The Olive Oil Hunter, Author at Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil

The Olive Oil Hunter News #141

Posted on October 2, 2023November 9, 2023 by The Olive Oil Hunter

T. J.’s Super Smoothie Recipe, Spotlight on Flaxseeds and Strawberries, The Useful Mini Grinder, and When the Daily Grind Takes a Toll

How can you take a basic smoothie and super-power it? By adding high nutrient ingredients that taste great, too — it doesn’t take any extra time yet can really boost the quality of these oh-so-easy breakfast drinks. Read on and you’ll find out why strawberries should be one of your go-to fruits—fascinating research that could put them on a par with blueberries and raspberries. Plus a reminder of why it’s so vital for body and soul to find satisfaction in your work.

T. J.’s Super Smoothie

T. J.’s Super Smoothie
There’s no faster breakfast (or snack) prep than a smoothie. While you might be tempted to pick one up at a drive-thru or favorite coffee haunt, when you make it yourself you can enhance puréed fruits to boost their healthful benefits. My recipe is loaded with protein, thanks to the yogurt, and healthy fats from EVOO of course, but also from fiber-rich flaxseed. I love the frosty taste of a smoothie made with frozen fruit, but you do need some liquid to get it started in a conventional blender — that’s where your milk preference comes in. Drink up!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup dairy or non-dairy milk
- 1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
- 1 banana or 4 ounces frozen banana slices
- 1/2 cup frozen strawberries or mixed berries
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
- Optional: stevia or your preferred sweetener, to taste
Directions

Fill your blender with the ingredients in the order given and process on high until the frozen fruit chunks are almost completely broken down. Taste and add your choice of sweetener if desired.
Yields 2 small servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Flaxseeds

These tiny seeds have been garnering a lot of attention in recent years and for good reason. Derived from the flax plant, they’re loaded with both soluble and insoluble fiber for good digestive health, alpha-linolenic acid or ALA (an omega 3-fatty acid), and phytonutrients called lignans. Lignans are plant-based estrogens that appear to help lower high cholesterol and the risk for heart disease, osteoporosis, breast cancer, and some symptoms of menopause.

Bags of toasted golden or brown flaxseeds are available at many markets and online merchants such as nuts.com and vitacost.com. While ground flaxseed (often called flax meal) is available, whole seeds are likely to retain more nutrients and you can grind them as needed.

Grinding flaxseeds before eating them is essential — when whole, the seeds will pass right out of your body undigested. To best preserve their nutrients, grind only what you need each day, and store any extra in a jar in the fridge. Aim for a tablespoon or two a day: blend it into smoothies and pancake or waffle batter, sprinkle over yogurt or cereal, and add to recipes including baked goods. Ground flaxseeds also make a great swap for breadcrumbs.

Quick Kitchen Nugget

A Great Addition to Your Appliance Garage

An under-appreciated kitchen workhouse is the mini grinder, often called a coffee bean grinder or sometimes a spice grinder. It’s perfect for grinding flaxseeds, whole spices like cumin and black peppercorns, and nuts, turning small amounts into meal.

For the easiest clean-up, look for a grinder with a removable bowl, like the Cuisinart Electric Spice and Nut Grinder. However, less expensive fixed bowl models, like the one from Krups, can be wiped out with paper towels (first a damp one, then a dry one).

For Your Best Health

The Power of Strawberries

According to UNLV School of Integrated Health Sciences associate professor Arpita Basu, PhD, RD/LD, strawberries pack a serious punch when it comes to health benefits. She has been studying their ability to help reduce the risks of diabetes and improve overall metabolic and cardiovascular health for over a decade.

“A key takeaway from our strawberry studies is a marked improvement in blood total and LDL cholesterol among participants. And better numbers in these areas are shown to reduce the possible risk of heart attack and stroke,” she says. “I’m quite passionate about the concept of food as medicine…It’s gratifying when working with patients and research study participants to give them something natural – instead of medication – to lower their risk of diabetes.” Thinking of food as a form of medicine incentivizes people to eat better, she adds.

What makes strawberries so healthy? Any fruits with a deep color are typically good for you, but the darker the color, the greater amount of health benefits. “This is especially true for strawberries because they are all red in color. All that red comes from different plant pigments. Some people use red wine as another common example, but berries have less sugar content than grapes,” Dr. Basu explains.

She also points out that you don’t need to consume a pound of strawberries each day to see a difference. Her studies of 8-week and 12-week trials with participants who had high LDL cholesterol and features of metabolic syndrome found that two-and-a-half servings of strawberries each day looked to be very beneficial in improving insulin resistance and lowering diabetes risk. Dr. Basu plans on continuing her research with larger groups of adults with pre-diabetes to assess the benefits of strawberries for them. It bears repeating that almost all berries have powerful plant-based nutrients. Her study on the effectiveness of blueberries for women with gestational diabetes also found improvements in their blood glucose levels.

Fitness Flash

When the Daily Grind Takes a Toll

A recent study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a peer-reviewed American Heart Association journal, found that job strain combined with high effort and low reward doubled men’s heart disease risk. The three psychosocial stressors are each associated with heart disease risk, and the combination is especially dangerous, similar to the magnitude of the impact of obesity. It’s a stark reminder of the importance of having work satisfaction. Results on how work stress affects women’s heart health were inconclusive.

The study included 3,118 male and 3,347 female white-collar workers engaged in a wide range of jobs in Quebec, Canada, including employees working in senior management and in professional, technical, and office workers roles. Education levels ranged from no high school diploma to a university degree. At the start of the study, participants had an average age of about 45 years old and were free of heart disease; they were followed from 2000 to 2018.

“Considering the significant amount of time people spend at work, understanding the relationship between work stressors and cardiovascular health is crucial for public health and workforce well-being,” says lead study author Mathilde Lavigne-Robichaud, RD, MS, doctoral candidate, of the Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit, CHU de Quebec-University Laval Research Center in Quebec, Canada. “Our study highlights the pressing need to proactively address stressful working conditions, to create healthier work environments that benefit employees and employers.

“Job strain refers to work environments where employees face a combination of high job demands and low control over their work. High demands can include a heavy workload, tight deadlines, and numerous responsibilities, while low control means the employee has little say in decision-making and how they perform their tasks,” Lavigne-Robichaud explains. “Effort-reward imbalance occurs when employees invest high effort into their work, but they perceive the rewards they receive in return — such as salary, recognition, or job security — as insufficient or unequal to the effort. For instance, if you’re always going above and beyond, but you feel like you’re not getting the credit or rewards you deserve, that’s called effort-reward imbalance.

“Our results suggest that interventions aimed at reducing stressors from the work environment could be particularly effective for men and could also have positive implications for women, as these stress factors are associated with other prevalent health issues such as depression,” Lavigne-Robichaud adds. “The study’s inability to establish a direct link between psychosocial job stressors and coronary heart disease in women signals the need for further investigation into the complex interplay of various stressors and women’s heart health.” Positive interventions might include different approaches, such as providing support resources, promoting work-life balance, enhancing communication, and empowering employees to have more control over their work, she says.

Though the research involved Canadians and the results might not fully represent the diversity of the American working population, the study findings may still be relevant to white-collar workers in the United States and other high-income countries with similar job structures, according to Lavigne-Robichaud.

“The U.S. workforce is among the most stressed in the world, and these workplace stressors can be as harmful to health as obesity and secondhand smoke,” commented Eduardo J. Sanchez, MD, MPH, chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association. “This study adds to the growing body of evidence that the workplace should be prioritized as a vehicle for advancing cardiovascular health for all. The American Heart Association remains committed to and engaged in providing employers with the resources and information they need to actively support the health of their employees and communities through science-backed changes to policy and culture.”

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The Olive Oil Hunter Newsletter #140

Posted on October 1, 2023October 18, 2023 by The Olive Oil Hunter

Asian Chicken Salad Recipe, Spotlight on Mandarins, Shopping for Asian Ingredients, Another Reason to Get Consistent Shut-Eye and Overcoming “Gymtimidation”

I love getting two meals for the effort of one—so the next time you grill chicken thighs (or steak, for that matter), throw on a couple of extra pieces and turn them into this flavorful salad (with mandarins) the next day. I’m also sharing unique research linking a lack of sleep with changes in the gut microbiome, a body system that’s so influential in determining overall health. And, because days are getting shorter with less opportunity for outdoor fitness, you’ll find expert tips for getting over “gymtimidation,” the term for anxiety over going to the gym!

Asian Chicken Salad

Asian Chicken Salad
Popular on restaurant menus since it was created by celebrated Los Angeles restauranteur Sylvia Wu (legend has it that she did so at the request of the superstar of his day, Cary Grant), Chinese Chicken Salad, the inspiration for this recipe, has gone through many incarnations. Instead of crispy noodles and breaded cutlets, my version relies on the rich flavors of the vinaigrette with its mix of Asian staples including garlic chili sauce and fish sauce. If you can’t find mandarins, any variety of orange will be equally delicious. (See Healthy Ingredient Spotlight in this week’s newsletter for more on this petite citrus.)
Ingredients

For the dressing:
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 teaspoon garlic chili sauce or Sriracha
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
For the salad:
- 2 cups napa cabbage, shredded
- 2 grilled chicken thighs, cut into thin slices
- 2 mandarins, any variety, separated into segments
- 2 ounces enoki mushrooms
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients. Place the cabbage, chicken, and mandarin segments in a large serving bowl, and toss gently. Add the dressing and toss again. Top with the mushrooms and the chopped cilantro.
Yields 2 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Mandarins

With 100 cultivars available at different times throughout the year (the most of any citrus), there’s no need to rely on canned segments for Asian salads or snacking. Also called tangerines, mandarins originated in southern Asia, and many types are grown in China today as well as Japan, Spain, Brazil, and the US. You’re also likely to see exotic hybrids, like tangors (mandarin and orange) and tangelos (mandarin and grapefruit or pummelo). Clementines are a type of mandarin readily available in stores and sometimes marketed with a proprietary brand name like Cuties or Halos. Like other citrus, mandarins are a source of vitamin C, potassium, folate, and many essential phytonutrients.

Quick Kitchen Nugget

Shopping for Asian Ingredients

With grocery chains increasing their international offerings, along with the expansion of H Mart, a supermarket-sized Asian food emporium now in 14 states, and online options ranging from Amazon to Sayweee to David Chang’s Momofuku, it’s never been easier to put together the staples needed for many wonderful Asian specialties—Vietnamese, Thai, the various cuisines of China, and more. Though each one is unique, some key items to have on hand are rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, fish sauce, various dried chiles, black vinegar, and, of course, soy sauce.

For Your Best Health

Another Reason to Get Consistent Shut-Eye

Studies have shown that changes to normal sleep patterns, like what happens when someone works the night shift, disrupt the body’s internal clock and can increase the risks for weight gain, heart problems, and diabetes, all of which are risks linked to changes in the composition of microbes in the gut. But our biological rhythms can even be affected by small inconsistencies in sleeping patterns, according to a new study published in the European Journal of Nutritionby researchers from King’s College London in the UK and ZOE, a personalized nutrition company.

They found that irregular sleep patterns are associated with harmful bacteria in your gut, specifically a link between “social jet lag”—the shift in your internal body clock when your sleeping patterns change between workdays and free days—and diet quality, diet habits, inflammation, and gut microbiome composition. That’s important because the composition of gut microbes may negatively or positively affect your health by producing toxins or beneficial metabolites—because the microbiome is influenced by the food you consume, the diversity of your gut is adjustable.

Wendy Hall, PhD, senior author and nutritional scientist at King’s College London, explains, “We know that major disruptions in sleep, such as shift work, can have a profound impact on your health. This is the first study to show that even small differences in sleep timings across the week seem to be linked to differences in gut bacterial species. Some of these associations were linked to dietary differences, but our data also indicates that other as yet unknown factors may be involved. We need intervention trials to find out whether improving sleep time consistency can lead to beneficial changes in the gut microbiome and related health outcomes.”

While studies into the association between social jet lag and metabolic risk factors have been done in populations with obesity or diabetes, participants in this research were mainly lean and healthy, with most getting more than seven hours’ sleep per night throughout the week. Researchers found that just a 90-minute difference in the timing of the midpoint of sleep—the halfway point between sleep time and wake-up time—was linked to differences in gut microbiome composition, and that having social jet lag was associated with lower overall diet quality, higher intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages, and lower intakes of fruits and nuts, which may directly influence the abundance of specific microbiota in your gut.

The research also found that three of the six microbiota species more abundant in those with social jet lag have unfavorable associations with health. These microbes are linked to poor diet quality, indicators of obesity and cardiometabolic health, and markers in the blood related to higher levels of inflammation and cardiovascular risk. “Maintaining regular sleep patterns, so when we go to bed and when we wake each day, is an easily adjustable lifestyle behavior we can all do that may impact your health via your gut microbiome for the better,” says Dr. Sarah Berry, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London.

Fitness Flash

Overcoming “Gymtimidation”

Whether self-conscious about their appearance, concerned about their ability to keep up with others, or worried that they’ll feel awkward, there are many reasons that keep people from working out at a gym—and those reasons can exert a more powerful influence than the desire to reap all the benefits of exercise. Writing for ACE, the American Council on Exercise,Dr. Erin Nitschke, NFPT-CPT, NSCA-CPT, ACE health coach, fitness nutrition specialist, and therapeutic exercise specialist, shared her ideas to help people conquergymtimidation, a word being used to refer to anxiety over exercising in a gym, and suggests trying a few of them to see what works best for you:

Look for a small gym that might be less intimidating or work out at non-peak hours when it’s less crowded.

Go with a buddy, so you can support each other.

Invest in comfortable workout wear so you’ll worry less about your appearance.

Consider a personal trainer, via on-site or virtual instruction, to feel more confident about your form and get targeted guidance.

Keep a journal and celebrate your accomplishments.

Dr. Nitschke adds that it will take time to get the upper hand on gymtimidation, but as with any fitness goal, you can achieve it if you stick with it.

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Dementia: Olive oil could help protect brain health, according to new study

Posted on October 1, 2023September 21, 2023 by The Olive Oil Hunter

Adapted from the original research and an article by Robby Berman in Medical News Today, August 2, 2023

Consuming half a tablespoon of olive oil per day could substantially lower your risk of dying from dementia, a new study shows.

According to a presentation on July 24 at the NUTRITION 2023 conference in Boston, the study found that people who consumed half a tablespoon or more of olive oil daily had a 25% reduced risk of dying from dementia compared to people who did not consume olive oil.

What’s more, higher olive oil intake was linked to greater brain benefits. “We found a clear linear dose-response association between higher daily olive oil intake and lower risk of fatal dementia,” said presenter Anne-Julie Tessier, RD (registered dietician), PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

This US-based study is the first to investigate the relationship between diet and dementia-related death. The investigators analyzed the health records from 1990 to 2018 of more than 90,000 people in the US who did not have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start of the study. During the study’s 28 years of follow-up, 4,749 participants died from dementia.

Replacing even a single teaspoon of margarine or commercial mayonnaise with olive oil was also associated with a 5-12% reduced risk of dying from dementia, according to the research team. These benefits were not seen with other vegetable oils.

The link between higher olive oil intake and lower risk of dying of dementia was observed regardless of the overall quality of people’s diets. This may indicate that components of olive oil provide unique benefits for brain health.

“Some antioxidant compounds in olive oil can cross the blood-brain barrier, potentially having a direct effect on the brain,” said Dr. Tessier. “It is also possible that olive oil has an indirect effect on brain health by benefiting cardiovascular health.” She noted that only a few individuals in the study consumed more than 15 mg (about 1 tablespoon) of olive oil daily.

A body of previous research has established an association between olive oil intake and a lower risk of heart disease, and incorporating olive oil as part of the Mediterranean diet has also been shown to help protect against cognitive decline.

Dr. Tessier reflected on the characteristics of olive oil that may confer its effects on the brain: “Olive oil may play a beneficial role in cognitive health through its rich content in monounsaturated fatty acids, which may promote neurogenesis [growth of brain cells]. It also contains vitamin E and polyphenols that have antioxidant activity.”

The research team advised that an observational study such as this is only able to identify an association and does not prove that olive oil is the cause of the reduced risk of dying from dementia. Randomized, controlled trials are needed to confirm the study’s findings and to help establish the optimal quantity of olive oil to consume in order to experience the most benefits.

Reference: Tessier JA, Yuan C, Cortese M, et al. Olive oil and fatal dementia risk in two large prospective US cohort studies. Poster presented at NUTRITION 2023 conference, Fairfax, VA, July 24, 2023.

Brekky Piadina

Posted on September 30, 2023March 19, 2025 by The Olive Oil Hunter

My wife and I enjoyed a particularly satisfying breakfast recently at the charming D.O.C. Espresso in Melbourne’s Little Italy. Piadina, originally a specialty of Emilia-Romagna, is a kind of flatbread. If you cannot find it, substitute Middle Eastern flatbread or fresh tortillas. Feel free to create your own piadina fillings—the combination of cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion, and capers is especially good.

Ingredients

2 piadinas or other flatbreads (see above)
Extra virgin olive oil
2 portobello mushrooms, trimmed and diced
2 large eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 ounces asiago cheese, grated
Handful of arugula (optional)

Directions

Step 1

Heat the oven to warm (175°F if your oven doesn’t have a warm setting). Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. One at a time, gently warm the piadinas, turning once with tongs. When hot, enclose the piadinas in a square of aluminum foil and place in the oven to keep warm.

Step 2

Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the mushrooms to the skillet. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté the mushrooms until they begin to brown and have given up their liquid. Remove from the skillet and keep warm. Add another tablespoon or two of olive oil to the skillet. Thoroughly whisk the eggs, then pour into the skillet. Using a rubber spatula, scramble the eggs until they are barely cooked. Season with salt and pepper.

Step 3

Place each warm piadina on a dinner plate. Top each with half the mushrooms, eggs, cheese, and arugula, if using. Drizzle with additional olive oil, if desired. Fold in half and serve immediately.

Serves 2 generously