Switch to olive oil for better health

Indian households should completely switch to olive oil as a cooking medium as its nutritional value is very high

Indian households should completely switch to olive oil as a cooking medium as its nutritional value is very high, it is rich in monounsaturated ‘good’ fats and, when used daily, can bring instant and easy wellness to a family’s diet, celebrity chef and cookery expert Nita Mehta says. “Even though we have such a wide range of olive oils in our market, people don’t seem to use them because of their mental block that the flavour of olive oil doesn’t gel with Indian flavours,” she says.

This is a misconception because there is a grade known as olive pomace oil, which is neutral in taste and does not affect the spices and flavouring that Indian cooking is all about. Moreover, olive pomace oil is resistant to heat for long periods of time, so this is the grade to use when we need to cook masalas for long as the other olive grades do not have a very high smoking point and so ‘break’ and ruin the taste of food. Olive pomace oil gels well with tandoori dishes as well as curries. Parathas and biryanis cooked in olive oil are mouth-watering. Also, frying in olive pomace oil results in crisp, non-oily food,” Mehta noted.

Olive oil is universally acknowledged as the healthiest cooking medium. The greatest benefit of olive oil is that it fights coronary heart disease.

Source: Bombay Times