What is Polyphenol? - Bilge Agac Magazine - Ferhan Tolga Ozen
TLOS OLIVE: Fenolive / Zeytin Hanım Gold / Zeytin Hanım / Zeytin Hanım Beauty
Ferhan Tolga Ozen 07.01.2019
"If it wasn't for us, we would have to invent olive oil"
As the famous Italian professor Publio Viola said, if this miraculous liquid were not in our lives, we would certainly do our best to find it. This miraculous plant, whose chromosome number is 46 like that of humans, dates back to BC. It has been in our lives for 6000 years. It has always been used for health purposes throughout history... Hippocrates used it to treat ulcers, cholera and muscle pains, and Ibn Sina mixed it with figs and healed his patients. Overshadowed by the margarine rush that started in the 1950s, this precious liquid, for which folk songs such as "I can't eat olive oil" against itself, were composed, has recently come to the place it deserves, thanks to conscious producers. Healthy food awareness in our society The more it spreads, the more its value will be understood.
So what makes this golden liquid valuable for health?
Olive oil is primarily a juice. Like orange juice, it is derived from fruit like pomegranate juice. It is 100% Natural. Many other oils are obtained from the seed. Natural extra virgin olive oils do not go through the refining process. It comes from olives as is. To better understand the benefits of olive oil, it is necessary to look at its major and minor components. Major components make up 98% of the total oil weight, also called saponifiable fraction. The most famous of these is, of course, Oleic Acid. It makes up 70-80% of our olive oil. It is monounsaturated fat. Monounsaturated fats are less prone to oxidation. The simplest, most expressive picture describing oxidation is the apple below.
If we think of our cells like this apple, the less they are damaged by oxidation, the healthier they are. The most important feature of monounsaturated oils is that they are more resistant to oxidation. With this feature, oleic acid also ensures that the antioxidant substances in olive oil stay healthy longer.
I would like to briefly touch on one major component, without further describing the well-known benefits of olive oil. Linolenic acid… Olive oil contains the closest amount of linolenic acid to breast milk. Linoleic acids are very important in the development of babies. Too little may delay their development as well as cause metabolic disorders. If we mix skimmed cow's milk with olive oil, we get a natural food source like breast milk (Although cow's milk is similar to breast milk in terms of other acids, there is almost no linoleic acid in it). For this reason, olive oil is said to be like breast milk.
Let's come to the minor components and the most popular topic for today's olive oil producers; Polyphenols…
Polyphenols are found in many plants. It is part of antioxidants, a large group of compounds that prevent cellular wear in the body. Antioxidants, in the most superficial terms, are those that allow the free radicals formed in our body to be removed from the body. Free radicals are substances that cause oxidation, as in the apple example. There are around 8000 identified polyphenols, most of which are of plant origin. There are also very valuable polyphenols in our olive oil, such as lycopene in tomato, carvacrol in thyme, curcumin in turmeric. Although there are so many polyphenols, it is very important that they can be absorbed by our body. While more than 90% of olive oil can be absorbed by our body, it has been determined that the polyphenols in it can be absorbed between 40-55% in trials conducted on human groups. This is a very high rate. The most important feature that makes olive oil valuable in terms of health is this absorption rate. For example, while the lycopene in tomatoes can be absorbed very little by our body when eaten directly, it can be absorbed more when it is eaten by pouring oil on it or eaten by heating. In summary, it is not the fact that there are many polyphenols in a plant, but how much of these polyphenols can be taken up by our body. In this respect, olive oil has a very high value.
The most famous polyphenols from olives…
Oleurepein… It is our polyphenol that gives olives its bitter and bitter taste. It is found throughout the olive tree. It is the substance that we remove when processing olives to bring the olives to edible bitterness. The antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties of elonoic acid in its content have been proven under laboratory conditions. It is a natural antibiotic with this feature. This substance and its derivatives, especially found in olive leaves, are very effective on microorganisms that have become resistant to antibiotics. This substance, which is thought to enable the olive tree to live for many years, is also used for human health, from regenerating creams to pills to milk.
Hydroxytyrosol and Tyrosol… They have very strong antioxidant properties. In this sense, they prevent DNA damage, They prevent our benign cholesterol from being oxidized, cause the proliferation and even death of cancer cells, and have vasodilating, blood pressure and blood sugar lowering effects.
Oleochantal… It is a source of hope for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. Its pain-relieving and edema-scattering properties are already known. It is a valuable substance, the value of which will be understood more through real experiments on living things.
It is a known fact that all these beneficial compounds are found in our olives and olive oil. The total amount of our oils and the amount of polyphenol in this total varies according to the olive variety, the place where it is grown, the way it is collected and the way it is stored. In some olive varieties, very little polyphenol is produced, while in others, a polyphenol may be more concentrated.
As all producers, it is our biggest duty to produce this miraculous fruit juice properly and to carry our country above world standards with cooperation. In this sense, the increase in the awareness of healthy food in the society encourages us, the producers, to do better than we do. By coming together and supporting each other, we must make our country a world leader in producing healthy olive oil.
How can I procure polyphenol olive oil?
https://www.tlosolive.com/kategori/yuksek-polifenollu-zeytinyaglarimiz
https://www.tlosolive.com/blog/icerik/comments
For your health, for your health...
TLOS OLIVE FAMILY
www.tlosolive.com/page/about us
www.facebook.com/tlosolive.com