Health and everyday life

In this guide

1. What the evidence says
2. At home, from the beginning
3. The fine print

Olive oil is the most studied food in the Mediterranean diet, and also the one that is most exaggerated. This pillar separates what is proven from what only sounds good.

What the evidence says

Heart, inflammation, microbiota, memory, glucose, bones, mood. Each of those areas has trials behind it—PREDIMED, EUROLIVE, and several dozen more—and also its nuances. We have gathered them with the source right next to it, one by one, in the health benefits of olive oil.

At home, from the beginning

The Spanish Association of Pediatrics recommends introducing it from six months, and both the amount and the way to give it change with age. It is all in olive oil in children and babies.

The fine print

None of those benefits hold up if the oil is not good. Almost all the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect lies in the polyphenols, and polyphenols depend on when the olive was harvested and how the bottle has been stored. Distinguishing an oil that preserves them from another that has already lost them is, to a large extent, knowing how to read a label and a harvest date.