Olive oil and other salad and cooking oils

Olive oil and other salad and cooking oils are not health foods and are certainly not diet foods. There is considerable evidence to suggest that consuming monounsaturated fats such as olive oil is less destructive to your health than  the dangerous  saturated and  trans  fats.  But a  lower-fat  diet could be more dangerous than one with a higher level of fat if the lower-fat diet had more saturated and trans fats.
In the     1950s people living in the Mediterranean, especially on the island of Crete, were lean and virtually free of heart disease. Yet over

40 percent of their caloric intake came from fat, primarily olive oil. If we look at the diet they consumed back then, we note that the Cretans ate mostly fruits, vegetables, beans, and some fish. Saturated fat was
less than 6 percent of their total fat intake. True, they ate lots of olive oil,  but the rest of their diet was exceptionally healthy. They also worked hard  in  the  fields,  walking about  nine  miles a day,  often pushing a plow or working other manual farm equipment. Americans didn't take home the message to cat loads of vegetables, beans, and fruits and do loads of exercise; they just accepted that olive oil is a health  food. Today the people of Crete are fat, just like us. They're still eating a  lot of olive  oil,  but their consumption of fruits, vegetables,  and beans is down. Meat, cheese, and fish are their new staples, and their physical activity level has plummeted. Today, heart disease has sky­ rocketed and more than half the population of both adults and chil­ dren in Crete is overweight.²²

Even two of the most enthusiastic proponents of the  Mediter­ ranean diet, epidemiologist Martin Katan of the Wageningan Agri­ cultural  University  in  the  Netherlands  and  Walter  Willett  of  the Harvard  School  of Public Health,  concede that  the Mediterranean diet is viable only for people who are close to their ideal weight.²³ That excludes the majority of Americans. How can a diet revolving around a fattening, nutrient-deficient food like oil be healthy? Ounce for ounce, olive oil is one of the most fattening, calorically dense foods on the planet; it packs even  more calories per pound than butter (butter: 3,200 calories; olive oil: 4,020). The bottom line is that oil will add fat to our already plump waist­ lines, heightening the risk of disease, including diabetes and heart at­ tacks. Olive oil contains 14 percent saturated fat, so you increase the

amount of artery-clogging saturated fat as you consume more of it. believe  consuming more fattening olive oil  in  your diet will  raise your LDL  (bad) cholesterol, not lower it. Weight gain raises your cholesterol; unprocessed foods such as nuts, seeds, and vegetables, utilized as a source of fat and calories instead of oil, contain phytosterols and other natural substancesthat lower cholesterol. Also, keep in mind that in Italy, where they consume all that supposedly healthy olive oil, people have twice the chance ot getting breast cancer as in Japan, where they have a significantly lower fat intakeThe Mediterranean Diet looked better than ours because of the increased consumption of vegetation, not because of the oil. People who use olive oil generally put it on vegetables such as salads and tomatoes, so its use is correlated with higher consumption of pro­ duce. Their diets were better, in spite of the oil consumption, not be­
cause of it. If you are thin and exercise a lot, one tablespoon of olive oil a day is no big deal, but the best choice for most overweight Americans is no oil at all.