 Well, you've heard me say the purpose of food is to get olive oil into your mouth. And you've probably seen me take shots of olive oil right here on my YouTube channel or my Instagram. And you might know I even swish my teeth with olive oil for good health. So why am I so obsessed with olive oil? Well, the truth is olive oil is one of the absolute best things for your health. And I want to share the word with as many people as possible. So today I'm doing a little refresher course on all things olive oil and how you should be using it. Okay, let's get started. So what makes olive oil so great is that it's incredibly high in polyphenols. And polyphenols include hydroxy tyrosol, which is a super polyphenol that I call the fat fighter. So polyphenols, as you probably learned from my best seller unlocking the keto code, are one of the keys for promoting mitochondrial health. And mitochondria are those energy producing organelles in almost all of ourselves. And polyphenols are actually a way that plants protect their mitochondria, which are called chloroplasts. And polyphenols, for those of you that don't know, are those bright colored leaves that you're seeing now in the fall that are actually there all along that you don't see in the summer because of the green chlorophyll. But those polyphenols, when we eat them from polyphenol containing foods like olives or olive leaves, are what deliver these mitochondrial protective substances to us. We also know now that polyphenols are some of the favorite food for our gut buddies, our microbiome. And so polyphenols not only protect us, but also they are prebiotics for our gut microbiome. Now I've talked about this a lot, but I'm going to say it again. There's a very famous trial called the Predomet trial that was done in Spain. The Predomet trial randomized 65-year-old people with known coronary artery disease. These are people who had a heart attack or had a stent or had a bypass surgery. And they were randomized to three groups. One group had to use a liter of olive oil per week. It's about 10 to 12 tablespoons a day. The second group had the equivalent calories in walnuts, and the third group had a low fat diet. And they were followed for four to five years. What they found was that there was a dramatic reduction in the group using olive oil in terms of new coronary artery disease events, new heart attack, new stroke, new stent or bypass. Olive oil and the walnuts were very similar, but olive oil won that one. But what was fascinating was in terms of memory, both the olive oil and the walnut group had improved memory after four to five years, whereas the low fat diet group actually had decreased memory. So olive oil wins in multiple areas of health, and that's just one great example. It's no surprise that the Mediterranean, which has some of the longest living people in the world, multiple areas in the Mediterranean use a liter of olive oil per week. And it's because of this polyphenol content that gets the benefit. Now one of the oldest living nutritionists, Ansel Keys, who is vilified by most of the high fat community, actually loved olive oil. In fact, he was a nutritionist from the University of Minnesota who actually devised our modern health pyramid. But oddly enough, Ansel Keys retired to southern Italy, south of Naples, and lived just above the village of Aciaroli that I've visited, home of the longest living people in the world, and he loved olive oil. So the original anti-fat guy actually loved olive oil, a mono-unsaturated fat, and he lived to 102. Not bad if you ask me. Now, some people say that's ridiculous. If you actually consumed a liter of olive oil per week, it would never work. You'd gain so much weight that it's ridiculous. Well, you've got to remember that fat does not make you fat. And the polyphenols in olive oil, among other things, uncouple your mitochondria and allow you to lose weight. In fact, there are multiple studies showing that adding olive oil to the diet, in fact, makes you lose weight rather than gain weight. So once again, fat does not make you fat. Okay, so how do you use olive oil? Well, that's kind of the fun stuff. First of all, let's dispel one of the biggest myths there is. That olive oil clearly can't be cooked with because all that smoke when you heat olive oil means that the olive oil is oxidizing. In fact, that's not true at all. Olive oil actually has the least oxidizable properties of any oil. In fact, it oxidizes less than coconut oil. Yes, olive oil oxidizes less than coconut oil. But where does that smoke come from? Well, olive oil has a very low smoke point. That means as it heats, smoke comes up. But that smoke has nothing to do with oxidation. In fact, if olive oil was bad for you to cook with, it's been used for over 5,000 years as the primary cooking ingredient in Europe to cook food. And you would have thought that all these blue zones in Europe would have killed themselves long ago with the oxidized olive oil that they cook in. So that's one of the biggest myths there is. The second thing that I've learned spending so much time in Italy and France, southern France and Greece, is that olive oil is supposed to be brought to the table. That olive oil should be poured on anything that you're going to eat. So it's important to realize you don't just cook with it. You bring it fresh and pour it on the things you're going to eat. That way you get a double dose of olive oil with everything you eat. So put it on your vegetables, obviously use it in a salad dressing, or drink a shot of it straight every day like I do. Now I have tons of recipes for olive oil right here on my YouTube page, including olive oil cake. And it's really one of my favorite. In fact, when we celebrate my birthday here at Gundry MD, we have my famous olive oil cake to celebrate. You can have your cake and eat it too, particularly if it's made with olive oil. Now before you head to the grocery store, there's something you need to know. Most olive oil on the shelves today might actually do more harm than good for your body. Many olive oil products are actually fake and they're laced with seed oils that could spell big trouble for your health. I'm not saying that they're all fake, but results from investigations from 60 Minutes have shown that many of the olive oils that you trust in, in fact, are not so much olive oil at all. Now there's things you should look for. In general, the darker the color, the greener the color, the more golden the color, that's undoubtedly a higher quality just based on color. That color is actually from the polyphenols. Now in general, more bitter is more better. Really strong olive oil should almost make you cough when you eat it and drink it and that's a sign of those polyphenols. Alright, so you've passed the taste test. What about the color of the bottle? Well olive oil oxidizes very easily in sunlight, so a good quality olive oil should always be in a dark colored bottle. And please don't put the olive oil on the kitchen counter where it can be exposed to sunlight. Keep it in a cabinet where sunlight can't get to it. Now are there other keys? Well, first of all you want to look for first cold press. And usually if you see the words by only mechanical means, that means that they used an olive pressing stone or other mechanical devices to crush and press the olives. First cold press, believe it or not, once they get that run off from the first pressing, they then run it through again. And again, and finally they can actually crush the olive seed that produces an oil called pumice. Now there's no requirement, they tell you which of these pressings is going into your olive oil. So look for the words first cold press, hopefully you'll see by mechanical means only. The second thing to look for is extra virgin. Now this has nothing to do with the marital status or sexual status of the olives. It actually has to do with the amount of acid that's detected. Now that's not an assurance of quality, but it is an assurance that there is a standard of acid level that determines whether something is extra virgin or not. I'd much rather you see first cold press than extra virgin. Third thing is, don't look for a cell by date. Look for the pressing date. Now it may have two years because many olives, particularly in the Mediterranean, are harvested in the late fall and maybe even in early January. So you may see harvest date 2022 slash 2023. On the other hand, if you see a single date, that's even better. Now how long is it good for? In Italy, most olive oil is considered safe to use within a year of pressing. Maximum two years, but here's the deal. Once you open that bottle of olive oil, it's now exposed to oxygen and it will begin to go bad more rapidly. That's why, for instance, here at Gundry MD, our high polyphenol olive oil is packed in small bottles. That way I know you're probably going to use it up quickly before it goes rancid. That's why don't go to a big box store and buy the two gallon plastic sized organic olive oil. Number one, it shouldn't be in plastic. Number two, it shouldn't be clear. And number three, it'll go bad long before you use it up. So buy the smaller bottles and use it up. Beware of a cell by date. Now unlike wine, olive oil does not get better with age. It's really only going to last a couple of months once you've opened it up. Okay, so do I love my polyphenol rich olive oil? Absolutely. It contains 30 times more polyphenols than most conventional olive oil that's tested in labs. Now two tablespoons of my olive oil yields the same benefit as one liter of conventional olive oil. So a little goes a long way. Now if you want to have more, be my guest. You can never overdo the polyphenols in olive oil. But even if you don't use mine, you can find quality oils in any grocery store if you carefully read the labels like I've talked about today. You can even find them in Trader Joe's and Costco. Look for the dark colored bottles. Look for the smaller bottles, not the giant jugs. And look for a pressing date. And that will keep you safe. And don't be afraid to try different olive oils and seek out the ones that have that really rich, bitter, sometimes buttery taste and use them wherever you eat. I carry my olive oil to restaurants because a lot of restaurants, I don't know where they got their olive oil. And we always have a good time joking, but it goes right on to the table and no one's ever stopping. I think you're going to love this one. The next time you're worried that you're not drinking enough water and yet you swear you're having a lot of water, think about eating your water instead.