Comment by spraak
7 years ago
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources on why one would want to avoid oils in favor of the whole plant source. Looking at longevity, it's relative and multifaceted - maybe oils aren't as damaging as not exercising, but it doesn't make them healthy.
I'd trust the people consuming them (and living to 100+) over some Dr that looks way older than his 46 years...
(Yeah, it's multifaceted, but it's not true that olive oil is "devoid of nutricional value" as someone wrote above (it has antioxidants, omega-6, oleic acid, and so on).
You know that's fallacious logic, right? Olive oil is devoid of value in comparison to olives. It has no fiber and stripped of minerals and vitamins.
We're talking about oil here. Where do the olives come in? When I want oil in my cooking it is for what it tastes, and what recipes it affords.
If I want to fry with oil or put dressing in my salad, another oil might do the trick: olives are irrelevant. Might as well have compared olive oil to a broccoli or almonds...
The fact that it has "no fiber" is also irrelevant as to whether it has nutritional value (fibers are not digested anyway, and I'm not looking into oil for fibers in the first place).
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Funny thing is that Dr. Valter Longo suggests the exact opposite - a take-in of 80 grams of olive oil a day: https://valterlongo.com/cardiovascular-diseases/
I read both books - "How not to die" (Greger) and "the Longevity Diet" - and I thought about their opinions as well. ATM I tend to stick to good oils from plants as well as nuts. Greger is not very convincing - mostly because he suggests nuts as well, and a good produced oil (like extra virgine olive oil) does not loose much nutritional value. I don't care about reduced antioxidants in oil if I combine it with greens that have loads of them.
How does recommending nuts contradict his message? It doesn't.
His message is that you should not eat oils because their nutritional value has been decreased in the process. He does not meditate about the different fat acids and their functions. In my opinion, he is missing out that there are nuts and oils that are quite similar in their fat composition. Of course, nuts have proteins and carbohydrates (mostly sugar) as well. But what he forgets is that you won't eat olive oil alone - you'll most likely have it with a good amount of greens, tomatoes or whatever.
Just have a look at the study he mentions when he's talking about the impairment of artery functions after eating olive oil: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/clc.49602214...
Quote: "This impairment, however, was also totally eliminated when vitamins C and E were given. As with antioxidant vitamin supplementation, olive oil, eaten with vinegar on a salad, did not impair endothelial function. Some societies that use the Mediterranean diet may have learned to provide the natural antioxidants which buffer the oxidative stress of these fatty meals."
He totally eliminated this aspect so he can ban the oils. Another discussion here on HN blamed him for cherrypicking studies. I'm not sure if that's wrong. He has some good advice in general but for this aspect, I don't really trust him.