There is no tastier way to promote health and wellness, than the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet with key ingredient the olive oil, presents considerable health benefits. Accompanied with excersise and weight control, offers a healthy aging with prevention of age related diseases.
Olive oil is the good fat that through its many mechanisms, protects against cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and psychiatric diseases. It also helps early brain development and mental health.
Diet and nutrition are two difficult to understand subjects. The knowledge about fats is confusing and consumers are confused with dietary information. In the United States, all that chaos on fats, was translated as an invitation to reject the fats from the diet. The result was the production of fat-free and low-fat foods which contain masive amounts of processed flours, sugars and refined carbohydrates, which end in obesity and metabolic disorders.
Development of nutrition has proven that not all fats are unhealthy. All fats are a mixture of monousaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated fatty acids. What counts is the proportion of fatty acids in a fat. Fats are necessary for the body’s health and absorption of vitamins.
There are good fats, bad fats and ugly fats. The good fats are the monounsaturated (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) and found mostly in olive oil and other natural foods, the bad fats are the saturated fats (SFA) which are found in animal fat and the ugly fats are the trans fats (TFA) which are uncommon in nature, but can be created artificially.
The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids are the healthiest fats. The trans fats are very harmful to health and are man made fats. Trans fats are made with the hydrogenation process, which adds self life to foods. Trans fats and saturated fats result in chronic inlammation, raise the bad (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides and damage the cardiovascular system.