wine tasting actually) and it had a lovely flavour reminiscent of bananas!! Very memorable.
Zoe scores EVOO more highly than olives alone which you wouldn't expect when you compare it to other fruit, probably because there is a greater concentration of polyphenols in the oil alone.
Excelente. Please ask the host to only repeat and summarise where absolutely necessary. I’m sure most of your audience is more than capable of following and understanding what’s being advised. Thank you.
I actually find the summarising and repetition really helpful for my understanding of the videos. I have multiple disabilities that effect my cognitive processing. There are lots of people in a similar boat. It might slightly inconvenience some listeners to have things repeated, but it also makes the video accessible to a lot more people
A few years ago, I found a lovely little deli behind the Acropolis Museum. They sold Greek produce. On the shelves green cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Ten euros a bottle. More than I would pay for a good bottle of red wine. I queried the price. I was told it was the first crop of the season from Lesbos. I went back a week later, to my surprise suprise all had gone but a couple of bottles. I bought a bottle. I use, not only for salads, also for cooking. Ti the horror of many people,only use the good stuff for salad. Where I also use, is in soup, not when cooking, a little drizzle in the soup in the bowl. #oliveoil
Interesting video, thank you. You mention that Spain is the biggest producer of olive oil and Greece is also a large producer. Maybe a follow up to include them in your analysis please ?
@@NUFCrichard that is totally out of reach for many people. To find 100 euros in one go for a food item, when people are struggling to spend £20 to put shoes on their childs feet. Lucky you.
I'm on board with nearly everything mentioned in this interview...except the bit about a one-way valve in the bottle! 😀 Simple physics suggests that if there is no air getting in, there is no oil going to come out of the bottle! An air tight cap on the bottle is all that is needed.
Thanks for this. Really interesting. I will stop buying expensive unfiltered EVOO in clear glass and storing near my oven and kitchen window!! Will search for lightly filtered in dark glass with a production date and will store it in the dark, cool pantry and use it everyday!
Some say olive oil is good and they are now saying its bad again ? What do we do as consumers ? Very confusing ? However, I will continue to take olive oil as part of my healthy life style.
The olive oils in most grocery stores print harvest dates in green ink on green glass bottles so the customer can't read it. Or they use a "Best Buy" date that is three years from the harvest.
Buying extra virgin olive oil does not mean you get quality. You get blends and oil that is likely to be mixed with old oil. Often made from olives that are shipped in from other eu countries ( Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia). The only way to buy good quality extra virgin olive oil is by looking the label and tasting it and smelling it. Olive oil from southern part of Italy has higher amount of polyphenols than northern varieties. Olives that come from harsh environment will also has a stronger smell and taste due to amount of polyphenols. Also, most extra virgin olive Oil is blended with old oil from previous year and still be cold extra virgin. You can get EU blend or olive that comes from a cooperative. You need to read the label, read the date of harvest, specific area, avoid blends, avoid cooperatives, buy organic, and sadly extra virgin olive oil that cost £8 or £10 in Waitrose is not going to be good quality. You need a reputable source cause even expert miss the key part
A problem is that organic just means it‘s *third party certified* which increases the price. It doesn’t make the quality better. I prefer organic, but I prefer quality and freshness over organic from trustworthy brands or importers (which don‘t have to be very expensive)
Very informative, thanks. Let's take it in moderation though. It is a very calorically-dense processed food. Making an extraction to increase the polyphenols means processing the oil to an even less natural state. Research shows that unnaturally high levels of anti-oxidants can lead to negative health outcomes.
Fascinating. I’d like to know / see the names of the oils tasted and where to buy them & cost. Any tips on acquiring freshly produced olive oil in the UK??
What are your thoughts on Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and his thoughts about fats including olive oil on plaque. Something to do with nitric oxide and endothelial cells.
When Dr Esselstyn'n did his first study, all his subjects had severe heart disease thar could no longer be treated with the "standard of care" (which is medication, open heart surgery and stents). They were sent home to prepare to die within a few months. So he prescribe "no oil" bcz obviously, the patients go to thar stage of their disease progression bcz they had excessive oil, fat and bad diet for a long time. Do, no oil makes sense. If you are not that sick, you probably don't ha e to be that rigid about no oil but I would not drink olive oil, either. Just my own thought as a scientist.
Listened to Michael Mosley “Just One Thing” on Olive Oil. Conclusion he came to, talking to an academic researcher, was that Extra Virgin Olive Oil certainly beat but they found no difference between Extra Virgin and Olive Oil when cooking with it. Any comments?
I'm down under so the northern hemisphere olive oils have a long way to come and are consequently older than if i lived closer to the harvest. Should i go for Australian or closer still, New Zealand olive oils???
Personally I’d go for local Australian or even New Zealand less food miles. I grew up near McLaren Vale and the olive oils from there and surrounding regions were amazing. The property my parents owned had lovely old Kalamata olive trees on the property. The local Greek families would harvest and maintain the trees for free and often give my parents some of their harvest as thanks, absolutely beautiful flavour.
Absolutely, go for local as both NZ and Oz have some top quality producers. In Oz two of the best Australian EVOO are Cockatoo Grove Organic EVOO or Cobram Estate EVOO, both have very quick harvest to oil pressing production times. I know the Cobram Extra Virgin Rich & Robust Olive Oil (Green Label) is definitely available in Woolworths / Metro in New Zealand and it has the highest Polyphenols in the range.
I’d guess any wine producing region will produce great olive oil because they’re often grown in the vicinity to protect the grapes from disease. Lots of great wines from Australia and New Zealand so would assume there’ll be some good local stuff.
A very recent study showed that a plant-based diet without olive oil improved cardiometabolic health more than a plant-based diet with 4 tablespoons of EVOO daily. When study participants switched to the diet with EVOO, their cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and hs-CRP rose. Also, the fiber and other nutrients are contained in the whole olive but are missing in the EVOO. It is NOT a whole food, but a processed one. When I eat something with EVOO, my joints get inflamed. When I eat olives, my joints are fine.
@celestebeck4642 I wonder how the partipants were chosen, and how many there were - one study doesn't really cut the mustard or EVOO in this case. Also watched a podcast recentlyfrom a Meta study that stated that the longest lived people mostly were those with high cholesterol. So it could be that high cholesterol is protective in some way. There is way more to be learned about it all.
My Tesco Extra Virgin Olive Oil doesn't have a harvest date, just a BBE, and it's a _"blend of olive oils of European Union origin"._ Obvs need to lift my game. 😭
As a Mediterranean i can tell you that we never viewed olive oil as bad oil, as you have described what your view of it was. It was always the ''healtyh oil''.
The best olive oil I've ever tasted was in a small oil shop on the shop mile in Athens. It was expensive but beyond belief in taste, color and clarity.
35:26 Guys, this really doesn't make ANY sense! _"tin is a very good container ... but the trouble is is that as the oil depletes in the tin that space is filled with oxygen which is oxidizing the rest of the oil ...[so] decant it into dark glass and then put a proper top on it"._ *Think about what you're saying for a moment! As the oil depletes in the dark glass bottle, there is air in there too, so keeping it in a different type of container won't change anything!* What are you trying to say? You're not making common sense!
The meaning is: tin is ok to store oil until you open it. Once it’s open you have to transfer oil in dark bottles. Anyway as any live product oil tends to change in time and not for the better. I have an olive grove in Taggia and I make my own oil and as everybody else here we store it in big steel silos and then to tin cans to be sold when people want to buy 5lt. Later they open the tin and have to move the oil in bottles
Except that the body without adequate cholesterol is dementia in the making. Also the pharma industry loves to tell you that your cholesterol is high, as statins are a billion dollar industry, full of dangerous side effects. A little extra cholesterol is fine.
Yeah, you gotta be a bit wary with these claims. They are not critical of the "research". There is plenty of research to show the benefit of low fat diets. It is a complicated discussion and feel but just arguing that it is better because of "polyphenols!" is just way too vague. Food with high polyphenols exist in your local supermarket food and does not have to be 30 pound bottles.
Greek olives were referred to as "cheaper". Does this imply that Greek olive oils are considered as inferior quality oils when compared to Italian oils in general?
Why would you ever eat that if you care about your health? Please don't eat that, it is so processed it barely matters any more if it contains a tiny bit of low quality olive oil.
I get the light butter with canola oil. Way less calories then real butter and canola oil has tons of studies saying it is good for you. The anti-seed oil cult are lost.
Love your video that I watch all the time. I just looked at the back of a green plastic bottle and it says "30 percent reduction in plastic what does this mean. I would love to hear from you. Thanks Patricia
Very interested,great information,,thank you been taking 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and two tablespoons of extra olive oil in the morning 30 minutes before I eat and 1 teaspoon of honey and 1. 1/2 tablespoons of extra olive oil at night
I never knew about the harvest date on olive oil bottles. So I went to the supermarket and could not find it in most bottles available in the UK. I found it in ONE of the brands sold in a UK supermarket. Very disappointed.
Why aren’t they mentioning the impact of climate change on olive groves, particularly in Spain, so prices are going to soar? It will become increasingly scarce with prices rising.
Yes, they're a disaster turning all the ground into a desert. The Spanish government actually pay and incentivises farmers to not plant grass or green vegetation around the field as in organic fields so the olive tree gets the water which has become so scarce. Permaculture practices are needed fast in Spain or it'll become a desert. Olive oil being the biggest cash crop for Spain is preventing accentuating the problem.
Great episode! Definitely true, us mediterraneans usually buy 5l bottles of olive oil and only last us a few months, we use it for everything 😅However, Spanish olive oil is waaaay better in quality to Italian olive oil! Fun fact: classical Romans used to use Spanish olive oil for cooking, Italian for perfume and northern African for lighting lanterns. I really encourage you to try Spanish ones!
Is it better to consume olives recently harvested to maximise polyphenol intake, compared to olive oil from the supermarket. Thank you for this super informative video❤
I feel that whole foods are always best, so I’m against extracting the polyphenols. Especially against adding them to other foods; it’s starting to sound processed. Convince me otherwise, if you can.
4 tablespoons only :) I´ve been in restaurants in Spain and watched people pour half of a 250ml bottle of olive oil over the salad the table of four is sharing. Sadly, now you mostly get the olive oil in sachets in Spanish restaurants, I think due to a law change of a few years ago.
Thank you for the wonderful podcast. I love olive oil and it is a part my regular diet. So I am obviously very pleased to hear the discussion. Is it possible to post the references to the studies and peer reviewed published data that your experts have referred to?
I buy extra virgin olive oil from Aldi. Intalian PDO olive oil. A peppery taste with a slight bitter after taste. Sold in a dark glass bottle. I use a bottle a month. Drink a shot most days and do all my frying and cooking with it. £5 for 500ml.
I generally trust California olive oil relative to imported.. it should be in a dark green etc bottle . And the harvest date within the last 6-9 months
When one buys artisinal olive oils, I think we can expect the oil to be real and , I hope, what the label declares. But supermarket oils. The adulteration of various foods ( olive oil, honey, etc) is a common and modern ( and also historical) fact. What do we do when we cannot afford to glug the liquid gold? How can we find out which of the supermarket extra virgin olive oils has extra virgin olive oil in the bottle? Most people in the world aren't going to know someone who has their own olive oil press..... But I truly thank you all for the information you've been sharing with us all.
I am in Brazil. The bottles here generally have two dates, the earlier indicated by 'exp' and the latter by 'venc,' with a usual span of 18 months. 'Venc' indicates validity date while 'exp' I am not sure. Maybe 'expressed' (pressed) or maybe exported? Who knows.
I buy the cheap evoo in lidl, between £6-7 for 1L. Not as healthy as more expensive ones I imagine but I use quite a lot, simply too expensive to buy expensive evoo all the time.
I see there are options for organic extra virgin olive oil...its even more expensive. Is this an important distinction in olive oils as it can be for someting like oats?
I’m English and have favoured extra virgin olive oil for years; it’s common knowledge for many people I know. The bag in the tin or box is a concern, as I understand that toxins from plastics are released particularly when in contact with oil. Plus it’s not sustainable, unlike traditional containers.
I just followed your example and drank a tablespoon of olive oil and 30 minutes later it made me to go to the bathroom. All the oil I drank came out which I don’t mind because it helped me regular. Is that normal and okay?
I usually love Zoe podcasts and get a lot of useful and useable information, however this one seemed aimed at telling me the health benefits I could have if I was willing and able to pay good amounts of money for cooking oil. I will use more olive oil now, but still buy supermarket products. Please guide us more on which is best and affordable. Oh, and I don’t want to listen or watch, to a tasting session, thank you!
What about acidity level ? The % is very often not stated on bottles I see in supermarkets . I lived in Crete for three yrs and this would be stated normally . I ve asked in supermarkets and many health food stores and often the staff look perplexed when I ask . As I understand the best acidity is •20 up to 2 %. For extra virgin oil
Interesting. Though most of my cooking is with the family including small children, I don't think they would appreciate it in the same way. Is there such a thing as a mild extra virgin olive oil? Thanks
I have changed my diet following comments on Zoe about keeping your gut healthy. These days I now have 4 spoons of extra virgin olive oil on my lunchtime salad. Is there any chance you could make two version of your videos, the extended version like this, and then a shorter 10 to 15 minute version for people who are working for a living and do not have the time for a 71 minute long video? I think you could reach a lot more people with an shortened version.
Yes, I avoid clicking on long videos but read comments instead to get a clue, as sometimes someone will itemise the key points.
@@Timytc1 Yes, that is a great tip, which often works as someone says these are the three key points which they take 71 minutes to get too, and because it is so drawn out, you might mis. Zoe's big ideas are very good but the presentations are not as good. TBH their presentational style is rather self centred, which is a shame.
I think they do take snippets from long videos and release them from time to time.
@@Theomatikalli I cannot pretend my suggestion is an original idea.
@@charleswillcock3235 It's still a good idea though 👍
Dr Neal Barnard recently discussed the negative effects of olive oil including the 14% saturated fat in olive oil, and its potential contribution to insulin resistance, and weight gain. I'd never heard this emphasis on the negatives of olive oil, although he did say it improves health if it's adopted as a substitute for chicken fat or butter or ghee. He also acknowledged the benefits of polyphenols but recommended eating olives rather than the oil. Seems the blue zone centegenarians have not found olive oil to promote cardiovascular disease or insulin resistance. I was quite surprised at his assessment of olive oil. It is very confusing to decide what to do as a consumer.
I think it's ok up to moment that you rich the level 8 percent of saturated in general. So calculate 14percent saturated in olive oil to 8 percentage limit of saturated
I live in an olive growing region of Portugal and my own olives are harvested by my neighbour. They go to a co-operative and are mixed with other smallholders olives. The oil is mixed and distributed according to the weight of the olives when they arrive. We use it for cooking and buy extra virgin olive oil for dressings, etc. None of our bottles of Extra Virgin olive oil have harvest dates, only expiry dates.
But you’re not grifting people into thinking they must have that harvest date, which is without doubt a sales gimmick. Sorry, but these people are now taking the piss.
But you know where YOUR olive oil comes from. The point is that olive oil in the supermarket which has no date is 100% bad quality or old.
@@ak-id1yh . Because those trying to sell you more expensive oil told you so. These people, whilst being well versed in science, invite people onto their show who receive re numeration from or have financial interests in the olive oil industry. There’s a “ Doctor” or FB selling the same line that we all need this special olive oil…it £120 a litre!
Is organic extra Virginia olive oil significantly better than just extra virgin olive oil? I use Pompeian brand, which has the certification labels on the bottle. They offer both, but organic is more expensive. Is the benefit of organic very important for olive oil as it can be with a food like oats?
Yes, it’s the same in the area of Italy where have our house, the Lunigianna(north west Tuscany); the local frantoio takes all the local growers olives as they arrive which in some ways us better because the olives are not hanging around as they are constantly being fed into the mill.
In Greece, we cook with olive oil and all the other foods, salads and such ❤❤ I just bought, 17 kilos of olive oil, for the year, it was made in the spring, of 2024 ❤ we buy oil for the year 🙏 it cost 150 euros it’s abit expensive last year and this year, the trees had fewer olive, otherwise, it was 80 euros for 17 kilos ❤❤❤we are fortunate 🙏
Would be useful to know the difference between olive oil and eating whole olives. When dealing with fruit juices it has been said that the fresh whole fruit is far more beneficial than the squeezed juice, even when fresh. Is it the same with olives?
Whole olives are also processed. You can't eat them straight from the tree
I was thinking exactly the same thing. I suspect the polyphenols will be much better preserved in the whole olive than in the oil
Oil is produced from the seed of the olive. You don't eat the seed normally.
I always prefer whole
@@ak-id1yh My dog does 😁
I have been priced out of using olive oil. It has just become too expensive for my budget. Like in so many other ways, a healthy lifestyle is unfortunately linked to income.
I wouldn't recommend olive oil, but compare price per calorie. Olive oil is actually very inexpensive as compare to other foods. Not sure what olive oil you want to buy, but the Costco brand supposely has high ratings and has been tested that it's not cut with canola oil. Canola oil is probably healthier anyway. I don't use any oil. Buy olives leaves (whole, powder, or extract) if you want the polyphenols in olive oil.
*_Prices:_*
For example, with the Costco EVOO, you get about 16,000 calories for $26. That's 16 cents per 100 calories. Broccoli is about $2 per pound. There's between 150 and 200 calories per pound of brocoli. That's around $1 per 100 calories. You decide which is more healthy for you, but olive oil is cheap (even the expensive stuff) compared to other foods like broccoli.
For the Blueprint Bryan Johnson Extra Virgin Olive Oil, you get 750 ml for $35. You get 6,000 calories total. That's 58 cents per 100 calories. Still cheaper than broccoli.
@@jakubchrobry3701 That's a lot of words for low iq people. They're just not gonna register your points.
me too im frying with lard lidl 50p
I soak in a bath of organic EVOO every morning because I'm egregiously wealthy.
@@Feel_theagi That's the kind of moronic stuff you would actually do if you had money and the reason you are poor.
It's not the first time I hear that extra virgin olive oil contains polyphenols but their amount is actually very low. You can see in Phenol-Explorer that the amount is only about 55 mg/100 g. Then you can find this study [1] and see in the first table that this amount may be even lower: around 41 mg GAE/100 mL which is only 4 mg for a 10 mL tablespoon.
Now, what's the amount of polyphenols in orange juice for example? If we consider that the values of Phenol-Explorer are correct, it's around 49 mg/100 mL so slightly more than olive oil though it's around 20 times less calorific.
On this website, coffee is said to be about 267 mg/100 mL which is around the same as in this study [2]. It's probably even more for hibiscus infusions and there are also raw whole lentils at 3697 mg/100 g (even if a big portion is lost during cooking it's still a lot) and non-alkalized cocoa powder at 5624 mg/100 g.
With all that, it's impossible for me not to consider extra virgin olive oil as a negligible source of polyphenols, especially for people with a decent diet. Personally, I'd better take canola/rapeseed oil since its amount of omega-3 is not negligible (or at least much less) in top of having more polyunsaturated fatty acids which are linked to lower cardiovascular disease (including omega-6) when they replace saturated fatty acids (monounsaturated fatty acids predominant in olive oil don't seem to help much [3, 4]) though this oil also contains some trans fat, 3-MCPD, and glycidol in its refined version. Even if they don't seem to be noticeably harmful at such low amounts, there's also the possibility to use the unrefined version to avoid those 3 substances but its smoke point seems to be around 100 °C so it's probably better not to cook with it. No oil is perfect.
1: Antioxidant Properties and Fatty Acid Profile of Cretan Extra Virgin Bioolive Oils: A Pilot Study
2: Stability of phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity of regular and decaffeinated coffees
3: Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease
4: Circulating Fatty Acids and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke: Individual Participant Data Meta‐Analysis in Up to 16 126 Participants
This is extremely interesting and has changed my approach. Elizabeth Berger is also the most perfect speaker, clear, knowledgeable, with a smile to melt mountains, using limited but appropriate hand gestures, totally fluent. Thank you for this.
Grins. Unlike the whirling hands of the host.... ;)
@@Macintoshes Grins back. . . . He reminds me of a demented windmill!
So you fancy the rep, but that does nothing to remedy Zoe’s constant peddling of products. Evoo does have many health benefits when used in moderation, and I want to like Tim Spector but truly - I am done with Zoe and their money making nonsense. Always wheeling our some “expert” invested in the industry of whatever they are peddling, their ridiculously expensive membership and app and yada yada - their new sprinkle product available in - yes - Waitrose!! Honestly how has everyone fallen for this? I’m not saying they are scammers, I’m saying they are profit driven. Which is at best the top of a very slippery slope, with skewing of truths at the next step down. Shame on you, Zoe.
@@dopapier I wonder if he realises he is a demented windmill?
@@genetherapy666 HA HA
I am living in Portugal, where most of the Spanish people buy that oil, dilute it with crap and sell it as Spanish Olive oil. Glad that I can enjoy the REAL staff which I produce myself
TIP: Pour EVOO into a sealable tub and freeze to a solid block (takes a few hours). Then transfer to the back of your refrigerator where it will soften to form a spreadable butter.
Interesting, I just use an aerosol bottle and spray it on.
Really? I'll have to give it a try.
I drizzle it on my bread slices and then avocado on top 🇩🇪greetings from Germany
What happens to the polyphenols when you do that?
EVOO with a pinch of truffle sea salt
I live in Spain, and I would still go to a small shop that specialises in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I have one in my town, and as soon as the owner saw me looking at the olive oil, she came over to tell me all about it. The one I buy is harvested in October, and comes from Andalusia, the olive is a royal olive, which is milder, they also sell olive 🫒 oil made from the picual olive, which gives the bite in the throat. The olive oil is green and tastes delicious 😋 And makes an amazing salad 🥗 dressing. Loved this video, my take away is the 36 polyphenols, wow! 😃
I love this video, really insightful.
I’m Spanish and we have been always cooking with extra virgin oil at home, like everybody else in Spain. My family coming from Jaén, one of the regions with higher production of very high quality and quantity of this oil so I’m quite disappointed that the three oils you test during the video are Italians. Kudos to Italians though who are much better doing marketing than us… we do have top quality oil, why wasn’t it at least one bottle from Spain?
Thanks!
Glad to know. As someone not from the region, this was helpful information. I always see olive oil from Spain, but like you said marketing makes it feel like true olive oil only comes from Italy.
Agreed, It was very informative, but did cast shade on any other producer than Italy. I think the Greeks came off worse than Spain, with their 'cheap' oil.
That's a great insiders tip to getting top quality oil without paying top prices! I shall look for Jaèn oil ...
Well this depends on the fact that Ms Berger lives in Italy, so she talks about what she knows best, I guess. You might suggest some variety of Spanish EVO that is particularly interesting
I buy Italian extra virgin single region new harvest from a well known discounter which is exceptionally good taste. Low cost. 😅
Thank you for this great podcast and giving us a scientific lesson on Olive Oil and the health benefits we get from it. I will certainly apply myself better to it and think about the many things covered here when purchasing, storing and using it. Thanks again for an insightful and inspiring discussion.. 🙏
I have been buying oil from Aldi which is from Puglia and comes from a legally defined region with PDO status called Terra di Bari - “Castel del Monte”. Seems to have the desirable characteristics described by the panel, and was, until recently (in the UK) £3.79 per half litre. Pretty good eh? However it is shame that this video has been posted at a time when there is a crisis in olive production due to disease and climate which has led to the prices rocketing putting it out of the reach of ordinary people 😢
Totally agree. Aldi's olive oil is delicious. I have a tablespoon before my breakfast!
@@zimba5194 Yeah and Dunnes stores has major limit on Toscana Extra Virgin Olive oil which has shot up in price from 8 euro to 13 euro and that's if you can get it. I put a good few glugs mixed in my porridge. Believe it or not works really well.
5.49 pounds for 500mm,October 2024.
Chilean Malbec, 3.99 pounds per bottle.
Very interesting. We love lots of EVOI and luckily can afford the best supermarket offers. £ 30 a bottle..... no ! As a retired GP living in a poor area where people's diet is appalling and highly processed it shows up the great divide between the haves and have nots. I sense a launch of polyphenol shots coming to another posh supermarket to join the bug shots and 30+ sprinkles. I do hope that at least some of the profits are going to fund further Zoe research.
Not made clear that EVOO has less than 10% of the polyphenols that whole olives have, per calorie. Plus olives have fibre and micronutrients.
@@helencooney1363 20:grams of milled flaxseed has 3 times the polyphenols of 100 ml of olive oil.
Thank you Zoe. I love your videos and podcasts and follow your advice. I am a senior on a fixed low income. I do not spend my money on pre-packaged, processed foods or meat. Therefore I can afford good quality olive oil, lots of fruits, vegetables and legumes. If people actually followed your advice and stopped wasting money on unhealthy "food" they would more likely be able to afford to buy and eat better quality healthy food. Just sayin'...
There are a good many people on low incomes that don't waste money on unhealthy food, which is often very inexpensive. Good for you that on your fixed income you can afford and can access good quality olive oil. But not everybody can. Being judgemental doesn't help anyone.
I tasted the best olive oil when i was in Lefkas, Greece. A local olive oil I never tasted before
We have some wonderful olive oils in South Africa!
Just ordered a few bottles from Babylonstoren
I can’t see any harvest date on the bottle of extra virgin olive oil I recently purchased from Lidl. Just a best before date.
Probably better to not buy EVO in supermarkets
@@valeriaraimondi3776I agree. Better to tell one's assistant to fly to Spain on one's private jet and pick some up direct from the grower.
Question to @zoe : If extra virgin olive oil has polyphenols, should we be using it as a moisturiser? Will the skin absorb the polyphenols?
I know this Q is to Zoe but I can share that, yes, in Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy, olive oil has been used on skin and (sparingly…) hair (at the ends, not the roots!) for centuries. It is also used with a liniment to soothe and protect babies’ skin from nappy rash (including in commercial products available in pharmacies, also available in France, where I live).
PLEASE, Zoe! Surely there is a way you can transmit this relatively limited, but nonetheless extremely valuable, information to us without demanding 70 minutes of our time, much of it in repetition and badinage?
You could just read the transcript.
@@kesgreen4639 Where is the transcript please?
This is Zoe's biggest mistake. Everyone has a time budget. Most people have a job and or family commitments. Making 60-90 min. videos is wasting everyone's time. If you haven't the wit to say it in 15-20 min. Don't bother.
You can read the transcript, and then you see the true extent of the waffle.
@@RicktheRecorder Where is the transcript?
When I was a child, my grandmother (who grew up in Bologna) hid the olive oil, which I happened to discover. When unobserved, I would retrieve it (not without difficulty) and drizzle it down a long rib of lettuce. It was so delicious.
I thought this was really interesting and informative. However the advice is not so easy to follow.
I looked at the olive oil in my local Asda today.
Some of it was in dark green bottle, However not one single bottle had a harvest date on it, only best before dates.
What would the recommendation be for people that shop in places like Asda and don't have a good income?
Costco Kirkland brand 2 litre 100% cold pressed Italian EVOO comes in dark bottles but it’s plastic, as are many supermarket bottles. There was no mention of the difference in longevity or quality when stored in dark plastic as opposed to glass.
I was wondering the same thing
All plastics leach toxins into any foodstuff. Olive oil kept in plastic is a health hazard.
@@lizcole6813 me too!!
Could you put the links for these bottles in the description please
12:42 "...people that drink olive oil...", I'm from the south of Spain, where most of the olive oil is produced, and not even us "drink" olive oil 😂😂. I know what Tim meant, but I just imagined someone going to a bar and asking for a pint of olive oil 🤣🤣
I noted the same, but think he is intending to mean 'consume' rather than a pint at the local 🙂
@@tincanguru Yes, I guessed that. I don't know anyone that takes olive oil by itself, it always goes with something: bread, vegetables, salad... So I wouldn't say drink in any case, but we can understand
My son thinks I am crazily overconsuming my EEVO😂 I use one Liter for myself per month
@@XSD.1. That's not too much... is it? 😂 I haven't checked my consumption, but I'd say it should be around there, more or less. But maybe that's not "normal", I don't know 😂 In any case, I don't care, it's nice 😊
You have not seen Bryan Johnson then.
If I ever had any doubts that ZOE is for well off middle class people this video has put them to bed … £45 for a 500ml bottle of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil you recommend here … and sarcastic remarks by Prof Tim about keeping it in a cupboard and not using it … at that price I’d put it in a (darkened) glass cabinet and charge an entrance fee to look at it
ALDI
Mate. These ones they have showed are top end. The Viola Il Sincero Extra Virgin is 25 euro which isn't too bad, but I hear you you can't be drinking that every 2 days as Prof said. Honestly though. That burn at the back of the throat is so important. You get that it's almost the same as a good chilli. Great burn, but not lingering.
It never ceases to amaze me that in the UK, people always find money for alcohol on a night out.
Will pay over £10 for a 50ml of alcohol, but pay anything for something that benefits their health and it's too expensive 😅😅
@@jaspaltoor3486and there are many people on low wages who might like to eat healthier if they could afford it … think it’s about time ZOE got together with the NHS and other organisations to do something about enabling people other than the middle class rich with time and money to watch these podcasts and buy expensive food … ZOE at the moment are helping people who are already healthy to get a bit healthier
@@jaspaltoor3486America would flip your lid. Greed and waste seems the norm.
This was fantastic! I’m in the US where we can get quality olive oil from California. Thank you so much, and Jonathan I want to say a special thank you to you for always thinking of questions that your listeners and participants are also wondering about. It shows that you really are quite conscious of all of us, and that means a lot ❤
Great video looked up 500ml bottle Sincero … including postage £44.67 … I’ll take my chances with Berio from Tesco thanks !
Will replace my near empty olive oil knowing a little more - thanks.
In Southern Spain, they add it to their pastry too when they make empanadas (pasties). It changes the texture, but in a good way and makes a pasty that is robust enough for your lunch box.
Leather like then?!
@@audreyboyle52 lol I wouldn´t go as far as to say leatherlike, but certainly denser than most other shortcrust style pasties.
Very interesting. I already consume organic EVOO as the main cooking fat in my diet, but I'll now be looking out for harvest dates on labels, and thinking more about how I store my EVOO, to ensure I'm making the most of my investment.
Olive oil at high temperature 🌡️ is not great for cooking 🍳 it gets oxidised. It's best to use other healthy more heath resistant oils like avocado 🥑 oil
I buy my EVOO through New Dawn Traders. Harvested, containerised, then shipped by sail to the UK every Autumn. I get through about 20 litres a year. Have used only olive oil for cooking for nearly 40 years.
Is it better to just eat oilves rather than drink olive oil? Much less calories consumed with benefits of fiber of the fruits?
Why not both, unless you're overweight?
@@mountaingoat1806 I agree with you both would definitely be better. I have been doing both. But for most people in America(~70% overweight or obese which I am not one of them) if they had to choose one or the other, wondering what is healthier? Or if some people do not have access or cannot afford really good EVOO, which one would they benefit from more?
We can't eat olives unprocessed, a natural bitter compound, oleuropein, has to be removed. Salt remains from the processing. Maybe the salt puts nutrition experts off recommending them over olive oil, which contains no salt? They're certainly good for us, but not in big quantities.
Yes much better to just eat the olives. Theres far more polyphenols in the olive than the oil, a single olive will have a polyphenol count of about 16.6mg. A tablespoon of olive oil, which came from roughly 100 olives, has the polyphenol count of 6.94. To get the equivalent polyphenols of a single olive
(3-4 calories), you'll need to eat about 2.4 tablespoons of olive oil, 288 calories. So yeah the whole polyphenols idea is kinda silly. Although olive oil does have benefits beyond its polyphenol content, most of the data surrounding health benefits from olive oil are not solid imo, there’s a lot of correlation and not so much actual causation.
Yes
You are allowed to answer yes, no or a short sentence if you have to, and Tim says "absolutely" without consequence, This is not within the rules of just a minute, the chairman should have given an extra point to Elizabeth
😂
It's just a short sentence (a strong yes)
@@tutacat we liked the interruption so you get a point, but it's an incorrect challenge and Elizabeth has the subject of olive oil with 3 seconds remaining
ZOE: Health for the affluent.
Why can’t they give tips for buying olive oil on a budget? Why not choose several cheap brands and test their polyphenol content. Put your science where your mouth is ZOE and make healthy eating more available to all.
I’m not sure you can get good olive oil, very inexpensively. Olive oil is one of the most towns are fitted and adulterated product in the world. Unfortunately.
@@johnnyxmusic I guess. But it would be really enlightening to see a proper testing of some widely available brands (Including Berio in the UK and some supermarket brands too). I think we deserve to know what the ratio of polyphenols is per £. Is that unrealistic?
@@AbsenceLacksNothing I don’t think that’s unrealistic… Maybe if you look around you’ll find someone who has done such testing
@@AbsenceLacksNothing I totally agree they have tested the best Olive Oil money can buy but most of us can’t afford these prices especially if we’re consuming it at four tablespoons a day as suggested here and elsewhere … maybe Berio, which I buy at Tesco isn’t the best but tell us how far off the mark it is … my guess is not that far. Where was Sarah Berry as she does a good job of keeping it real
Extra virgin olive oil is the first press and that's it....after that the process becomes "processed." And isn't healthy any longer.
Spain produce half of the world EVOO. It is a fact that Italians buy Spanish oil (just look in a map to see the differences in terms of territory and production capacity) to resell it. Italians are much better at marketing than Spanish. But the truth is that one day in the future, Spanish oil will be recognized as the best there is. Yes and we do use it for everything, salads, cooking, Gazpacho, etc. My father is 94 years old and still kicking... Also a one glass of wine a day kind of guy ;)
No chance sadly as with much of food in Spain it’s adulterated by the method of production (like Hydrology) and worse yet by “refining” and blending and etc. etc. Spain buy so much Olive Oil from Portugal where I live and mixing it to make it “Spanish”.
I have two bottles of biological Extra Virgin Olive here from two different Dutch supermarket brands, but I cannot find a harvest date on either of them anywhere.....
Olives and olive leaf extract? As some others already asked, I am curious about the comparison to olives (as you buy them in the supermarket) and olive leaf extract. You can eat much more olive for the same amount of energy and if it's instead of sessoning it can sometimes be instead of oil. The leaf extract is more of a supplement but would be interesting to at least hear a comparison when talkning about the benefits of olive(oil).
I had a taste of olive oil from a small producer, Hunters I think, in Marlborough, New Zealand (there for wine tasting actually) and it had a lovely flavour reminiscent of bananas!! Very memorable.
One of the funniest and most informative podcasts to date. Keep bringing out great content, cheers
Have there been studies comparing eating olive leaves vs eating olives vs drinking olive oil?
Zoe scores EVOO more highly than olives alone which you wouldn't expect when you compare it to other fruit, probably because there is a greater concentration of polyphenols in the oil alone.
I can't imagine anyone eating olive leaves ... 😉
Excelente. Please ask the host to only repeat and summarise where absolutely necessary. I’m sure most of your audience is more than capable of following and understanding what’s being advised. Thank you.
I actually find the summarising and repetition really helpful for my understanding of the videos. I have multiple disabilities that effect my cognitive processing. There are lots of people in a similar boat. It might slightly inconvenience some listeners to have things repeated, but it also makes the video accessible to a lot more people
Well said. The problem you have highlighted is one reason why I often cannot survive some episodes to the end.
I like the summarising
I find the summarising very helpful, especially at the end, as I tend to listen while doing things in the kitchen.
I´m a big fan of good quality olive oil and a big fan of Zoe. Greetings from Finland.
A few years ago, I found a lovely little deli behind the Acropolis Museum. They sold Greek produce.
On the shelves green cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Ten euros a bottle. More than I would pay for a good bottle of red wine.
I queried the price.
I was told it was the first crop of the season from Lesbos.
I went back a week later, to my surprise suprise all had gone but a couple of bottles. I bought a bottle.
I use, not only for salads, also for cooking. Ti the horror of many people,only use the good stuff for salad.
Where I also use, is in soup, not when cooking, a little drizzle in the soup in the bowl.
#oliveoil
Interesting video, thank you. You mention that Spain is the biggest producer of olive oil and Greece is also a large producer. Maybe a follow up to include them in your analysis please ?
My budget is never going to allow me to spend £30 on a bottle of oil a month.
I cook with olive oil all the time, one bottle lasts me 3-4 months.
I bought 10L online for 100€, it comes straight from the grower in Italy and has been tested for polyphenols and has high values
@@ajkulac9895I assume you're cooking for one person and using about a teaspoon at a time?
@@kesgreen4639 not exactly but close enough
@@NUFCrichard that is totally out of reach for many people. To find 100 euros in one go for a food item, when people are struggling to spend £20 to put shoes on their childs feet. Lucky you.
I'm on board with nearly everything mentioned in this interview...except the bit about a one-way valve in the bottle! 😀 Simple physics suggests that if there is no air getting in, there is no oil going to come out of the bottle! An air tight cap on the bottle is all that is needed.
How can you tell when it’s bottled? I cant see the date on mine
The cost of olive oil is getting ridiculous but i cant put a price on my health. Ill definitely be looking at EVOO differently now and consuming more
Thanks for this. Really interesting. I will stop buying expensive unfiltered EVOO in clear glass and storing near my oven and kitchen window!! Will search for lightly filtered in dark glass with a production date and will store it in the dark, cool pantry and use it everyday!
Some say olive oil is good and they are now saying its bad again ? What do we do as consumers ? Very confusing ? However, I will continue to take olive oil as part of my healthy life style.
The olive oils in most grocery stores print harvest dates in green ink on green glass bottles so the customer can't read it. Or they use a "Best Buy" date that is three years from the harvest.
Buying extra virgin olive oil does not mean you get quality. You get blends and oil that is likely to be mixed with old oil. Often made from olives that are shipped in from other eu countries ( Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia). The only way to buy good quality extra virgin olive oil is by looking the label and tasting it and smelling it. Olive oil from southern part of Italy has higher amount of polyphenols than northern varieties. Olives that come from harsh environment will also has a stronger smell and taste due to amount of polyphenols.
Also, most extra virgin olive Oil is blended with old oil from previous year and still be cold extra virgin. You can get EU blend or olive that comes from a cooperative. You need to read the label, read the date of harvest, specific area, avoid blends, avoid cooperatives, buy organic, and sadly extra virgin olive oil that cost £8 or £10 in Waitrose is not going to be good quality.
You need a reputable source cause even expert miss the key part
What extra virgin EN
I can't even afford the Waitrose stuff!
I was always taught that only cold pressed organic oil will give you the benefits. Why is this not addressed more in the video?
A problem is that organic just means it‘s *third party certified*
which increases the price.
It doesn’t make the quality better. I prefer organic, but I prefer quality and freshness over organic from trustworthy brands or importers (which don‘t have to be very expensive)
Best episode ever. Loved every bit of it.
Very informative, thanks. Let's take it in moderation though. It is a very calorically-dense processed food. Making an extraction to increase the polyphenols means processing the oil to an even less natural state. Research shows that unnaturally high levels of anti-oxidants can lead to negative health outcomes.
Fascinating. I’d like to know / see the names of the oils tasted and where to buy them & cost.
Any tips on acquiring freshly produced olive oil in the UK??
What are your thoughts on Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn and his thoughts about fats including olive oil on plaque. Something to do with nitric oxide and endothelial cells.
When Dr Esselstyn'n did his first study, all his subjects had severe heart disease thar could no longer be treated with the "standard of care" (which is medication, open heart surgery and stents). They were sent home to prepare to die within a few months. So he prescribe "no oil" bcz obviously, the patients go to thar stage of their disease progression bcz they had excessive oil, fat and bad diet for a long time. Do, no oil makes sense. If you are not that sick, you probably don't ha e to be that rigid about no oil but I would not drink olive oil, either. Just my own thought as a scientist.
Listened to Michael Mosley “Just One Thing” on Olive Oil. Conclusion he came to, talking to an academic researcher, was that Extra Virgin Olive Oil certainly beat but they found no difference between Extra Virgin and Olive Oil when cooking with it. Any comments?
I'm down under so the northern hemisphere olive oils have a long way to come and are consequently older than if i lived closer to the harvest. Should i go for Australian or closer still, New Zealand olive oils???
Personally I’d go for local Australian or even New Zealand less food miles. I grew up near McLaren Vale and the olive oils from there and surrounding regions were amazing. The property my parents owned had lovely old Kalamata olive trees on the property. The local Greek families would harvest and maintain the trees for free and often give my parents some of their harvest as thanks, absolutely beautiful flavour.
Absolutely, go for local as both NZ and Oz have some top quality producers.
In Oz two of the best Australian EVOO are Cockatoo Grove Organic EVOO or Cobram Estate EVOO, both have very quick harvest to oil pressing production times.
I know the Cobram Extra Virgin Rich & Robust Olive Oil (Green Label) is definitely available in Woolworths / Metro in New Zealand and it has the highest Polyphenols in the range.
I’d guess any wine producing region will produce great olive oil because they’re often grown in the vicinity to protect the grapes from disease. Lots of great wines from Australia and New Zealand so would assume there’ll be some good local stuff.
@nukenet1 thanks for that , I have bought Cobram and also Red Island so I'll stick to the former from now on - thanks again!
A very recent study showed that a plant-based diet without olive oil improved cardiometabolic health more than a plant-based diet with 4 tablespoons of EVOO daily. When study participants switched to the diet with EVOO, their cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and hs-CRP rose. Also, the fiber and other nutrients are contained in the whole olive but are missing in the EVOO. It is NOT a whole food, but a processed one. When I eat something with EVOO, my joints get inflamed. When I eat olives, my joints are fine.
@celestebeck4642 I wonder how the partipants were chosen, and how many there were - one study doesn't really cut the mustard or EVOO in this case. Also watched a podcast recentlyfrom a Meta study that stated that the longest lived people mostly were those with high cholesterol. So it could be that high cholesterol is protective in some way. There is way more to be learned about it all.
My Tesco Extra Virgin Olive Oil doesn't have a harvest date, just a BBE, and it's a _"blend of olive oils of European Union origin"._ Obvs need to lift my game. 😭
As a Mediterranean i can tell you that we never viewed olive oil as bad oil, as you have described what your view of it was. It was always the ''healtyh oil''.
The best olive oil I've ever tasted was in a small oil shop on the shop mile in Athens. It was expensive but beyond belief in taste, color and clarity.
35:26 Guys, this really doesn't make ANY sense! _"tin is a very good container ... but the trouble is is that as the oil depletes in the tin that space is filled with oxygen which is oxidizing the rest of the oil ...[so] decant it into dark glass and then put a proper top on it"._ *Think about what you're saying for a moment! As the oil depletes in the dark glass bottle, there is air in there too, so keeping it in a different type of container won't change anything!* What are you trying to say? You're not making common sense!
I suppose the bottles are often much narrower and taller so the surface area in contact with air is much smaller than large tins.
The meaning is: tin is ok to store oil until you open it. Once it’s open you have to transfer oil in dark bottles. Anyway as any live product oil tends to change in time and not for the better. I have an olive grove in Taggia and I make my own oil and as everybody else here we store it in big steel silos and then to tin cans to be sold when people want to buy 5lt. Later they open the tin and have to move the oil in bottles
@@AbsenceLacksNothing But the amount of air is the same!!!!!
@@AbsenceLacksNothing But the amount of air is the same!!!!!!!
@@celmore7476 Really? So a frying pan leaves the same amount of air in contact with its contents as a straw?
Does the expiry date commonly used by supermarkets coincide with the stated 18 month useful life?
Is it better to eat green olives rather black olives considering what you just said about the colour / age?
A very small recent study of 40 people showed that a vegan diet without olive oil lowered cholesterol more than the same diet with olive oil.
Except that the body without adequate cholesterol is dementia in the making. Also the pharma industry loves to tell you that your cholesterol is high, as statins are a billion dollar industry, full of dangerous side effects. A little extra cholesterol is fine.
Yeah, you gotta be a bit wary with these claims. They are not critical of the "research". There is plenty of research to show the benefit of low fat diets. It is a complicated discussion and feel but just arguing that it is better because of "polyphenols!" is just way too vague. Food with high polyphenols exist in your local supermarket food and does not have to be 30 pound bottles.
Greek olives were referred to as "cheaper". Does this imply that Greek olive oils are considered as inferior quality oils when compared to Italian oils in general?
Many Italian EVOO comes from Tunisia, it's organic
Does Olive Oil 'margarine' have any advantages/disadvantages compared to Sunflower 'Margarine' or Butter ?
Why would you ever eat that if you care about your health? Please don't eat that, it is so processed it barely matters any more if it contains a tiny bit of low quality olive oil.
I get the light butter with canola oil. Way less calories then real butter and canola oil has tons of studies saying it is good for you. The anti-seed oil cult are lost.
Love your video that I watch all the time. I just looked at the back of a green plastic bottle and it says "30 percent reduction in plastic what does this mean. I would love to hear from you. Thanks Patricia
Very interested,great information,,thank you been taking 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and two tablespoons of extra olive oil in the morning 30 minutes before I eat and 1 teaspoon of honey and 1. 1/2 tablespoons of extra olive oil at night
I never knew about the harvest date on olive oil bottles. So I went to the supermarket and could not find it in most bottles available in the UK. I found it in ONE of the brands sold in a UK supermarket. Very disappointed.
Absolutely. All supermarket EVOO I have seen/bought display Best before dates. Maybe that’s a 12months limit, maybe not.!!
Why aren’t they mentioning the impact of climate change on olive groves, particularly in Spain, so prices are going to soar? It will become increasingly scarce with prices rising.
Yes, they're a disaster turning all the ground into a desert.
The Spanish government actually pay and incentivises farmers to not plant grass or green vegetation around the field as in organic fields so the olive tree gets the water which has become so scarce.
Permaculture practices are needed fast in Spain or it'll become a desert.
Olive oil being the biggest cash crop for Spain is preventing accentuating the problem.
Great episode! Definitely true, us mediterraneans usually buy 5l bottles of olive oil and only last us a few months, we use it for everything 😅However, Spanish olive oil is waaaay better in quality to Italian olive oil! Fun fact: classical Romans used to use Spanish olive oil for cooking, Italian for perfume and northern African for lighting lanterns. I really encourage you to try Spanish ones!
Is it better to consume olives recently harvested to maximise polyphenol intake, compared to olive oil from the supermarket. Thank you for this super informative video❤
I feel that whole foods are always best, so I’m against extracting the polyphenols. Especially against adding them to other foods; it’s starting to sound processed. Convince me otherwise, if you can.
Should we eat olives rather than olive oil in the way we should eat whole fruits rather than fruit juice?
Great question. And how about olives in oil or salt water? What about their shelf life?
It would be hard to eat that many to get enough oil or polyphenols
4 tablespoons only :) I´ve been in restaurants in Spain and watched people pour half of a 250ml bottle of olive oil over the salad the table of four is sharing. Sadly, now you mostly get the olive oil in sachets in Spanish restaurants, I think due to a law change of a few years ago.
Plastic sachets ? Terrible! Microplastic I think more than 2 spoons is bit too much
Probably more likely due to its cost!
?????? When you say drink olive oil,,, do you mean a glass? How much??????????🇨🇦. Ps love love Zoe!
Thank you for the wonderful podcast. I love olive oil and it is a part my regular diet. So I am obviously very pleased to hear the discussion. Is it possible to post the references to the studies and peer reviewed published data that your experts have referred to?
I buy extra virgin olive oil from Aldi. Intalian PDO olive oil. A peppery taste with a slight bitter after taste. Sold in a dark glass bottle. I use a bottle a month. Drink a shot most days and do all my frying and cooking with it. £5 for 500ml.
I generally trust California olive oil relative to imported.. it should be in a dark green etc bottle . And the harvest date within the last 6-9 months
Im interested to check the dates on the bottles in my local supermarket
When one buys artisinal olive oils, I think we can expect the oil to be real and , I hope, what the label declares. But supermarket oils. The adulteration of various foods ( olive oil, honey, etc) is a common and modern ( and also historical) fact. What do we do when we cannot afford to glug the liquid gold? How can we find out which of the supermarket extra virgin olive oils has extra virgin olive oil in the bottle? Most people in the world aren't going to know someone who has their own olive oil press..... But I truly thank you all for the information you've been sharing with us all.
I am in Brazil. The bottles here generally have two dates, the earlier indicated by 'exp' and the latter by 'venc,' with a usual span of 18 months. 'Venc' indicates validity date while 'exp' I am not sure. Maybe 'expressed' (pressed) or maybe exported? Who knows.
I buy the cheap evoo in lidl, between £6-7 for 1L. Not as healthy as more expensive ones I imagine but I use quite a lot, simply too expensive to buy expensive evoo all the time.
I see there are options for organic extra virgin olive oil...its even more expensive. Is this an important distinction in olive oils as it can be for someting like oats?
Great question that is surprisingly absent in their advice both here and elsewhere.
I’m English and have favoured extra virgin olive oil for years; it’s common knowledge for many people I know.
The bag in the tin or box is a concern, as I understand that toxins from plastics are released particularly when in contact with oil. Plus it’s not sustainable, unlike traditional containers.
Excellent video - packed with information. Very useful. Thank you.
An olive grower onece told me that you should harvest them when they are 1/3 green 1/3 black and 1/3 half black and green.
How does olive oil compare to avocado oil. I use avocado oil for anything i heat up.
Avocado oil takes oceans of water to produce.
@@YllaStar95970 I heard that.
I use avocado oil for frying and other high temperature cooking too. The olive oil smokepoint is too low.
I find avocado oil absolutely disgusting
I just followed your example and drank a tablespoon of olive oil and 30 minutes later it made me to go to the bathroom. All the oil I drank came out which I don’t mind because it helped me regular. Is that normal and okay?
Well, I certainly learned a lot listening to this. Great info about pointers to look out for when buying. Great podcast.
I usually love Zoe podcasts and get a lot of useful and useable information, however this one seemed aimed at telling me the health benefits I could have if I was willing and able to pay good amounts of money for cooking oil. I will use more olive oil now, but still buy supermarket products. Please guide us more on which is best and affordable. Oh, and I don’t want to listen or watch, to a tasting session, thank you!
What about acidity level ? The % is very often not stated on bottles I see in supermarkets . I lived in Crete for three yrs and this would be stated normally . I ve asked in supermarkets and many health food stores and often the staff look perplexed when I ask . As I understand the best acidity is •20 up to 2 %. For extra virgin oil
Interesting. Though most of my cooking is with the family including small children, I don't think they would appreciate it in the same way. Is there such a thing as a mild extra virgin olive oil? Thanks
Probably my all-time favourite episode from you guys!
Thank-you