The Essential Fra Diavolo Sauce Recipe, Olive Oil’s Role in a Plant-Based Diet and The Benefits of Olive Oil for Heart Health

Did you know that many chefs—including me!—prefer using canned tomatoes rather than fresh ones when making sauce? All the prep work has been done for you, so they’re a huge time saver as well as being flavorful. This week’s recipe for deliciously zesty fra diavolo sauce capitalizes on this pantry essential. I’m also sharing news about the heart health benefits of olive oil. A wealth of studies have found that it helps stave off heart disease and that the sooner you starting using it, the healthier you’ll be in the decades to come.

THE ESSENTIAL FRA DIAVOLO SAUCE

• Seafood Fra Diavolo

  This Italian classic often gets its heat from pepperoncino (red pepper) flakes, but I love the depth that comes from including fresh serrano pepper in the garlic and onion sauté. For another layer of flavor, I use a full can of tomato paste. So delicious, plus you can make it your own with any seafood you like—go simple with shrimp, lavish with lobster tail meat and scallops or easy with chunks of your favorite fish!. As a final step to this recipe, you might stir in a pound of shelled shrimp and cook until opaque. Serve it with or without pasta. It’s also delicious with any legume-based pasta—top with a good amount of grated Parmesan or Pecorino.

  Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, more as needed
  • 2 pounds assorted seafood, such as 8 ounces each peeled shrimp, scallops, calamari rings, and crabmeat
  • ½ cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 serrano pepper, seeded and chopped
  • 4 large garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
  • 1 6-ounce can tomato paste
  • ½ cup red wine
  • 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano
  • Pinch of salt

  Directions

  Step 1

  Heat a large skillet—it’s ready when a few drops of water sizzle on the surface. Add the olive oil and then the seafood, gently searing it on all sides. With a slotted spoon, transfer the seafood to a bowl next to your cooktop. Add more oil to the pan if needed, then add the onions and sauté until soft and translucent, but not browned. 

  Step 2

  Add the pepper and garlic and cook until soft. Then add the tomato paste and cook it until fragrant and almost brown-burgundy in color, whisking it constantly as it caramelizes. Slowly whisk in the wine and then add the crushed tomatoes, oregano, and salt, and heat through.

  Step 3

  Return the seafood to the pan and cook for 3–4 minutes until cooked through. Serve over your choice of pasta.

  Yields 4 servings

Olive Oil’s Role in a Plant-Based Diet

Building out healthy eating

The research: “A Plant-Centered Diet and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease during Young to Middle Adulthood” and “Relationship Between a Plant-Based Dietary Portfolio and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Findings from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Prospective Cohort Study,” Journal of the American Heart Association, August 2021.

As much as you love fresh-pressed olive oil, it shouldn’t be the only item on your healthy menu. These two new studies both looked at the heart benefits of eating a plant-centered diet—not necessarily vegetarian, but with a foundation of fruits, vegetables, olive oil, nuts, whole grains, and legumes.

One looked at the advantages of starting such a way of eating younger in life. It followed 4,946 adults from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study for about 30 years. Participants went through lab tests, physical measurements, medical histories, assessments of lifestyle factors, and detailed diet history interviews. Researchers used a scoring system called A Priori Diet Quality Score (APDQS) to assess the participants’ diets. APDQS classifies food groups as beneficial (like fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grains), adverse (like fried potatoes, high-fat red meat, salty snacks, pastries, and soft drinks), and neutral foods (like potatoes, refined grains, lean meats, and shellfish) based on the foods’ known links with cardiovascular disease.

People who scored in the top 20% for diet quality by eating the most beneficial foods and fewer adverse ones were 52% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease. Also, between years 7 and 20 of the study, when participants ranged in age from 25 to 50, those who improved their diet quality the most were 61% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease later on than those whose diet quality declined the most during that time.

The other study looked at the heart health effects of an eating program called the Portfolio Diet. It followed 123,330 postmenopausal women from the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study, for 25 years. The Portfolio Diet includes nuts; plant protein from soy, beans, or tofu; soluble fiber-rich oats; barley; okra; eggplant; oranges; apples and berries; olive oil; canola oil; and avocados, with limited saturated fats and cholesterol, an approach already found to lower unhealthy LDL cholesterol.

Based on the participants’ answers to questionnaires, the researchers found that the women who followed the Portfolio Diet more closely were 11% less likely to develop any type of cardiovascular disease, 14% less likely to develop coronary heart disease, and 17% less likely to develop heart failure than the women who followed it the least.

“These results present an important opportunity, as there is still room for people to incorporate more cholesterol-lowering plant foods into their diets. With even greater adherence to the Portfolio dietary pattern, one would expect an association with even less cardiovascular events, perhaps as much as cholesterol-lowering medications,” said senior study author John Sievenpiper, MD, PhD, of St. Michael’s Hospital, in Ontario, Canada, and associate professor of nutritional sciences and medicine at the University of Toronto.

“We also found a dose response in our study, meaning that you can start small, adding one component of the Portfolio Diet at a time, and gain more heart-health benefits as you add more components,” said lead author Andrea J. Glenn, PhD, RD, now an instructor at York University in Toronto.

The Benefits of Olive Oil for Heart Health

Even small amounts make a big difference ​

The research: “Olive Oil Consumption and Cardiovascular Risk in U.S. Adults,” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, April 2020.

This study looked at one of the most important benefits of olive oil: its link to helping lower heart disease risk. What sets it apart from previous studies is that the participants were Americans; most previous large studies involved people living in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, where olive oil consumption is much higher than it is here. The aim was to compare the effects of olive oil on heart health to those of margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat.

The researchers analyzed diet and lifestyle data from 61,181 women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study and 31,797 men who took part in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and who filled out questionnaires every four years between 1990 and 2014. The study found that participants who had anywhere over a half tablespoon of olive oil each day in place of the other fats had a 15% lower risk of having any kind of cardiovascular disease and a 21% lower risk of coronary heart disease. This led them to conclude that replacing even small amounts of animal fat with olive oil could move the needle toward a healthier heart. More information from a smaller pool of the participants showed that higher olive oil intake was also linked with lower levels of several inflammatory biomarkers and higher levels of HDL cholesterol—the good kind.

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Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe, Whole-Wheat Flour Power, Salt in Sweets, 9 Foods to Add to Your Diet Now and the Benefits of Walking

No muss, no fuss, and no mixer needed to whip up this week’s recipe—chocolate chip muffins that taste sinful but deliver all the benefits of olive oil. My secret ingredients are two types of flour (including whole-wheat flour_ you might not yet have in your pantry but will reach for time and again once you do. I’m also sharing new insights into fruits and veggies for brain health and why you don’t need to start at 10,000 steps a day to reap the benefits of walking.

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Muffins

• Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Muffins

  Extra virgin olive oil makes these muffins tender on the inside and crunchy on top. Using pastry flour creates a finer crumb, and the addition of white whole-wheat flour adds fiber and protein.

  Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups plus 1/3 cup pastry flour or all-purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup white whole-wheat flour 
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder 
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 scant cup sugar 
  • 2 extra-large eggs 
  • 1 cup Greek yogurt 
  • 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the muffin tin 
  • 1/3 cup milk 
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 12 ounces dark chocolate chips or chunks

  Directions

  Step 1

  Heat your oven to 350ºF. Grease a 12-muffin tin (including the spaces between the cups) with a small amount of olive oil.

  Step 2

  In a very large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to combine.

  Step 3

  In another large bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs until well incorporated, and then whisk in the yogurt, followed by the olive oil, milk, and vanilla extract.

  Step 4

  Slowly pour it into the flour mixture, folding with a spatula as you go until the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated. Add the chips and continue folding until you no longer see any traces of flour. 

  Step 5

  Use a large ice cream scoop to fill the muffin cups just about to the top (the muffins will nicely rise over the rims as they bake).

  Step 6

  Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, depending on your oven—they’re done when the tip of a dinner knife inserted into the center of 2 or 3 muffins comes out clean. Cool the pan on a wire rack before turning out the muffins.

  Yields 12 oversized muffins

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Whole-Wheat Flour Power

I’m always looking for ways to “healthify” recipes, especially sweets. For instance, one of the great benefits of olive oil in place of butter is that you drastically cut the saturated fat. Another effortless swap is replacing some of the white flour in baked goods with whole-wheat flour, but not the standard type, which can make the finished food too dense. Instead, choose white whole-wheat flour made from white wheat, or whole-wheat pastry flour made from red wheat. Both are great, though I prefer white whole-wheat flour for sweeter foods, such as cakes and muffins, and whole-wheat pastry flour for more savory rolls and breads. As a rule of thumb, you can use either in place of 25% of a recipe’s all-purpose white flour without noticing a taste difference. The experts at the King Arthur Baking Company suggest that you can go as high as 50% with the white whole-wheat flour without adjusting liquids or rising agents, but going to that level with whole-wheat pastry flour may require tweaking. Experiment to see what tastes best to you.

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Salt in Sweets ​

Since salt often gets a bad rap, you might wonder whether you really have to include it in baked goods. The answer is yes, because it brings out the flavor of other ingredients, including chocolate. When you do the math, one teaspoon, or even two, spread out over a dozen portions of a recipe means just a few grains per serving. In terms of sources of excess sodium, packaged and processed foods are the ones to watch out for. For the best results in home cooking, always use kosher or coarse sea salt.

For Your Best Health

Over the Rainbow: 9 Foods to Add Now ​

Flavonoids are among the most important phytochemicals—nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. It’s actually the umbrella term for many different types of plant nutrients. Anthocyanins, for instance, are well known for giving berries their bright hues. You often hear the advice to “eat a rainbow” because each fruit and veggie has its own unique mix of flavonoids, and you want to get as wide a variety as possible. Flavonoids are a great source of antioxidants, renowned for their ability to fight off the aging effects of oxidative stress and boost overall health. A major study done at Harvard and published in Neurology has found another reason to chow down on fruits and veggies. The researchers discovered an important link between eating lots of flavonoid-rich foods and lowering the odds of subjective cognitive decline (SCD)—how much memory loss or sense of confusion you feel in your daily life.

They looked at data from nearly 50,000 women and 28,000 men over roughly 20 years. Those who had the most flavonoids in their diet lowered their odds of SCD the most compared to those who had the least, they reported. Three types of flavonoids in particular—flavones, flavanones, and anthocyanins—had the most impact. Which fruits and vegetables did the participants eat most? Strawberries, blueberries, oranges, grapefruits (whole or juiced), apples, pears, celery, peppers, and bananas. Onions, peaches, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, and potatoes also ranked high. Another key finding is that it’s never too early to start enjoying these foods on a regular basis—think of it as making deposits in the bank of brain health.

Fitness Flash

Step to It ​

There are many ways to get and stay fit, and walking—considered a light-intensity physical activity, or LIPA—remains one of the easiest. Though we often hear that 10,000 steps a day is the ultimate goal, it may not be the right goal for you, according to Benjamin Washburn, MD, of the University of Missouri, and Joseph Ihm, MD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, authors of the article “Using Step Counts to Prescribe Physical Activity: What Is the Optimal Dose?” published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Current Sports Medicine Reports. In their report, based on analyzing extensive data, and in a blog post on the topic, they detailed why a target step count should be personalized to each person’s current activity level and needs.

They wrote that “significant health benefits can occur at activity levels below 10,000 daily steps, especially if individuals increase their baseline activity by at least 1,000 steps per day. Several studies demonstrate that near-maximal or maximal health benefits can be achieved by engaging in predominantly LIPA totaling approximately 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day…At the lower end of the activity level spectrum, reaching a minimum of about 4,000 steps per day may be beneficial for many groups if they are at or below this level of activity at baseline.” They added that this may be a helpful goal for older people looking to start a walking program.

The concept of gaining more benefits with every additional 1,000 daily steps also applies to people already getting 10,000 per day. They pointed out that going beyond the weekly minimums set in physical fitness guidelines will likely keep you healthier than someone who achieves a lower level of activity. But “for some, a lower level of activity will still be better than being less active,” they stated.

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