Olive oil - better than butter?

Dear readers,

This post is about ingredients that we are consuming probably everyday: Oils and butters. I was eating at a restaurant with friends when the question about the difference between sunflower and olive oils came up. I thought that would be good material for a SSS post!

Between margarine and butter, olive and sunflower oil, it is sometimes difficult to understand the difference and lots of contradictory health information over the years  has had us all confused!
So let's try to make it clearer, for myself, and for everyone out there:

Fats are essential for a healthy body, providing a source of energy and carrying vital nutrients. We need fats in our diet to provide us with essential fatty acids for growth, healthy skin and metabolism but as a lot of advertising is telling us, it is necessary to pay attention to both the total amount and the type of fats that we ingest. 

So first of all, let's talk names! When we say fats, we really mean triglycerides of fatty acids but imagine people dropping triglycerides in a conversation, that would sound way too nerdy!! To put it simply fats are made of fatty acids, these will be released after ingestion:

Fatty acids?


In plants and animals, the most abundant fatty acids have 16 or 18 carbon atoms. Common names are palmitic, oleic, linoleic and stearic acids.
Those fatty acids can be Saturated (no double bond, see Fig.1.), Unsaturated (with double bonds). Among those unsaturated, we can also have MonoUnsaturated (only 1 double bond) or PolyUnsaturated (more than 1 double bond).
Double bonds can be Cis or Trans. However, in nature, they are almost always Cis! Trans are "man-made" (see Margarine recipe below).
Famous PolyUnsaturated fatty acids include Omega-6 (linoleic acid, see fig.1) and Omega-3 (linoleic acid + 1 more double bond!).

Figure 1. Different types of fatty acids.

Triglycerides?
Fats and oils that we find in plants and animals are essentially triglycerides of fatty acids (Fig.2.), which means big molecules linking 3 of these fatty acids!
Depending on the nature and position of those fatty acids, they can be simple (only one type of fatty acid) or mixed (more than 1 type).
Common triglycerides have 2 or 3 different fatty acids linked (=R1, 2, 3 in fig.2).

Figure 2. A triglyceride where 3 fatty acids are linked together.
R1, 2, 3 can be a chain of carbons where there is no, 1 or more double bonds.

Vegetal oils are usually rich in triglycerides formed by Unsaturated (Mono or Poly) fatty acids whereas animal fats are predominantly formed by Saturated fatty acids!
(When we say oil, it's because it is liquid at normal room temperature, fat when it's solid! What determines liquid or solid state is the lenght of the carbon chain and the number of double bonds).

So what's the difference between oils and spreads?

Butter is an emulsion made from fermented cream or milk. The end result is a mix of butterfat, milk proteins and water. 

In terms of different kind of fats, butter is composed more of Saturated, then Monounsaturated, and then Polyunsaturated. I will represent this by writing
Saturated > MonoUnsaturated > PolyUnsaturated fats

A sculpture made of butter; From HERE

Olive oil is a fat extracted from olive! Depending on its production process, olive oil can be pure, virgin, extra virgin (note: beware that it now transpires that sometimes you think you're buying extra virgin oil but it is really a mix of different olive oils thrown in with only a small amount of real extra virgin!).
Olive oil is composed mainly of the mixed triglycerides of oleic acid and palmitic acid and other fatty acids, along with phenols with anti-oxidant properties. In terms of saturation of the fatty acids, we can write:
MonoUnsaturated > PolyUnsaturated > Saturated fats

Olive Oil; From HERE

Sunflower oil is the oil extracted from sunflower! It is mainly a mix of triglycerides from different fatty acids  such as linoleic, oleic, palmitic and stearic acids and their composition can be written like this:

PolyUnsaturated > MonoUnsaturated > Saturated fats

From HERE

Margarine is an emulsion made from vegetal oils and water. Vegetal oils can be derived from safflower, sunflower, soybean, cottonseed, rapeseed or olive oil by a process called hydrogenation. In doing so, it makes the oil from going liquid to solid, these fats are called hydrogenated fats. But because solid is related to more saturated fats (=shown unhealthy), this process is controlled to get the right balance between texture and type of fat content. This way some components of the fats become trans fat, which has, also, shown to be unhealthy (see Fig.1). Fats derived from palm and coconut oil are naturally solid so can be thrown in the mix to avoid excess use of hydrogenated fats. Margarines can also be mixed with butter, for a better taste and texture.

Their composition can be written like this:
PolyUnsaturated > Trans > Saturated > MonoUnsatured fats - Although all margarines have different compositions - Just check out yours in your fridge.

From HERE

Why does it make a difference to our heath?
Because, simply put, these different fats influence the type of cholesterol in our blood!

But what's Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is an essential component of animal cell membrane serving its structure and its function.
It also serves as a precursor for the making of certains hormones (oestrogen, progesteron, testosteron, cortisol to name but a few) and Vitamin D.
It is also converted into bile which solubilizes fats in the digestive tract and helps the absorption of molecules and more notably Vitamins K, A, D and E!

Cholesterol, because it's not soluble in water and blood, needs to be transported in the blood by lipoproteins. There are different types of lipoproteins depending on their size. The most known ones are LDL (Low density lipoprotein) and HDL (High density lipoprotein).
Those lipoproteins carrying the cholesterol have different paths within the cell:

The LDL enter the cells and fuse to lysosomes to degrade the esterified cholesterol into normal cholesterol which then can go on to do its proper healthy jobs BUT when there are too many LDLipoproteins, they cannot be taken up by the cells and are eaten by macrophages. Those macrophages form plaques that are trapped in the blood walls and cause all the undesired effects that we know such as heart attacks and strokes.

The HDL, on the other hand, transports the cholesterol back to the liver where it can help in the making of all the hormones and vitamins named above.

That is why we say LDL is the BAD cholesterol and HDL the GOOD cholesterol!
From our diet, we want to maintain or increase HDL and decrease LDL!

On the other hand, cholesterol absorbed along with the fats through diet and cooking habits make the body decreases its natural cholesterol synthesis to compensate for this ingestion, so in the end the total amount of cholesterol is unchanged! But then that amount of cholesterol synthesis in our body is influenced by the fat we ingest such that:

Saturated fats increase LDL and HDL synthesis
MonoUnsaturated fats decrease LDL and maintain HDL synthesis
PolyUnsaturated fats decrease LDL but in too much quantity can decrease HDL synthesis
TransFat increase LDL and decrease HDL synthesis

In Summary, we want our diet/cooking fat or oil to be:
MonoUnsaturated > PolyUnsaturated > Saturated > TransFat

And that is why Olive oil is better for your health!

Cooking the oil changes its properties?
There was some controversy circulating on internet saying that cooking with oil is as bad as cooking with butter stating that heating oil past its "smoke point" or repeatedly heating it, can change its characteristics from being a MonoUnsaturated to a Saturated or a Transfat.
But you need not worry as this is a myth, the only thing that can happen is that you're losing the good taste that we know when using it in salad dressings!

Low Fat diet
One thing that came up in scientific articles (Baum et al., 2012 - kindly provided by future Dr Cheung ;)) is the worry that lots of low fat foods are circulating, making people believe that they are taking a healthy choice. The truth is that in those low fat products, fats can be replaced by refined carbohydrates and these have been shown to be worse on your health than Saturated fats. I'm not saying you have to cut carbohydrates, because you also need them - in reasonable amounts - in your diet but don't substitute one "baddie" for another one!!!

That's it my dear readers, I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did preparing it!
Thank you for dropping by and I would like to thank all the people who are following me on the different social networks and leaving me comments, I really appreciate them!

See you soon,