I think humans are essentially creatures of belief and can essentially rationalize anything. Science can be helpful in discovering actual truths, but there is also plenty of bad science out there to confuse things. Ancel Keys's work demonizing saturated fats has probably resulted in millions of premature deaths IMO, but most people aren't aware of how flawed his analysis is. To dig into it takes time and effort most simply aren't willing to devote.
Olive oil was a feature of Roberts's Shangri-La diet, but the commonly held belief today that olive oil is unusually good for you probably isn't accurate, either. I would argue that the chief virtue of olive oil is that it isn't soybean or corn oil, which have higher levels of omega-6 PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), which are known to be atherogenic when consumed in excess due to their pro-clotting properties when incorporated into the eicosanoids that manage the blood clotting process. According to the table in the Wikipedia article on vegetable oil, soybean oil is 51% linoleic acid (the major omega-6 PUFA found in food), and corn oil is 58% linoleic acid. Extra Virgin Olive oil, in contrast, shows as only 9.8% linoleic acid in the same table, a vast improvement.
While humans cannot manufacture either omega-6 PUFAs or the more beneficial omega-3's and require ingestion of both classes to be healthy, there is an enormous amount of evidence that the increasing consumption of omega-6's in the 20th century played a major role in the increase of heart disease in the same period. And at least some of that was due to Ancel Keys's work.
So yes, consume olive oil if you want to, and I think it is vastly more healthy than corn oil, in particular (corn oil has virtually no omega-3's, but soybean oil does have a slug, so its omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is not nearly as terrible as that of corn oil; although, it is still not great). Just don't buy into the idea that there is anything magical about olive oil. As basically creatures of belief, I think humans are prone to magical thinking, too.
I think humans are essentially creatures of belief and can essentially rationalize anything. Science can be helpful in discovering actual truths, but there is also plenty of bad science out there to confuse things. Ancel Keys's work demonizing saturated fats has probably resulted in millions of premature deaths IMO, but most people aren't aware of how flawed his analysis is. To dig into it takes time and effort most simply aren't willing to devote.
Olive oil was a feature of Roberts's Shangri-La diet, but the commonly held belief today that olive oil is unusually good for you probably isn't accurate, either. I would argue that the chief virtue of olive oil is that it isn't soybean or corn oil, which have higher levels of omega-6 PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), which are known to be atherogenic when consumed in excess due to their pro-clotting properties when incorporated into the eicosanoids that manage the blood clotting process. According to the table in the Wikipedia article on vegetable oil, soybean oil is 51% linoleic acid (the major omega-6 PUFA found in food), and corn oil is 58% linoleic acid. Extra Virgin Olive oil, in contrast, shows as only 9.8% linoleic acid in the same table, a vast improvement.
While humans cannot manufacture either omega-6 PUFAs or the more beneficial omega-3's and require ingestion of both classes to be healthy, there is an enormous amount of evidence that the increasing consumption of omega-6's in the 20th century played a major role in the increase of heart disease in the same period. And at least some of that was due to Ancel Keys's work.
So yes, consume olive oil if you want to, and I think it is vastly more healthy than corn oil, in particular (corn oil has virtually no omega-3's, but soybean oil does have a slug, so its omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is not nearly as terrible as that of corn oil; although, it is still not great). Just don't buy into the idea that there is anything magical about olive oil. As basically creatures of belief, I think humans are prone to magical thinking, too.