When I’m cooking, the first ingredient I reach for is olive oil.
Still, I never really appreciated until now how important olive oil is for everyday health.
In fact, lots of folks swear by drinking olive oil every single day. Some people even insist that a glass of olive oil a day keeps the doctor away!
While a glass of olive oil sounds like it might overload the average system, there are definitely benefits to making olive oil a key part of your diet.
In fact, olive oil is extremely useful stuff — you can even use it around the house to clean and make minor repairs.
Meanwhile, many medical professionals recommend using healthy fats like olive oil to cook all of your food. You can also swallow down a tablespoon in a pinch.
So, what exactly happens to your body when you start drinking olive oil as part of your daily routine?
Scroll through below to learn about the incredible benefits!
What Exactly Is Olive Oil?
Most of us use olive oil in our cooking every day, but do you know exactly where it comes from?
As the name suggests, it’s a byproduct of the olive fruit. The raw fruit is ground into paste and crushed. The thick, rich olive oil is what comes out.
There are different kinds and qualities of olive oil, though the best quality is extra virgin olive oil, or EVOO.
Buying tip: high-quality EVOO will always come in a dark glass bottle, and the harvest date on the bottle should be fairly recent.
Why Should You Drink Olive Oil?
#1: Benefits Your Brain
Olive oil is excellent for your brain because it’s packed chock-full of healthy fats.
Saturated fats are dangerous and can cause major damage to your body.
However, olive oil is a monounsaturated fat, and it works wonders for your brain!
That’s because the lipids in the oil help nurture the neurological pathways in your brain, which allow impulses and thoughts to move more efficiently.
Translation: olive oil makes you think faster and better!
#2: Helps Your Heart
Olive oil is probably best known for being a heart-healthy superfood. That’s because your body needs fats, but we often get them from the wrong sources.
Too much red meat, fried food, and cheese can block your arteries.
In contrast, the fat you get from olive oil can help improve your heart health and unclog your arteries along the way — if you pair it with the right foots.
According to Forbes, when you pair olive oil with a dark leafy green like kale, you create a nitro fatty acid that reduces inflammation and relaxes the blood vessels to lower blood pressure and improve blood flow.
#3: Boosts Your BMs
It should come as no surprise that olive oil is great for your digestive system. Specifically, it’s great for moving things along, if you know what we mean.
If you have a tendency to be constipated, swallowing a spoonful of olive oil every day (and making sure you’re getting enough water) will make a huge difference.
The oil lubricates your digestive tract and your BM’s, making things move more smoothly.
This can be especially helpful if you’ve been constipated for a few days and need an all-natural kickstart to unblock your colon.
However, avoid taking more than a spoonful, as this can cause loose, watery stools.
#4: Weight Loss
Olive oil may be a healthy fat, but it’s still a fat.
So you might be thinking, how could it possibly help with weight loss?
It sounds counterintuitive, but some fats actually help you lose weight, and olive oil is one of them.
Partially, it helps by simply helping your body work more efficiently, like processing the good stuff out of your food and getting rid of the bad stuff in your waste.
A 2010 study also showed that a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil contributed to more weight loss than a low-fat diet. It also boosted HDL (good) cholesterol, which helps aid in weight loss.
#5: Skin, Nail, And Hair Health
Looking for healthier and happier skin, nails, and hair? Look no further than your grocery shelf.
Olive oil contains lots of vitamin E, which is an important micronutrient for helping your hair, skin, and nails retain moisture and stay glossy and healthy.
You can reap the benefits by taking olive oil by the spoonful, or get to the root of the problem and apply olive oil in place of face and hand cream. Additionally, you can use it as a hair mask.
#6: Provides Pain Relief
Some studies indicate that olive oil is as good for pain relief as aspirin or ibuprofen, two of the most popular over-the-counter painkillers.
Olive oil contains an enzyme called oleocanthal, which acts just like painkillers to reduce inflammation and reduce pain.
A spoonful of olive oil is only about 10 percent of the strength of a dose of ibuprofen, so it might not help with an immediate problem like a headache.
However, taking olive oil daily could introduce natural anti-inflammatories to the body and tackle chronic pain from conditions like arthritis.
#7: Keeps You Young
Olive oil is packed full of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant associated with anti-aging properties.
Aging is an incredibly complex process that science doesn’t fully understand, but early studies have shown that polyphenols can help slow or reverse some signs of aging and age-related illnesses.
That means that olive oil is a veritable fountain of youth. It has been credited with reducing wrinkles and age spots, as well as slowing the cellular aging that leads to chronic illness later in life.
High-quality EVOO that has been bottled recently, and that was bottled early in the olive season, has the highest levels of polyphenols!
Are There Any Side Effects?
Is there any reason you shouldn’t drink olive oil? In most cases, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a spoonful once a day.
However, too much olive oil isn’t healthy because it can lead to diarrhea.
There are also 120 calories in a tablespoon of olive oil, so you don’t want to overdo it by drinking too much of it. A single tablespoon will probably give you everything you need.
Just to be safe, check with your doctor before adding it to your diet; because of its anti-inflammatory properties, it might interact badly with blood-pressure medication by lowering your BP too much.
Our conclusion? Olive oil is pretty incredible stuff, and we are totally going to start taking a spoonful daily once we have the OK from the doctor!
7 Reasons Why You Should Be Drinking Olive Oil Every Single Day
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