Olive oil is one of the healthiest foods known to man since the past. Olive is one of the first plants the man has begun to grow; traces of friendship between olive and man date back to 7,000 years ago. Known in ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome, it has long been used as a food and medicine, but also as a fuel for lamps or preservatives.
Why use olive oil?
The olive tree is exceptionally long-lived – it can survive for 2000 years, and more than 1,000 useful compounds found in olive fruit offer longevity to people who use them. Extra virgin olive oil helps prevent heart and blood vessels illness, lowers bad cholesterol while simultaneously stimulating the growth of the good HDL cholesterol. In addition, cell membrane bodies use its constituents to become more stable and more resistant to free radicals’ attacks. Because of its precious polyphenols, olive oil is a natural antioxidant that the human body almost fully exploits. Properties of olive oil make it a positive action in the fight against bacteria and viruses. In the cosmetics industry it is indispensable as one of the best oils for moisturizing dry and sensitive skin.
Extra virgin olive oil is gastronomically indispensable due to its appealing spicyness, pleasing bitterness and a pronounced fresh smell (which varies from one cultivar to another). It is important to emphasize that olive oil is stable during high temperature treatment. Recent researches showed that some potentially toxic compounds occurring in other oils do not appear in olive oil during frying.
The chemical properties of refined sunflower, soybean, olive oil and maize seed oil previously used for deep frying potato at 160 ° C and 190 ° C, respectively, for roasting in a pan at 180 ° C were analyzed.
The results have shown that refined olive oil, compared with other oils tested, is the most chemically-stable frying oil.
Answers to why use olive oil are innumerable, probably because of its versatile application. Try the great characteristics of quality olive oil today: