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The Olive Oil Hunter News #6

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Grilled Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde Recipe, Spotlight on Indoor Herb Gardens, the Power of Protein-Rich Foods and Weight Training

Americans have had a love affair with the backyard grill for nearly 100 years, and you have carmaker Henry Ford to thank. Back in the day, wood was used in various components of the Model T, and the milling left quite a lot of scrap. Ford found a way to capitalize on the waste, using a formula developed by a chemist for combining it with tar and cornstarch and turning it into lumps. Ford marketed the new product as briquettes, and they were soon being sold in grilling kits at car dealerships, adding another facet to the adventurous American lifestyle he had pioneered. 

As grilling (and smoking) meat has been elevated to a culinary art, many chefs have turned to natural hardwoods, not just as a flavor enhancer but also as a full alternative to Ford’s invention. I prefer hardwood lump charcoal to briquettes because they don’t contain any additives. Above all, you want to stay away from briquettes labeled “fast-starting” because they contain lighter fluid—in fact, lighter fluid shouldn’t have any place in grilling. (The Healthy Kitchen Nugget below has more on how to use hardwood.)

Grilled Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde

  • The Olive Oil Hunter News #6 Grilled Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde

    If you love to grill like I do, you probably don’t limit yourself to summer BBQs. Here’s a perfect dish for a crisp fall evening.

    Ingredients

    For the salsa verde:
    • 1-1/2 cups packed flat-leaf parsley 
    • 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
    • 1/4 cup capers, drained
    • 1 to 2 anchovy fillets (optional) 
    • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
    • 2 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons) 
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice 
    • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest 
    • Kosher salt 
    • Freshly ground black pepper 

    For the steak: ​

    • One 2-pound skirt steak
    • Kosher salt
    • Freshly ground black pepper 

    Directions

    Step 1

    To make the salsa verde, roughly chop the parsley and place it, along with the olive oil, capers, anchovies (if using), vinegar, garlic and lemon juice and zest, in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse until the parsley is well chopped, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a gravy boat or a small bowl and set aside. 

    Step 2

    Set up your grill or grill pan for indirect grilling, and heat it to medium-high. Generously season both sides of the steak with salt and pepper. Grill for about 3 minutes per side, or until done to your liking. Let rest for 2 minutes before carving thinly against the grain. Serve with the salsa verde.

    Quick kitchen hack: Carving the right way is key with certain cuts of meat, like skirt or flank steak. Whether you see it described as “on the diagonal,” “on a bias” or “against the grain,” it means the same thing—slicing in the direction opposite the meat’s muscle fibers. So, if you’re looking at your steak and the fibers are running vertically from top to bottom, you want to slice horizontally or across from side to side. The reason is simple: This creates a more tender chew.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Quick Croutons to garnish homemade meals

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Indoor Herb Gardens

If your outdoor herb garden is nearing its end or if you don’t have one at all, it’s time to start growing herbs indoors. Parsley for my salsa verde is a great first choice, and then consider basil, cilantro and rosemary for a versatile mix. 

All you need are a few steps to replicate the outdoor conditions that herbs like. Because even a sunny windowsill doesn’t get a full 14 or so hours of summer-style daylight once fall arrives, grow lights are a great help. You can get a simple floor or desk model to shine on your plants or go full board with a stacking modular shelf and light system that can support racks of plants (to see one example, check out gardeners.com).

Starting new plants from seeds will give them a healthy advantage if you think you’ll move them outdoors come spring. But it’s easier (and faster) to buy small transplants if you want a head start. According to University of Maryland Extension, a good rule of (green) thumb is to use two parts of soilless potting mixture and one part of perlite. If space allows, grow each herb in its own pot—that way, you can water each one with the right frequency. Make sure your containers have drainage holes and sit in a dish or tray to catch any excess water. Keep your plants away from drafts as well as heat vents. Mist them every day to create some humidity, especially if the air in your home is dry. Be patient before cutting in order to give your herbs time to take hold. And when you do clip some sprigs, resist taking more than a third of the plant at one time. Find out more here.

Healthy Kitchen Tip: Chimney Starter

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Grilling Tip: Chimney Starter

My friend Steven Raichlen, the ultimate grill master, has an amazing website called barbecuebible.com, where he details the best ways to get your grill fire going. The secret is a chimney starter, a metal cylinder or box with two sections, one for the charcoal and the other for a wad of newspaper. Place the loaded chimney starter on the bottom grate of your grill, light the newspaper and, in 15 to 20 minutes, the charcoal will be ready to go.

For Your Best Health: Protein-Rich Foods

For Your Best Health

Protein-Rich Foods

Protein-rich foods don’t just taste great, but they’re also the body’s building blocks, keeping muscles strong and helping us stay vital and independent. But did you know that our protein needs increase as we get older and that eating more of it has many benefits? 

One study, published in the journal Nutrients, found that people who eat between 20% and 50% more than the standard suggested daily amount (that’s technically .36 grams for every pound you weigh) have greater lower-body strength and a faster walking speed. 

Another study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, compared protein intake among its participants and found that those who ate the most protein had less risk of developing Alzheimer’s than those who ate the least. The researchers pegged an ideal amount at about 120 grams of protein a day. 

The top highest protein-rich foods are lean beef, pork, lamb, turkey, chicken, fish and shellfish, with about 7 grams per ounce; eggs, with 6 grams each; edamame, lentils and beans, with 8-9 grams per half cup; milk and yogurt, with about 8 grams per 8 ounces; and nuts, with 4-6 grams per ounce, according to Hopkins Medicine.

Fitness Flash: Weight Training

Fitness Flash

Weight Training

Diet is only one part of the health equation. Exercise is the other. While cardio workouts are vital, you might not be getting the weight training that you need for optimal strength. If the idea of working out with weights doesn’t appeal to you, research published in Sage Open Medicine points out that resistance bands can be just as effective. And a research review in the journal Sports Medicine found that we can get great gains, particularly in arms and legs, from these stretchy pieces of elastic, even later in life. The bands come in a variety of tensions, so you can easily increase the difficulty as you gain strength to keep those gains coming.

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How to (O)live Longer

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Some olive oils fight heart disease and cognitive decline. But to get the greatest benefit, you need to pick the right stuff

Reprinted from an article in AARP Bulletin by Clint Carter, April 2020

In normal times, Italians outlive Americans by an average of four years. But in the Sicani Mountain region of Sicily, marked by rolling hills covered with olive trees, the locals live past 100 at a rate more than four times greater than Italy as a whole.

Sicani Mountain villagers eat a Mediterranean diet, snacking on olives and using the fruit’s oil to prepare dinner. As a result, their arteries are as supple as those of people 10 years younger, researchers say.

“We’ve known for 50 or 60 years that the Mediterranean diet is beneficial for health, but olive oil is emerging as the most important ingredient,” says Domenico Praticò, MD, director of the Alzheimer’s Center at Temple University. Among people in olive-growing regions, the incidences of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even cognitive decline are very low.

How Olive Oil Offers Hope

Praticò and others have been exploring the effect of extra-virgin olive oil, or EVOO, on the brain. They’ve discovered that compounds in the fat of this high-grade oil can flush out proteins that gum up the communication channels between brain cells. That might delay, and even possibly reverse, Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

One compound that seems to drive this effect is an olive-derived polyphenol called oleocanthal. In animal studies at Auburn University, oleocanthal demonstrated an ability to “rinse out” amyloids, which form the plaques associated with Alzheimer’s. In mice EVOO can “flush out” tau, a protein that hinders language skills and memory in humans.

Buyer, Beware!

But not all the EVOO sold at the supermarket is as potent as the oil that researchers use to “flush out” neurotoxins. In lab tests more than half of imported EVOO purchased at retail failed to meet standards of quality and flavor (a marker of antioxidant content) established by the Madrid-based International Olive Council. In a 2015 analysis from the National Consumers League, 6 in 11 EVOOs obtained from reputable stores such as Safeway and Whole Foods failed the extra virgin test. They were either mislabeled or had degraded during shipping and storage. So what does all this mean? You need to know a few shopping tricks if you want to get all the protection that EVOO offers to the centenarians of the Sicani Mountains.

Study shows extra virgin olive oil staves off multiple forms of dementia in mice

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Adapted from an article in Science Codex by the Temple University Health System, November 25, 2019

Boosting brain function is key to staving off the effects of aging. And if there was one thing every person should consider doing right now to keep their brain young, it is to add extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) to their diet, according to research by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM).

Previous LKSOM research on mice showed that EVOO preserves memory and protects the brain against Alzheimer’s disease.

In a new study in mice published online in the journal Aging Cell, LKSOM scientists show that yet another group of aging-related diseases can be added to that list—tauopathies, which are characterized by the gradual buildup of an abnormal form of a protein called tau in the brain. This process leads to a decline in mental function, or dementia. The findings are the first to suggest that EVOO can defend against a specific type of mental decline linked to tauopathy known as frontotemporal dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is itself one form of dementia. It primarily affects the hippocampus—the memory storage center in the brain. Frontotemporal dementia affects the areas of the brain near the forehead and ears. Symptoms typically emerge between ages 40 and 65 and include changes in personality and behavior, difficulties with language and writing, and eventual deterioration of memory and ability to learn from prior experience.

Senior investigator Domenico Praticò, MD, describes the new work as supplying another piece in the story about EVOO’s ability to ward off cognitive decline and to protect the junctions where neurons come together to exchange information, which are known as synapses.

“The realization that EVOO can protect the brain against different forms of dementia gives us an opportunity to learn more about the mechanisms through which it acts to support brain health,” he said.

In previous work using a mouse model, in which animals were destined to develop Alzheimer’s disease, Dr. Praticò’s team showed that EVOO supplied in the diet protected young mice from memory and learning impairment as they aged. Most notably, when the researchers looked at brain tissue from mice fed EVOO,

they did not see features typical of cognitive decline, particularly amyloid plaques—sticky proteins that impair communication pathways between neurons in the brain. Rather, the animals’ brains looked normal.

The team’s new study shows that the same is true in the case of mice engineered to develop tauopathy. In these mice, normal tau protein turns defective and accumulates in the brain, forming harmful tau deposits, also called tangles. Tau deposits, similar to amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease, block neuron communication and thereby impair thinking and memory, resulting in frontotemporal dementia.

Tau mice were put on a diet supplemented with EVOO at a young age, comparable to about age 30 or 40 in humans. Six months later, when mice were the equivalent of age 60 in humans, tauopathy-prone animals

experienced a 60 percent reduction in damaging tau deposits, compared to littermates that were not fed EVOO. Animals on the EVOO diet also performed better on memory and learning tests than animals deprived of EVOO.

Dr. Praticò and colleagues now plan to explore what happens when EVOO is fed to older animals that have begun to develop tau deposits and signs of cognitive decline, which more closely reflects the clinical scenario in humans.

Reference: Lauretti E, Nenov M, Dincer O, Iuliano L, Praticò D. Extra virgin olive oil improves synaptic activity, short-term elasticity, memory, and neuropathology in a tauopathy model. Aging Cell. 2020;19(1):e13076.

Study Concludes: Extra Virgin Olive Oil May Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease

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 The following article is reprinted from the website Science2.0. The original research was published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, Feburary 15, 2013

Consumption of extra virgin olive oil has been linked to reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and its benefit may lie in one component of olive oil that helps shuttle the abnormal AD proteins out of the brain.

Alzheimer’s disease affects about 30 million people worldwide but the prevalence is lower in Mediterranean countries—thus the correlation with olive oil. Scientists once attributed it to the high concentration of healthful monounsaturated fats in olive oil, which is consumed in large amounts in the Mediterranean diet.

Recent research also suggested that the actual protective agent might be a substance called oleocanthal, which has effects that protect nerve cells from the kind of damage that occurs in AD. [The University of Louisiana research] team sought evidence on whether oleocanthal helps decrease the accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) in the brain, believed to be the culprit in AD.

In their paper, Amal Kaddoumi and colleagues describe tracking the effects of oleocanthal in the brains and cultured brain cells of laboratory mice used as stand-ins for humans in such research. In both instances, oleocanthal showed a consistent pattern in which it boosted production of two proteins and key enzymes believed to be critical in removing Aβ from the brain.

“Extra-virgin olive oil-derived oleocanthal associated with the consumption of Mediterranean diet has the potential to reduce the risk of AD or related neurodegenerative dementias,” the report concludes.