Say goodbye to olive oil? No way!

It seems there’s always something you must eliminate from your diet if you really want to be healthy. Or at least, that is something a certain sub-group of the vegan/plant-based community who supposedly have a monopoly on truth and perfect health want you to believe. For many, it’s gluten, for others, it’s soy, but what gets demonized the most nowadays are oils, including and especially olive oil. Oil-free veganism is all the rage these days, with some advocates of this approach getting frustrated whenever they run into skeptical vegans like me who disagree with them. Although they eschew all oil, olive oil is usually the main target of oil-free proponents because of the common, largely accurate idea that it can be healthy in moderation.

Where did this bizarre notion that olive oil is bad for you come from? A group of plant-based doctors have been pushing this idea for years now, based on some flawed studies that don’t always have control groups. To say that there is room for skepticism based on their research is the understatement of the century. Besides the inherent flaws of these studies, another reason I am very skeptical is because I prefer looking at the totality of the evidence, not just what a small group of researchers are saying. Overwhelmingly, the evidence from the wider scientific community doesn’t agree with them. The idea that all fat is bad is something the scientific community repudiated a long time ago.

Beyond just being skeptical, as an animal advocate, I don’t like placing any more restrictions on a vegan diet than is necessary(read Ginny Messina’s articles below for her take on this). Most people think a vegan diet is too restricted as it is. Why recommend eliminating something that science shows is okay or even healthy in moderation? Numerous studies show that people following a Mediterranean diet, which very often includes olive oil, have significantly lower heart disease risk. This isn’t to say that you have to consume olive oil, or that it’s okay to consume it in large amounts, it’s just that it shouldn’t be the big issue it currently is.

I’ll gladly give up olive oil when and if the evidence shows it is harmful in moderation. I tire of hearing “I’m giving up olive oil because I attended a lecture by the brilliant Dr. So and So and he convinced me it’s the most horrible thing ever”. I also don’t care for the often hypocritical whole foodist dogmatism that underpins this anti-olive oil stance and which forbids consuming anything that isn’t considered a “whole food”. For some, overly rigid whole foodism is a stepping stone to the even more extreme and pseudo-scientific world of rawfoodism. Sometimes it seems like there’s a bizarre kind of competition going on to see who can survive on the most restricted diet.

If you care about your health, completely eliminating olive oil from your diet is probably pointless(unless your doctor recommends you do so or if you have a condition that makes it difficult for you to metabolize fat); if you care about helping animals, this is pointless, a big distraction, and potentially a hindrance in vegan outreach efforts. While I follow and recommend a mostly whole food vegan diet, I am not overly rigid about it, though I was more rigid years ago. A little oil or a few sweets are going to harm the health of a healthy distance joggler like me? Really? To me, as a non-expert, it all comes down to what consensus science says, not just a few doctors or scientists with an extreme minority view. For this reason, you won’t see me making dietary recommendations on this blog that have little to no basis in science. I realize that my approach makes me a black sheep to much of the vegan community, but so be it.

Related articles:

1. Olive oil, Health, And Advocacy
2. Vegan Health: The Fatty Acids
3. Mayo Clinic: If olive oil is high in fat, why is it considered healthy?
4. Farewell, Low-Fat: Why Scientists Applaud Lifting A Ban On Fat
5. Help Animals With Healthful and Practical Vegan Diets
6. Nutrition Professor Says “No Broccoli Health Benefits. Ditch ASAP!”

Dietary fat and endurance

For the longest time, “healthy eating” and “low fat diet” have been virtually synonymous. Low-fat diets are still popular among people trying to lose weight, as well as people trying to prevent or help treat heart disease.

Even many athletes will consume low fat diets. Unfortunately, this may compromise their endurance. According to the Department of Physical Therapy, University at Buffalo, New York, in “The effects of varying dietary fat on performance and metabolism in trained male and female runners“:

RESULTS:

Runners on the low fat diet ate 19% fewer calories than on the medium or high fat diets. Body weight, percent body fat (males=71 kg and 16%; females=57 kg and 19%), VO2max and anaerobic power were not affected by the level of dietary fat. Endurance time increased from the low fat to medium fat diet by 14%. No differences were seen in plasma lactate, glucose, glycerol, triglycerides and fatty acids when comparing the low versus the medium fat diet. Subjects who increased dietary fat to 44% had higher plasma pyruvate (46%) and lower lactate levels (39%) after the endurance run.

CONCLUSION:

These results suggest that runners on a low fat diet consume fewer calories and have reduced endurance performance than on a medium or high fat diet. A high fat diet, providing sufficient total calories, does not compromise anaerobic power.

So if you’re an endurance athlete, a low fat diet may hurt your performance. Just a little more can lead to significant improvements.

Fat of course is a vital macro-nutrient, but the idea that fat is bad for you and will quickly lead to weight gain is still very pervasive. The truth is actually a lot more complicated than this.

Generally speaking, plant fat is healthier than animal fat. In particular, mono-unsaturated fats like olive oil, and almond oil are heart healthy, unlike animal fat which is saturated and more likely to clog arteries. Mono-unsaturated fats tend to be liquid, while saturated fats are thicker, chunkier, and semi-solid. Fat is also better raw, since cooking it can make it unstable and more likely to promote inflammation.

Trans-fats are the absolute worst and should be avoided at all costs. It’s like they were invented by evil scientists for the purpose of causing heart attacks. Omega 3 fats, which are abundant in flaxseed, walnuts, oily fish and certain species of algae are also good for you. The jury is still out on the long-term health effects of coconut oil, which is one of the very few plant sources of saturated fat.

As for me, I tend to eat a moderate to high fat vegan diet. I eat a lot of nuts and often consume a lot of olive oil. In my case it is justified since I usually run over 40 miles per week. I usually prefer fat raw, but I am okay with lightly cooking it sometimes.

Besides avoiding trans-fats, I also avoid palm oil. This is because palm oil production is largely responsible for the massive deforestation in South-East Asia, threatening to drive the Orangutan and countless other species extinct.

The mighty flaxseed

It is for good reason that many people sing the praises of flaxseeds. I’ve even written songs about them; some people may love to sing about red wine or cocktails, but I prefer singing about flaxseeds.

Source: Wikipedia

They are a very healthful addition to any diet, due to their unique nutritional contents that are difficult to get elsewhere. Not only are they a great source of fiber, but they also contain the essential fatty acid ALA, and also contain lignans which have phyto-estrogen effects.

Flaxseed has a lot of ALA(alpha-linolenic acid), which is one of the 3 main types of omega 3 fatty acids which are essential for the body’s metabolism. The 2 other types of omega 3s, EPA(eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA(docosahexaenoic acid), are not found in flaxseed, but are plentiful in fish oil. The body has a very limited ability to convert ALA to EPA or DHA, so we are better off getting it through diet. Omega 3s are important because they help suppress inflammatory processes that may be damaging to the heart or other organs. The benefits of DHA are so widely recognized that many food companies fortify their products with it. DHA and the other omega 3s are particularly important for pregnant and nursing women, since DHA is needed for optimal brain growth.

If we look at a randomized, controlled study of omega 3 and omega 6 supplementation on children reported in Pediatrics. 2005 May;115(5):1360-6. – The Oxford-Durham study: a randomized, controlled trial of dietary supplementation with fatty acids in children with developmental coordination disorder.

“No effect of treatment on motor skills was apparent, but significant improvements for active treatment versus placebo were found in reading, spelling, and behavior over 3 months of treatment in parallel groups. After the crossover, similar changes were seen in the placebo-active group, whereas children continuing with active treatment maintained or improved their progress.”

This study wasn’t about flaxseed per se, but did use a fatty acid that is found in flaxseed. Flaxseeds may be helpful for preventing prostate cancer:

“Findings suggest that flaxseed is safe and associated with biological alterations that may be protective for prostate cancer. Data also further support low-fat diets to manage serum cholesterol.”

This is really impressive, and this just involves the omega 3s in flaxseed. The lignan content of flaxseeds are a whole other exciting ball game. Flaxseeds are by far the best source of lignan, containing hundreds of times more than almost all other plant foods. Lignans are phyto-estrogens(similar to the phyto-estrogens in soy) and may help prevent breast cancer, according to research done at Linköping University, due to their powerful hormonal effects. They may not only lower blood estrogen levels but may also lower testosterone levels. The testosterone lowering effect may concern some men, but I don’t think it is a cause for alarm based on the evidence. More research is obviously needed, but I’ll continue to sing about them in the mean time.

The best way to eat flaxseeds is to ground them yourself in a small coffee-grinder, or to use the oil as a supplement or salad dressing. Never use the oil for cooking, omega 3s aren’t heat stable. Flaxseeds also contain significant amounts of protein and minerals. No wonder many people call it a “Super Food”.