As someone from Spain, a place that's soon gonna have the highest life expectancy in the world, yeah we're not removing olive oil from about 50% of the "core" dishes that we regularly eat.
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources on why one would want to avoid oils in favor of the whole plant source. Looking at longevity, it's relative and multifaceted - maybe oils aren't as damaging as not exercising, but it doesn't make them healthy.
I'd trust the people consuming them (and living to 100+) over some Dr that looks way older than his 46 years...
(Yeah, it's multifaceted, but it's not true that olive oil is "devoid of nutricional value" as someone wrote above (it has antioxidants, omega-6, oleic acid, and so on).
We're talking about oil here. Where do the olives come in? When I want oil in my cooking it is for what it tastes, and what recipes it affords.
If I want to fry with oil or put dressing in my salad, another oil might do the trick: olives are irrelevant. Might as well have compared olive oil to a broccoli or almonds...
The fact that it has "no fiber" is also irrelevant as to whether it has nutritional value (fibers are not digested anyway, and I'm not looking into oil for fibers in the first place).
You really are ignorant to the importance of fiber, then, and the negative health effects of consuming a substance without fiber (sugar over a fruit, analogous to cocaine over coca leaf). Fiber is incredibly beneficial to our microbiome and it's a debunked myth that it's not digested - bacteria in the colon consume it and make essential fatty acids, as an example.
I don't look to get fiber from olive oil, I look to get whole plant foods with fiber in my diet. I also want to avoid the negative arterial effects from extracted fats.
There is no physiological need for oil, only culinary. I have changed my cooking habits in light of this and I continue to eat highly flavorful and creative dishes.
I read both books - "How not to die" (Greger) and "the Longevity Diet" - and I thought about their opinions as well. ATM I tend to stick to good oils from plants as well as nuts. Greger is not very convincing - mostly because he suggests nuts as well, and a good produced oil (like extra virgine olive oil) does not loose much nutritional value. I don't care about reduced antioxidants in oil if I combine it with greens that have loads of them.
His message is that you should not eat oils because their nutritional value has been decreased in the process. He does not meditate about the different fat acids and their functions. In my opinion, he is missing out that there are nuts and oils that are quite similar in their fat composition. Of course, nuts have proteins and carbohydrates (mostly sugar) as well. But what he forgets is that you won't eat olive oil alone - you'll most likely have it with a good amount of greens, tomatoes or whatever.
Quote: "This impairment, however, was also totally eliminated when vitamins C and E were given. As with antioxidant vitamin supplementation, olive oil, eaten with vinegar on a salad, did not impair endothelial function. Some societies that use the Mediterranean diet may have learned to provide the natural antioxidants which buffer the oxidative stress of these fatty meals."
He totally eliminated this aspect so he can ban the oils. Another discussion here on HN blamed him for cherrypicking studies. I'm not sure if that's wrong. He has some good advice in general but for this aspect, I don't really trust him.
Diet is not everything in the equation and we already have the highest life expectancy in Europe, so we're already "high enough". Also things like eliminating pollution from especially cities have become hot topics recently and that's also helped and etc..
My claim specifically, was that I find it rather surprising that olive oil is unhealthy, when the soon to be country with the highest life expectancy in the world, consumes per person 10 kg of it every year.
I think everyone wants to live the longest possible and not long enough as considered by someone else. Maybe people in Spain would live even longer without olive oil?
Also, consider that over 50% of the adult population in Spain is overweight. Maybe less oil would improve issues that come from being overweight and obese.
Plus, leading cause of death in Spain is heart disease.
Yeah right but the obesity increase is mostly correlated all around the world and here with the increased consumption of "junk food", i.e. highly processed and very high in sugar, not with olive oil consumption, so...
