Joel Fuhrman - Eat To Live

Eat to Live 41

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 mono-

unsaturated 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. 1

believe consuming more fattening olive oil in your diet will raise