Benefits of olives and why you should include them in your diet

Olive fruits and oil from them will help to main­tain health, beau­ty and fresh­ness for a long time. One small olive con­tains at least 100 nutri­ents!

Olive is a long-lived tree of the olive fam­i­ly, capa­ble of sur­viv­ing for about 2000 years. This mag­nif­i­cent tree, revered at all times, per­son­i­fies a sym­bol of wis­dom, matu­ri­ty and nobil­i­ty. From olive branch­es weaved wreaths and award­ed the win­ners of the ancient Greek Olympic Games. Cur­rent­ly, the cul­tur­al form of the tree is grown in the coun­tries of North and South Amer­i­ca, Asia Minor, North­west Africa, Aus­tralia, East Asia, and, of course, in the Mediter­ranean. Many are inter­est­ed in whether an olive is a berry, fruit or veg­etable, but in fact olives belong to a sep­a­rate fam­i­ly of olives.

Olives vs Olives — What’s the difference?

The word “olive” for the name of the black fruits of the olive tree is used only in Ukraine, Rus­sia and Belarus, in oth­er lan­guages ​​there is only one name — olives.

The col­or of olives depends on their matu­ri­ty. If they are torn green, then they, as a rule, have not yet ripened (these fruits con­tain less oil, they are hard­er).

They are often used for con­ser­va­tion. If the fruits are left on the tree until ful­ly ripe, they form a dark pur­ple col­or and a shriv­eled appear­ance. They are most often used to make olive oil.

Those black smooth olives that we see in stores were har­vest­ed while still green, and then with the help of chem­istry and a spe­cial pro­ce­dure they are made dark in col­or. Real ripe olives of dark pur­ple col­or with­out the addi­tion of dye (fer­rous glu­conate “E579”) are an order of mag­ni­tude more expen­sive than their col­ored coun­ter­parts.

Calorie content of olives

Calo­ries in canned olives per 100 g – 145 kcal:

• Pro­teins — 1.0 g
• Fats — 15.3 g
• Car­bo­hy­drates — 0.6 g

Canned olives calo­ries per 100 g – 168 kcal:

• Pro­teins — 1.4 g
• Fats — 16.0 g
• Car­bo­hy­drates — 4.7 g

Benefits of olives for women

If you eat 8 olives every day and sea­son sal­ads with olive oil, then, accord­ing to experts, this is the sim­plest and most effec­tive pre­ven­tion of breast can­cer, heart dis­ease, blood ves­sels and stom­ach.

The fact is that olives and espe­cial­ly oil pre­pared from them are rich in var­i­ous vit­a­mins and fat­ty acids, which are respon­si­ble for the nor­mal func­tion­ing of the whole organ­ism and pro­tect it from var­i­ous ail­ments.

For exam­ple, they are very use­ful in the pre­ven­tion of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases. Olive oil is used as an excel­lent antibac­te­r­i­al, emol­lient and mois­tur­iz­er.

Olives for a slim figure

It has been exper­i­men­tal­ly proven that olive oil helps to lose weight. Polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat­ty acids, which are part of it, reduce the feel­ing of hunger and stim­u­late metab­o­lism. But do not for­get that a table­spoon of oil con­tains 120 kcal. And if sev­er­al times a day there are sal­ads rich­ly sea­soned with oil, then you can gain weight.

The benefits of olives for hair

In folk cos­met­ics, olive oil is used to strength­en hair and improve hair growth. The sim­plest mask is made like this: mix 2 table­spoons of olive oil with 1 tea­spoon of lemon juice.

The result­ing mass is slight­ly heat­ed to room tem­per­a­ture and applied to the hair. Put on a show­er cap. Wash off the mask with sham­poo after 30 min­utes. Repeat the process once a week.

Harmful properties of olives

For some health prob­lems, eat­ing the fruit can be harm­ful. For exam­ple, with chole­cys­ti­tis, when a strong choleretic effect is exert­ed on the body. Olives also have a mild lax­a­tive prop­er­ty, as they con­tain a lot of oil, which is con­traindi­cat­ed in diar­rhea.

The harm of olives is main­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the meth­ods of fruit preser­va­tion.

To deliv­er a del­i­ca­cy to our table and increase its shelf life, the fruits of the tree are treat­ed with chem­i­cals and preser­v­a­tives.

The harm of olives from chem­i­cals is expressed in aller­gic reac­tions to the prod­uct, gas­tric col­ic, ulcer­a­tive lesions of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract. Such a neg­a­tive effect on the body is due to the food addi­tive E579 (fer­rous glu­conate).

How to choose olive oil

When choos­ing olive oil, pay atten­tion to acid­i­ty — it should be indi­cat­ed on the label. Top qual­i­ty oil Extra Vir­gin has an acid­i­ty lev­el of not more than 1%. The cheap­est olive oil Olive-Pomace Oil. The word pomace means “cake”.

This oil is usu­al­ly mixed with a small amount Extra Vir­ginto improve its palata­bil­i­ty. This oil is used for cook­ing hot dish­es.

Pay atten­tion: real ripe olives of a dark pur­ple col­or with­out the addi­tion of a dye (harm­ful iron glu­conate “E579”) are an order of mag­ni­tude more expen­sive than their col­ored coun­ter­parts.

Interesting facts about olives

• • The cul­ti­va­tion of the olive can be safe­ly record­ed as one of the first achieve­ments of human civ­i­liza­tion: accord­ing to archae­o­log­i­cal data, the olive was first grown on Crete in the third mil­len­ni­um BC. For a long time, the olive was grown in Crete and Syr­ia inde­pen­dent­ly of each oth­er.
  • Oli­va was one of the main sources of the Minoan king­dom for a long time, then the Phoeni­cian nav­i­ga­tors spread it along the entire Mediter­ranean coast.
  • Olive oil has been sacred since ancient times. Thus, the Prophet Muham­mad rec­om­mend­ed that his fol­low­ers rub with olive oil, while in Chris­tian­i­ty olive oil is often used in the sacra­ment of chris­ma­tion. In many cul­tures, olive oil was also applied to the bod­ies of the dead before bur­ial.
  • The set­tlers took the olive with them to the New World — along with grapes — not only as food, but also in order to use it for rit­u­al pur­pos­es.
  • The aver­age lifes­pan of an olive is 500 years, with some trees reach­ing 1,500 years of age. The trees on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem are believed to be over 2,000 years old.

• • The only dif­fer­ence between green and black olives is their degree of matu­ri­ty: ripe olives are black in col­or.
  • Over 90% of the world’s olive crop is used to make oil, and almost 98% of the land devot­ed to olive cul­ti­va­tion is in the Mediter­ranean region. In total, there are about 500 mil­lion olive trees in Europe.
  • Olives are har­vest­ed in Novem­ber-March, 6–8 months after flow­er­ing. If the olives are des­tined for the pro­duc­tion of olive oil, they are sent to the press on the same day. By the way, olive oil is the only oil that can be eat­en with­out addi­tion­al pro­cess­ing.
  • Fresh­ly picked olives are not good for food — they are too bit­ter for this. To be edi­ble, olives must be lyeed and/or pre­served in brine or sea salt. This is done in order to get rid of oleu­ropein, a sub­stance that is secret­ed from olives or olive leaves and is wide­ly used in med­i­cine (for exam­ple, to reduce pres­sure).
  • Olives are processed dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. So, Greek olives are usu­al­ly not treat­ed with lye, but salt­ed for 6–12 months, which is why they acquire a strong taste. In turn, Span­ish green olives are har­vest­ed before they reach matu­ri­ty, treat­ed with lye and placed in a fer­men­ta­tion brine.

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The opin­ion of the edi­tors may not coin­cide with the opin­ion of the author of the arti­cle.