AFIK extra virgin olive oil is at best neutral for human health, while other oils are detrimental. There are the chemical compounds formed with the eating of certain oils, besides olive oil has very little micro-nutrient content, it's almost 100% fat.
Whole olives are a great source of plant fat, but olive oil is not. Eating the whole food is crucial, instead of these highly processed extracts.
Of course, it's much better than other foods such as saturated fat, but still it's not a health food.
They are not, different oils have just different mix of different fats, determining consistence at different temperatures. Micro-nutrients are overestimated; you do not eat olives or drink olive oil because you want to get "micro-nutrients", like you would not prefer brown sugar to white sugar just because there is a very little amount of vitamins.
Every substance to have a meaningful positive or negative effect has to be in a reasonable quantity.
I use olive oil everyday (I was born in Italy, were it is widely used), but it is dangerous to fry with it, especially the extra-virgin one, because it has not been purified, and you get the known smoke at a lower temperature. This is just to demonstrate that there are different oil for different usages, there is no black and white.
I too used to use olive oil every day, but now I haven't used it for years. It's one of the main sources of hidden calories in food, it's very hard to lose weight without cutting it.
One tablespoon of olive oil is 120 empty calories, no fiber, no protein and no carbs, minimal volume, almost zero satiety. Yet it has the same caloric amount as a large banana.
I don't think micro-nutrients are over-estimated, they are essential for well-being according to science. The body only needs them in small amounts, but they are essential.
I know we have been marketed for a very long time that oil is a health food, and it's a very hard thing to let go, but it's just not true.
The Mediterranean diet is healthy despite the olive oil and not because of it (due to the high amount of fruits and vegetables).
Your body needs fat. Also, olive oil contains plenty of antioxidants, and Vitamin K and E - so the claim that it is just empty calories is pointless.
Also, just a thought game for you: if I were to claim that your carbs are just empty calories, and my fat covers those calories too, what would your response be? Because the body can create carbs from fat and fat from carbs, so that point is kinda moot. Just pointing out the calorie content of an oil is not a negative against it. An average man need ~2000 kcal daily, and an average women needs ~1500. Just by carbs and proteins alone, that would mean 400g+ of that intake. Why?
This is a common myth, the amount of vitamins in olive oil is very modest compared to other foods.
Eating olive oil for vitamins is a bit like smoking for getting oxygen, there are plenty of other ways much healthier to cover those nutritional needs.
The body can create fats from carbs and vice-versa but those processes are not metabolically efficient. That is not the main way our body consumes calories.
Most commonly, carbs are broken down into sugar and fat is either burned as it is or is stored directly as it is, without further modification.
Olive oil and oils, in general, are some of the most calorically dense foods in existence, with very little volume and very little satiety associated with them.
So you get a lot of calories but your body does not register them because they have very little volume, so you stay hungry and keep eating more until you are full.
That is the problem with this very high caloric density, is that you will very easily overheat and not be able to lose weight while eating oils.
That caloric density simply does not exist in nature, and our bodies have not evolved to cope with it, we will constantly overeat which over time leads to obesity.
For example, greeks are some of the heavier people in Europe, a study did a tissue sample of a group of women to check what type of fat they had stored in their abdomen. About a third of it was the fat from olive oil, it sticks to you.
You keep moving the goalpost.
Lets just assume we are on a caloric budget and we deal with fat being fat, so we can, like good third graders in math, just count the calories.
No more wiggling around with "too many calories" and "you need to burn calories to transform them to carbs" and then "oh, but it also sticks to your abdomen". Pick one. Stick to that one, and argue with that.
Also, yeah, since, for example, coffee is the highest source of antioxidants in the western diet for many people, I am willing to make a bet that sunflower oil will going to be their highest source of E-vitamin (300% of your required daily amount per 100ml). Olive oil will be the highest source of Vitamin K and both Vitamin E for people who do not GORGE on greens.
In the US, the olive oil wont be the highest source for Vitamin E only because peanuts are more abundant in them.
Whole olives are a great source of plant fat, but olive oil is not. Eating the whole food is crucial, instead of these highly processed extracts.
Of course, it's much better than other foods such as saturated fat, but still it's not a health food.