Sophia Loren swears by it as the secret to her timeless beauty, while Hippocrates recommended its juice as a cure for mental illnesses. I myself found my own appearance transformed by taking 4 shots of the ‘green gold’ several times a day, curing myself of a myriad of digestive problems, adult acne and even a stubborn muffin top.
Yet this wonder-ingredient is not a newly discovered super food. It is the product of a humble tree that has been cultivated in Europe and the Middle East for over 4,000 years and can be seen punctuating the landscape of most Italian regions, especially the province most tied to its production – Tuscany.
When I was first told to use four spoons of first-cold-press extra virgin olive oil a day to improve my health and my looks, I wasn’t so sure. After years of inexplicable weight gain – most distressingly round my middle – and distressing adult acne, the last thing that I thought could help me was drinking oil. But, newly arrived in Florence, I decided to accept the wisdom of this Tuscan old wives’ tale (as I thought it must be) and try it. Within a couple of weeks, my eyes shone, my hair was glossy, my skin plumped and my acne scars erased as if by a team of expert retouchers. Just as importantly, all my mysterious digestive issues disappeared and I had more energy than I had had for years.
Such was the beginning of my love affair with the humble olive, a journey that started with that introduction to its magical properties and now has me extolling its virtues to anyone who will listen, and even producing my own line of first press extra virgin olive oil in Tuscany 15 years later.
Olives are thought to have originated in the Near East and both the ancient Greeks and Romans told origin myths about it. The Greeks attributed its creation to the goddess Athena while the Romans believed that an olive tree sprouted on the spot that Hercules struck with a staff. Myths proliferate: Zeus chose the olive as the tree of peace; the dove that flew to Noah in his ark bore an olive branch and Muslims believe that the Prophet himself thought of olive oil as a divine source of light. For the Greeks, it was a beauty treatment and used as lamp fuel. The colonisation of southern Italy by the Greeks introduced the olive to Italy, where the Romans found that olive oil was also a delicious condiment. As the Roman Empire grew, people throughout the area began using olive oil for cooking, and the Romans even organised southern Europe into olive-oil producing regions.
After the Romans’ power waned, Tuscany kept the tradition of growing olives and making olive oil alive. And so it was that, in 1400s, the Medici’s agricultural policies turned the heavily wooded Tuscan landscape into the one we know and love today by encouraging the cheap rental of uncultivated lands to peasant families as long as the new farmers kept one promise – to clear forests and plant olive trees instead.
Great waves of people migrating through the 19th and 20th centuries helped bring olive oil out of the Mediterranean and into northern Europe and America. A mainstay of the Mediterranean diet – now widely credited as one of the healthiest – the ‘green gold’ is produced every October/November by the same methods that have been used for centuries. The ‘fresh’ or ‘green’ oil, produced from the first cold press of the olives, is probably the king of all olive oils, containing even more anti-oxidants and chlorophyll than regular extra virgin olive oil.
In line with my own unshakable belief that EVOO is the cure for anything that ails you, modern medicine has recently started to give serious consideration to its healing properties. EVOO contains several unsaturated fatty acids that the body needs but cannot produce on its – the most sought-after of ‘good fats’ – which lower cholesterol and control insulin, avoiding the sugar highs and lows caused by spikes in the hormone. The composition of olive oil is particularly well-balanced to meet the requirements of the human organism, helping to explain why EVOO can help prevent cardiovascular disease, arteriosclerosis and the risk of a heart attack. It limits the loss of bone calcium and it is highly digestible, facilitating the liver’s activity and regulating one’s intestinal functions. Research suggests that consuming more than four tablespoons a day could lower the risk of having a heart attack, suffering from a stroke or dying of heart disease, as well as protecting against a bunch of different cancers and delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s. Just as impressive is EVOO’s benefits for the skin, containing many skin-friendly antioxidants including vitamin E, carotenoids and oleuropein, and, skincare’s new magic ingredient, squalene.
Squalene is a colourless poly-unsaturated hydrocarbon liquid that’s found naturally in many animals and plants, including human sebum. Sebum is one of the many natural lipids the body produces to lubricate and protect the skin, making up an estimated 10 to 12 percent of the skin’s natural oil. It’s commonly harvested from plant sources like olives and has long been used medically to help repair wounded skin, and is now a favourite ingredient in new-generation skincare.
Of course, to get the benefits, it is crucial to choose excellent EVOO – which can be harder than it sounds. With such a brisk global trade in olive oil, it is important to know how to spot oil that has been mixed with cheaper oils such as sunflower, and inferior olives from other countries. In 1997 the EU recognised a geographical identity for the olive oil of Tuscany, this way consumers know that the mark of Protected Geographic Indication (an olive branch against the background of a map of the region) ensures that every olive that is used in the production of Tuscan olive oil is grown in Tuscany. Further, every olive mill and every stage of processing and packaging Tuscan olive oil all happen right inside the geographic borders of Tuscany.
As a small olive oil producer myself now, I am passionate about the healing qualities of this ancient plant and all the goodness it brings. Fifteen years after I first started emulating Sophia Loren’s use of olive oil, I am more inclined now than ever to agree with Pliny’s assertion that: ‘except the vine there is no plant which bears a fruit of as great importance as the olive.’
Kamin Mohammadi’s book Bella Figura: How To Live, Love and Eat the Italian Way is published by Bloomsbury in the UK, Knopf in the US and Appetite Random House in Canada.