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Originally Posted by spaghetti
... And for the health thing, you know medical research is not a perfect science: today they say white, tomorrow they say black. But the prevailing idea, as far as I know, is that olive oil is good for health better than any other sort of "grease".
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How true. At the time mentioned above - margarine was touted as particularly healthy ... although it is now thought that the trans-fats they contain are worse than saturated fats. In American they recommended against butter as bad for the heart and against margarine because of cancer risk; I suppose Olive oil is the next viable option! Although we were just discussing at home how lean & fit (some of) our Grandparents were, given their diets included a lot of grease (but real meat, proper eggs & fresh vegetables).
Quote:
Originally Posted by spaghetti
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Yes we use extra virgin. In fact that was all we used for some time, it was often used for frying which I pointed out was expensive & wasteful - as the distinct stronger flavour is not really desirable in, say, traditional English bacon and eggs!
I am not surprised that there are other health benefits. Some probably still unexplored. The med. diet (specifically Southern Italian) is often held up as a particularly healthy diet here. They say food in the rawer/rougher forms is usually better too (e.g. red wine rather than white, dark beer rather than light, extra virgin rather than later pressings, green tea rather than black,...). The weather probably helps a lot too.
