Upgrade This For Major Health Benefits
03 Dec 2010
You’ve probably heard about the health benefits of olive oil; it contains monounsaturated fat, the “healthy” fat that can help lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the LDL (“bad”) cholesterol in your blood. But when you get to the grocery store, which one do you choose? There’s extra-virgin, virgin, cold pressed, light, it can be so confusing. I can only speak of what I do and I always have 2 oils in my kitchen and they’re bothextra virgin, cold pressed, unrefined and organic. The reason for the two is one is a cheaper brand that I cook with and one is a good, fruity oil that I use to “finish” dishes.
You may have heard that you’re not supposed to heat extra virgin olive oil and this is not exactly true. Every oil has what is refered to as a “smoke point”. This is the temperature that will cause the oil to break down and become toxic. The smoke point for EVOO is about 375. You know your oil is breaking down when it starts to smoke, hence the turn “smoke point”. When I prepare my quicky meals I’m never heating my oil to smoking and I’m getting all the health benefits that olive oil has to offer.
My finishing oil is a high quality, slightly more expensive oil that is tasty and fruity and I don’t heat this at all. I use it to prepare dressings or to drizzle over a finished dish and drizzle over good, crunchy, fresh bread.
I found this great website for all the information you could ever want regarding olive oil. I have never tried their products so I am not endorsing them but if you do, I’d love to hear what you think.
http://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/how-pick-olive-oil
Donna Mintz is the owner of Basil & Barbells, Inc., a NYC based personal chef and personal training service that helps busy people fit healthy meals and exercise into their hectic schedules by offering cooking classes, personal training and personal chef services.
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