Olive oil is one of the kitchen ingredients for healthy people, but where is olive oil healthy? What is the difference between different olive oils?
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Eat to understand
Olive oil, like other cooking oils, is mainly fat, but the proportion of fatty acids that make up fat is different.
There is also a difference between fat and fat
Olive oil contains high monounsaturated fatty acids, some as high as 83%, and a small amount of linoleic acid, up to 21%. Therefore, palm oil and animal oils (such as lard, cream, etc.) with high saturated fatty acid content can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
However, the unsaturated fatty acid content of many other vegetable oils is not low, and from the composition of fatty acids, olive oil is not much better than these vegetable oils.
Fat Comparison of Different Oils l Hong Kong Food Safety Centre "Industry Guidelines for Reducing Trans Fats in Food"
However, olive oil also contains more vitamin E and other polyphenolic compounds, which have certain antioxidant properties. As for the label of olive oil "no cholesterol", this is a common feature of all vegetable oils – there is no cholesterol, so this is not the advantage of olive oil.
Can I always eat only one oil?
Whether it is saturated fatty acids or unsaturated fatty acids, are essential nutrients for the human body, if you only eat one oil for a long time, it is easy to cause unbalanced intake of fatty acids, but it is not conducive to the health of the human body. Therefore, in order to achieve the balance of the body's demand for different fatty acids, eating oil also needs to be diversified, and you cannot eat only one oil.
There are generally two ways to diversify oil
Alternately use different oils, usually choose a small bottle of edible oil, one oil is used up and then change to another oil; you can also prepare several different cooking oils in the kitchen, and use them reasonably.
Choose some blending oil, blending oil refers to the proportion of fatty acids adjusted to the right proportion of oil, more suitable for human consumption. You can mix several oils together according to the proportions, or you can buy the blending oil on the market. However, the market is mixed, and when buying, you must pay attention to the ingredient list and choose a more suitable blending oil.
What is the difference between virgin olive oil and refined olive oil?
The national standard GB/T23347-20099 "Olive Oil, Olive Pomace Oil" clearly divides the types of olive oil on the market. Olive oil is divided into three types: virgin olive oil, refined olive oil and mixed olive oil.
GB/T 23347-2009 Quality indicators of different olive oils
Among them, virgin olive oil is divided into three categories: extra virgin olive oil, intermediate virgin olive oil and virgin olive lamp oil (this oil is raw material and cannot be eaten directly).
Among them, extra virgin olive oil retains the natural nutrients in olive oil to the greatest extent, has high nutritional value, can even be eaten directly, and is often used for cold mixing; while intermediate virgin olive oil is slightly worse than the former, and is generally used to cook stir-fry. Refined olive oil is refined from low-grade virgin olive oil. As a result, some nutrients are lost, but can also be used for cooking. Mixed olive oil is the mixing of virgin olive oil with refined olive oil.
All oils and fats, if treated with high temperatures for a long time, will be damaged nutrients and produce some harmful substances, especially for some vegetable oils with many polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as soybean oil or corn oil. When cooking, the oil temperature is too high, and there will often be a large oil smoke, indicating that the temperature has exceeded the smoke point of the edible oil.
Comprehensive | Hami Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, Shanghai Market Supervision
Source: Hami Zero Distance