Aidan:
Hello and welcome to episode 155 of the Agile Nutrition Podcast. My name is Aidan Muir and I’m here with my co-host, Leah Higl and today we’re going to be talking about regular olive oil versus extra virgin olive oil from a health perspective. We know that olive oil is obviously a well-known option that is linked with a lot of health benefits consistently. But considering there is pretty big price differences and differences in taste and stuff like that, it’s natural to wonder where there are significant health differences between extra virgin olive oil and other varieties of olive oil.
I have, it’s been well documented on this podcast, the ambitions that I’ve previously had to save money, but my housemate in an old place used to take that to another level by firstly purchasing regular olive oil over extra virgin olive oil to save money there. But then he’d like use as a deep fryer and then reuse the oil, like you just like pour it out into a cup and then like the next week use the same. my god. Reused olive oil.
Leah:
Probably shouldn’t do that, but we’re going to talk to like the differences between extra virgin olive oil and regular olive oil. We’ll even talk a little bit about cooking with oil as well and we’ll go through a bunch of stuff. Yeah, starting with definitions, because I think adding that context is really important. So virgin olive oil is simply olive oil that has been obtained directly from olives without any
chemical treatments or heat given the virgin. The difference between virgin and extra virgin is that they just have different standards. So extra virgin olive oil has the lowest acidity level with a maximum of 0.8 % oleic acid, while virgin olive oil can go as high as 2%. So that’s the main difference. There are a few other differences in things like taste, smell, quality, but it is largely due to the different standards for categorisation that those two different categories do exist. And all other forms of olive oil, so not virgin olive oil, not extra virgin olive oil, just kind of standard undergoes some form of processing with heat or chemicals, which can vary depending on the specific product.
Aidan:
So getting pretty much straight to business, because this is going to be the big difference. This would be a short podcast probably. The big difference is the polyphenol and antioxidant content. So extra virgin olive oil is substantially higher in polyphenols and antioxidants. All forms of olive oil are high in monounsaturated fats. That’s almost universally viewed as a healthy fat. I’ve never seen anyone dispute that. Have you seen anyone dispute that?
Leah:
I hope not.
Aidan:
Yeah. It’s one of the very few things in nutrition that’s largely like universally agreed upon. But the polyphenol content is something that is often considered to be a factor in the health benefits that olive oil is linked to. Like partly it’s due to the mono and saturated fats and it’s partly due to the polyphenol content. So it’s case by case basis how much the refining process reduces the polyphenol content of the oil, but the refining process does reduce part of this health-promoting component. So that’s one of the biggest things we’re factoring in when deciding this.
Leah:
One of the most conflicting areas of advice when it comes to olive oil is actually whether you can cook with it or not. So there is a lot of arguments being made around like you shouldn’t cook with olive oil, extra virgin olive oil because it has a low smoke point. So that’s the main argument used. But when we’re thinking extra virgin olive oil, the smoke point is actually around 180 to 220 degrees Celsius. So it’s not super low.
The context of common cooking methods looks roughly like this. So boiling, we’re looking at about 100 degrees Celsius, although you’re not often boiling things with oil. Steaming, again around 100 degrees Celsius. Roasting, you know around that kind of typical 180, so we are kind of like reaching that smoke point potentially. Microwaving, 100 degrees Celsius. Deep frying, that’s going to be around that kind of 170 to 180. So again getting close. Then a fry pan is around 200 to 220 degrees Celsius. So potentially at that point, we are getting to the smoke point. So even just based on the smoke point argument alone, you can see it’s only relevant in specific situations where you are cooking at really high temperatures. So if you’ve got your like fry pan on full blast for a long period of time, potentially that could be an issue.
But beyond that, there are a few more pieces of evidence as to why it shouldn’t be an issue. So the first one is that a large percentage of the research that we have that has found that olive oil has great health benefits is people utilising it in cooking. So if there was this huge issue with utilising olive oil and extra virgin olive oil in cooking, it would make sense that we would see that in this population data of people cooking with a ton of olive oil.
But we often see the opposite and we see health promoting factors come from consuming olive oil even when cooked. Secondly, the polyphenols in extra virgin olive oil specifically are also like noticeably protective against the oxidation that can occur whilst cooking at high temperatures. So that is something to consider. A study comparing olive oil to extra virgin olive oil versus other vegetable oils, over 27 hours, long time.
Aidan:
Yeah. Really long time. There’s another one that’s like 36 hours as well. We’ve got some long studies.
Leah:
Yeah. So we’re talking well outside the range of normal cooking times. Found that oxidation levels were higher in vegetable oil than in all forms of olive oil. So the antioxidants were more protective in the extra virgin olive oil though than the regular olive oil. But as a bit of a summary, like the vegetable oil had more of that oxidation rate, higher levels. So when it comes to cooking with olive oil across the spectrum, I really don’t think it is that much of an issue.
Aidan:
Yeah. When I was first looking into the question about whether you could cook with extra virgin olive oil and everything like that, that was one of the first places I wanted to go and look and just be like seeing all of this research I’ve seen with all of the health benefits of olive oil, like what are they using it in? And like, they’re not always super clear being like, this is only used like raw and on salads and stuff like that, but like it’s very clearly used in a mix of things. And I was like, well, that’s kind of one of the first things like we always talk about like mechanisms and also outcomes.
And like that by itself, that piece of data doesn’t show for sure that it’s completely fine or whatever. But it’s the first point about being like, even if it was detrimental, how detrimental could it be if we see it like that? And then we look at all the polyphenol stuff and how that’s protective of oxidation, like super useful stuff there. One of the things I was thinking about is, when I go back to that housemate situation about like reusing it, like we see this research of like 27 hours, but one thing I question is, I’m like, what if you use it and then poured it into a cup and then waited a week and then use it again.
I would be curious about that. So if anybody knows about that, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram. Let me know. There’s a lot of things I talk about that I know very deeply about. That’s one of the things I don’t really know the answer to. So I’d be curious. But outside of that, from a health perspective, choosing extra virgin olive oil over other forms seems like a pretty simple decision, assuming you have the budget for it. It has all the health benefits of the other forms in addition to a high number of polyphenols, which are linked with health benefits. That’s why it seems like a pretty simple decision.
But there are some other caveats. It is more expensive. I’m very clear on that if you have the budget for it, like these things do add up over time. It also has a stronger taste slash smell than other forms. For the sake of this podcast, we’ve just gone with nutrition. I think that’s simpler. I think taste is pretty subjective. It’s also not an area that I’m an expert in, believe it or not. But I just wanted to focus on nutrition for this one, because like that’s the one thing I know pretty well. So let’s just go with that.
Leah:
Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s coming to you for cooking skills after the last podcast episode where you’re like, I started using herbs and spices two years ago. I talk about this. I’m assuming that you do like a cert too in kitchen operations. I did. Yeah. I’m sure I’ve talked about this in a podcast, but like I’ve got some, I’ve got a certificate too in kitchen operations and that’s like part of the way towards becoming a chef. And like every time this topic comes up, I’m like, I have formal qualifications.
Leah:
I’m basically a chef. I’m practically that. It’s on my LinkedIn. You can check that fact checking on that. that’s so good. But another sub 10 minute podcast episode for us. So love that. Nice, quick and easy. But this has been episode 155 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. If you haven’t yet left a reading or review, it would be so nice for you to do that. But otherwise, thanks for tuning in.