I am going out on a limb here ...

I use Olive Oil to make salad dressings. I don't cook with olive oil though. I use coconut oil for cooking oil.

At the end of the day olive oil is just fat. Excess fat that we really just don't need (especially if you're already carrying around some extra lbs- like me!). It just takes up a lot of your calories and doesn't have any nutritional value- no vitamins, phytochemicals, fiber, protein, etc. I water sautéing my food to avoid taking in extra calories and fat. We should stick to natural fat sources- nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. I learned all of this in Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" book. I would highly recommend this read! It will also blow your mind about meat and dairy!

Depends what you are trying to achieve. If you are going to use it for every meal you would be better off using whole sources of oleic acid - whole olives, avocados, pecans, almonds - so that you get all the nutrients and fibre the food has to offer. Be sure you are also getting plenty of long chain omega-3s from oily fish - these are classed as essential fatty acids, monounsaturates are not.

At the end of the day olive oil is just fat. Excess fat that we really just don't need (especially if you're already carrying around some extra lbs- like me!). It just takes up a lot of your calories and doesn't have any nutritional value- no vitamins, phytochemicals, fiber, protein, etc. I water sautéing my food to avoid taking in extra calories and fat. We should stick to natural fat sources- nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. I learned all of this in Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" book. I would highly recommend this read! It will also blow your mind about meat and dairy!

Eating fat doesn't make you fat. In fact, the more fat you eat the more your body will shed body fat. There is a saying.........It takes fat to burn fat.

And since when is expeller pressed extra virgin olive oil not natural? It is just the oil extracted from the olive itself and does have much nutritional value, just as coconut oil does even though it is extracted from the coconut.

From Za Za's.....Olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing..a little goes a long way, and the salad tastes great.

Also, wikipedia, so understandably take it with a grain of salt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil#Health_effects

Some people even use olive oil as moisturizer. Next we'll be told to bathe in it

Eating fat does not make you fat, eating too many calories makes you fat.

Well said. Thank you.

I LOVE olive oil!!!!! I love to dip crusty italian bread in it and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top! Wash it down with a glass of wine.....or three:drinker:

I use Olive Oil to make salad dressings. I don't cook with olive oil though. I use coconut oil for cooking oil.

Me, too!

All the fats I use are real. No margarine here. EVOO, Coconut oil, butter (Yes butter is good), and grapeseed oil if I need something that has no flavor and can handle heat.

Once a week I put EVOO through my hair and sleep with it in. Then I shampoo and condition the next morning. It makes my poor chemically treated hair soooo soft and silky

I don't get why people think coconut oil is so healthy... I mean, it's fine if people use it on their skin or whatever, but actually putting it in your body...? It's FULL of saturated fat. So unhealthy for your heart and general wellbeing. I suppose it's just one of those fad superfoods that pop up every now and again.

I personally only ever consume high quality avocado, rice bran and extra virgin olive oils Never butter. I don't trust any solid fats because they have the highest levels of saturated fat in them.

The sat fats in coconut oil are medium chain fatty acids, and they are good for you. Google could have told you that.

I did Google, and found that many health organisations recommend restricting your consumption of coconut oil because they restrict the risk of heart disease:

For ease of use, all page numbers noted are PDF page numbers, not page numbers of the booklets.

http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/DietaryGuidelines2010.pdf
(Focus on pages 37-38. Note the graph on page 38, it shows coconut oil having the highest percentage of saturated fat out of every other listed fat source. Also note the first footnote in the graph which shows that the saturated fats in the oil are actually short-chain fatty acids, accounting for their solid nature.)

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2005/9241546727.pdf (World Health Organisation, go to p. 32)

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/FatsAndOils/Fats101/Tropical-Oils_UCM_306031_Article.jsp (American Heart Association)

http://www.eatright.org/Media/content.aspx?id=1590&terms=coconut+oil#.UL_8A2eZeSo (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics)

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/healthyhearts/pages/cholesterol.aspx (NHS, for the Brits )

In short, all of these organisations recommend a highlevel of restriction of coconut oil in a healthy diet- it is not a health food.

I understand that coconut oil is okay to use in MODERATION, but it seems like some people on this site use it in EVERYTHING, and that is worrying.

I don't get why people think coconut oil is so healthy... I mean, it's fine if people use it on their skin or whatever, but actually putting it in your body...? It's FULL of saturated fat. So unhealthy for your heart and general wellbeing. I suppose it's just one of those fad superfoods that pop up every now and again.

I personally only ever consume high quality avocado, rice bran and extra virgin olive oils Never butter. I don't trust any solid fats because they have the highest levels of saturated fat in them.

You do know you have been lied to about saturated fat, right? They do not want to back track on nearly 60 years of telling people that saturated fat is bad while everyone has gotten fatter and sicker, so they continue their lies and their agaenda.

Here are some articles written by Doctors about how important Saturated fat is to the human body.

There is research coming out that show people that have higher cholesterol and eat higher fat way of eating (yes saturated fat) decrease the chances of getting Dementia, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, etc

I will tell you this. Breast milk is comprised of majority saturated fat for a reason. Nature does not make mistakes.

http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/2007/04/06/saturated_fat_the_misunderstood_nutrient#axzz0zknkn0yT

http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/nutrition/saturated_fat.htm

http://www.health-report.co.uk/saturated_fats_health_benefits.htm

Oh geeze I LOVE olive oil and go through a ton. I use it on my hair/face/cuticles/food/whatever. Salad me up

Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Grapeseed oil and butter are the oils/fats I use most often for cooking - unless I'm making bacon, then I use bacon grease for things like frying eggs or making the gravy for my biscuits. I occassionally use peanut oil - especially for stir fried stuff.