Here’s another repost, this one from 2014. Olive oil is not a health food.
People keep coming to the defense of olive oil. Olive oil has no fiber, no protein, no carbohydrate, very few vitamins and minerals, and one tablespoon has more saturated fat (1.9g) than a large egg (1.5g). Olive oil has twice the saturated fat of other vegetable oils like safflower.
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil have 28 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, and 238 calories.*
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil have more saturated fat than 2 large eggs or a cubic inch of cheddar cheese.
- The saturated fat in olive oil consists mostly of palmitic acid, the same saturated fatty acid found in meat, cheese, butter, and other dairy products.
If, for example, I was following the advice of the American Heart Association (AHA) and keeping my saturated fat intake to below 7% of the day’s calories, I would be eating less than 14 grams of saturated fat (for an 1800 calorie intake).
If I ate all of the following (note that this would be a vegetarian diet), I would be eating more saturated fat than the AHA recommends.
- 1 ounce cheddar cheese (6g sat. fat)
- 1 ounce potato chips (2g)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (4g)
- 2 tablespoons peanut butter (3g)
Olive oil is not a health food.
* Source: NutritionData: Olive Oil
