Category Archives: Olive Oil

Am I consuming enough Olive Oil on the MIND diet?

Olive Oil, The MIND Diet,
How much olive oil is the MIND diet recommending?

The MIND diet lists use of olive oil as the primary oil as one of 10 brain-healthy diet EVOOcomponents. I have been working at doing that. However, my approach has been mostly replacing fats that I have already been using with olive oil. Because I have been eating a fairly low-fat diet, I am wondering if that is enough. Many articles say that olive oil has anti-inflammatory properties. Maybe I need to eat more olive oil to benefit from these properties.

The diet that is based on the MIND diet study (Morris et al., 2015) is based on the results of previous research on the DASH and Mediterranean diets. One of the frustrating aspects of the information published about the MIND diet is that serving sizes are not included, and, in the case of olive oil, not even a recommended amount.

This was the only mention in the Morris et al. article of a specific study on the effect of olive oil on brain health:

“Mediterranean diet interventions supplemented with either nuts or extra-virgin olive oil were effective in maintaining higher cognitive scores compared with a low-fat diet in a substudy of PREDIMED [6], a randomized trial designed to test diet effects on cardiovascular outcomes among Spaniards at high cardiovascular risk.”

I decided to find the study that Morris et al. cited and other reports of the PREDIMED study to see if they gave more specific information about the amount of olive oil needed. The Martinez-Lapiscina et al. (2013) article stated that the participants in the group that did best on cognitive tests received training on the Mediterranean Diet (which includes using olive oil instead of butter) plus they received 1 liter of olive oil per week.

My reaction was “Yikes! that’s a lot of olive oil.”  I did a little math and figured out that 1 liter is about 67 tablespoons per week or 9.57 tablespoons per day. At 120 calories per tablespoon, that adds up to 1148 calories per day! Surely, the participants were not expected to consume that much.

In a previous post, I described my struggle with keeping my weight down and the MIND diet and my worries about increasing amounts of whole grains, nuts, beans, and wine suggested as brain-healthy foods by the MIND diet would be a problem for me because I gain weight if I eat over 1200 calories per day.  I didn’t even consider the olive oil because I was originally just replacing what I had been consuming in oil.  If I am going to increase my olive oil, I will have a weight problem.

My assumption is that the 1 liter of olive oil the study participants received was for the whole family.  So, I looked further.  I finally found another article about the same study that gave me a more definitive answer. In a 2010 article, Martínez-González et al. described the design and methods of the PREDIMED study. They included a short questionnaire that they used to assess compliance with the Mediterranean diet plus extra olive oil. These are the two questions relevant to olive oil:

1. Do you use olive oil as main culinary fat?    Criteria to receive 1 point = Yes
2. How much olive oil do you consume in a given day (including oil used for frying,
salads, out-of-house meals, etc.)?   Criteria to receive 1 point  =  4 Tablespoons or more.

So, I guess I have my answer. 4 Tablespoons!  480 calories!  It seems unbelievable but this amount was repeated in a more recent New England Journal of Medicine article by Estruch et al. (2013).

Amazingly, Martínez-González et al. followed the participants’ weight for 3 months on this augmented olive oil diet and there was no change.  In spite of this, I am fairly sure that my consumption of 4 TBSP of olive oil per day would lead to a weight gain.  I don’t want to do that for a lot of reasons, but the most relevant one is that obesity has also been cited as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s

How might I be different than the people in this study who didn’t gain weight when consuming 4 TBSP of olive oil per day?
The study showed that their average age (67 at the start of the study) and BMI (about 30) were close to mine.  Perhaps they were more active. I am still struggling to get in 7,500 steps per day. Or, perhaps the 4 TBSP was just to replace the amount of oil their diets usually contained.  I have a feeling I eat more meat than they did.  Or, maybe it’s a genetic difference. If I were ambitious, I would repeat that study here in the USA.

My decision:

After all that analysis, here is my decision. I am going to try to consume at least 1 TBSP of olive oil per day without increasing my calories.  I think that will be a slight increase in olive oil consumption.  The main way that I will keep my calories in line will be to decrease portion sizes, especially of meat.

I will track my olive oil consumption and weight for a while. If I haven’t gained, I will try increasing more — a little bit at a time.

How much olive oil do I consume at present?

Breakfast:  ranges from 0 (cereal, milk, and fruit) to ¾ TBSP (Pecan Cinnamon Scone)  – average  ½ tsp

Lunch  ?   usually none

Dinner: salad dressing  (my current light balsamic dressing has about ½ tsp); sautéing vegetables or meats about 1 tsp

Total:  Rough estimate = 2 teaspoons/day.  So, I have to add 1 teaspoon to reach my goal of 1 Tablespoon per day. 

Enough for today.  I can see that my next task is to figure out how to add a little more olive oil. I have lots of ideas for this, but I have been reading that cooking with olive oil (or any oil?) is not such a good idea.  I don’t know how research-based this is, so I am going to spend some time figuring it out before I go too wild with cooking.

Any ideas? I would love to hear them.

Am I consuming enough Olive Oil on the MIND diet?

References:

Estruch, R., Ros, E.;, Salas-Salvadó, J., Covas, M.-I., Corella, D., Arós, F., . . . Martínez-González, M.A. (2013).   Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet. New England Journal of Medicine, 368, 1279-1290. Whole article available at http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303

Martínez-González, M.Á., Corella, D., Salas-Salvadó, J., Ros, E., Covas, M.I., Fiol, M., . . . Estruch R.  (2012). Cohort profile: Design and methods of the PREDIMED study. International Journal of Epidemiology, 41, 377-385. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyq250. Summary at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21172932

Martinez-Lapiscina E.H., Clavero P., Toledo E., Estruch R., Salas-Salvadó J., San Julián B., . . .  . . Martinez-Gonzalez M. Á. (2013). Mediterranean diet improves cognition: the PREDIMED-NAVARRA randomised trial. Journal of  Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 84, 1318–1325.  Summary at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23670794

Morris, M. C., Tangney, C. C., Wang, Y., Sacks, F. M., Barnes, L. L., Bennett, D. A., & Aggarwal, N. T. (2015). Mediterranean-dietary approach to systolic hypertension diet intervention for neurodegenerative delay diet slows cognitive decline with aging. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2015.04.011

Chili con Pollo for the MIND diet

Beans, Olive Oil, Recipes, The MIND Diet

Chili con Pollo, of course, is chili made with chicken instead of beef. I love chili on a cold day! But, the chili con carne that I used to make contains lots of ground beef, which I limit because I am trying to follow the MIND diet. I have tried making it with ground turkey with mediocre results. Today, I tried it with ground chicken and it was oh-so-good!

I think one reason why it was so good was because of the olive oil that I browned the chicken in. I have been trying to use more olive oil in my diet. I had formerly been avoiding oil of any kind as much as possible, because of it calorie contribution. But, now I am reading about the benefits of eating olive oil, so I am trying to work a little more in. So, I started my chili by browning the ground chicken in olive oil. I don’t know if that is what made it taste so much better, but I am definitely going to try it again.

Chili con Pollo   4 servingsChili con Pollo

  • 1 lb ground chicken
  • 1 TBSP olive oil
  • *4 cups “canned tomatoes,” blended to liquefy
  • 1 15 oz. can pinto beans
  • 1 TBSP chili powder
  • 1 TBSP garlic powder
  • ½ TBSP cumin
  • ½ TBSP salt

Brown the chicken in 1 T olive oil and crumble.  This means to cook it so it is really brown, not just cooked.  Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the chili is as thick as you like it.  I simmered my test recipe a couple of hours.

PDF version to print

Myfitnesspal.com says one serving is 319 calories.

Of course, you are welcome to adjust the spices to your heat tolerance and add anything you like. Onion and pepper would probably be good. I think I will try using about half the chicken next time. This recipe comes out to 4 ounces of chicken per serving plus a whole serving of beans. I don’t really need that much protein, especially when eating it for lunch.

*”canned tomatoes” is not exactly what I used.  I grow a few tomato plants each summer and, when they are being quite prolific, I freeze some.  I just wash and cut out stems and any bad spots and throw then in a zip lock bag and put them in the freezer. When I am ready to use them, I run them under warm water for a few seconds and the skins come right off – not really peeling because no knife is involved, they just “slough off.” More about freezing tomatoes.

When I use my frozen tomatoes in chili, I cut them in quarters and run them through the blender with a little water. Sometimes, I heat them a little first to soften them. For this recipe I used 4 medium tomatoes and about 3 cups water. I think that makes an equivalent to about two 15 oz cans  or 1 28 oz can of canned tomatoes. You could probably just put the quarters in the chili and the simmering would soften them up, but my kinds never liked chunks of tomatoes in anything so I always blend them, even when using diced tomatoes from a can.

So, I hope you will try my chili con pollo.  It has four of the recommended foods for the MIND diet and none of the “avoid these” foods.

  • other vegetable
  • poultry
  • olive oil
  • beans

While there are not really any of the foods to avoid, I do need to make an improvement. You might notice that my photo show some oyster crackers in my chili. I love oyster crackers in chili, but I have not found any whole grain oyster crackers yet, at least locally. I did see some on Amazon, but I would have to buy a couple of years worth.  I might have to resort to making my own. That might be my next post.

By the way, I knew that the Spanish word for chicken is ‘pollo’ because I have taken some Spanish in school. However, those classes didn’t prepare me to speak or understand spoken Spanish.  I have now started on a quest to be able to speak and understand Spanish. My main reasons for doing this are because I always wanted to and there are an increasing number of Spanish-speaking people in our area. A bonus is that there is some evidence (or perhaps more hypothesizing) that learning a new language may help prevent cognitive decline. This i just one of the articles that describes why this might work.  While I am not convinced that there is strong research support for this connection, I am enjoying the process and might find it useful.  I am sharing this with you because I am assuming that if you are reading this post, you are interested in preventing cognitive decline.

Hasta la vista

 

 

 

 

Cheezy Sauce for the MIND diet

Cheese, Olive Oil, Recipes, The MIND Diet

Cheese is almost a no-no on the MIND diet. You have to eat it less than once a week to get the point for cheese. This has been one of my biggest struggles. It’s a good thing you don’t have to be perfect to reap at least some of the benefits.

One of my first posts was ‘No Queso Quesadillas’ in which I omitted the cheese altogether. That was OK and I tried to not miss the cheese, but I still would prefer cheese.  A couple of weeks ago a reader posted a comment on this recipe that nutritional yeast makes a substitute for cheese. I started googling and found other sites that agreed. So, I decided to try it. It look like it is a vegetarian staple.

My grocery store doesn’t carry nutritional yeast and it’s not very good ayeast packaget special requests, so I shopped for it on Amazon.  There were several options, but I decided to try the one from Bob’s Red Mill.

I got 8 oz. for $13.37. The package says that the contents contain about fifteen ¼ cup servings.

I decided to start with a cheezy sauce.  There are several recipes on the web, but since I bought Bob’s Red Mill brand I decided to start with the Red Mill recipe, with a few changes. This is my version, optimized for the MIND diet:

Cheezy Sauce for the MIND diet   Printable version

  • 1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
  • 1/4 cup White Whole Wheat flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 2 TBSP olive oil – light flavor
  • 1/2 tsp Dried Mustard

Instructions:

  • Mix the first 3 ingredients in a sauce pan. Add the water and whisk until smooth.
  • Cook over medium heat (6 out of 10 on my stove) until thick and bubbly – whisking frequently
  • Let simmer about a minute
  • Remove from heat and add olive oil and mustard

Makes about 1 ½ cup. Use immediately or refrigerate.cheezy sauce in pyrex

Cheezy sauce is about the right consistency when just off the stove to use on cauliflower or nachos.  When refrigerated, it thickens and looks kind of like Velveeta. The color is a bit more mustardy (even before you add the mustard). I am thinking that next time I will make it with 1% milk instead of water and that might tone down the color a bit.

So, how does it taste??

Straight off the spoon — not bad, but not great. Reminiscent of cheese, but a little off and it leaves a bit of an aftertaste.

One of the reasons that I had decided to try a cheezy sauce is that I recently made Rotel Cheese Dip for a party. You know – the kind with Velveeta Cheese and Rotel Tomatoes. I knew that was bad, but I ate some anyway. I wanted to find a way to make that taste “legal.”

So, I mixed 2 TBSP of my Cheezy sauce with 2 TBSP Rotel tomatoes.cheezy dip
That was edible but kind of runny. The second time I made it I drained most of the juice off the tomatoes and that worked a little better.  It’s still kind of runny. It might be less so if I had used butter or margarine instead of olive oil, but that would not be MIND diet friendly. The taste is not as strongly cheese as the original dip.  When I make it again, I think I will add less of the tomatoes.

Next, I am going to try it on cooked cauliflower and probably some nachos.

Do you have any ideas how to use nutritional yeast to make a yummy cheese-like dish? Or, another way to substitute for cheese?  Please comment.

 

 

Balsamic Vinaigrette Olive Oil Salad Dressing for the MIND diet

Olive Oil, Recipes

One of the requirements of the MIND diet is using olive oil as the primary oil.  The main place I use oil is in salad dressing. Now that I am eating a big green salad almost every day, I use even more oil that way (although I usually use only 1 TBSP on a side salad).

When I looked for store-bought salad dressings using olive oil, I didn’t see anything that looked good to me. I decided it was time to stop being lazy and try making my own.  I had been using Kraft Balsamic Vinaigrette most recently, so that is what I tried to imitate. Since I am also trying to cut down on calories, too, I am trying to make a light version.

I started with this recipe for Light Balsamic Vinaigrette Salad
Dressing.  It’s actually pretty close, but a little heavy on the vinegar. I added a TBSP of brown sugar this time. Next time, I will try a little less vinegar and a little more water.

Olive Oil Balsamic Vinaigrette

  • 1/2 cup Balsamic Vinegar
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 TBSP olive oil
  • 1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
  • 2 TBSP brown sugar
  • 2 tsp minced garlic (I use a microplane grater)
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp pepper

I just whisk it all together.  With that little bit of oil in it, you don’t have to worry much about getting it emulsified.

This recipe makes 3/4 cup. Add a little water if needed to make this amount. This is 12 TBSP.  I use 1 TBSP on a small dinner salad and 2 TBSP for a salad that is the whole meal.

One serving (1 TBSP) has 24 calories.

I am keeping this in the refrigerator, but I think this is just a habit. The ingredients wouldn’t have to be refrigerated individually and I will have it used up within 2 weeks at the most.

I considered using sweetener for at least half of the sugar, but it is pretty low calorie the way it is. I can never decide which is worse – sugar or sweetener.

This recipe doesn’t have much olive oil in it: 1/12 of a TBSP (1/4 tsp) per serving. I am assuming that it is not the consumption of olive oil that is the benefit but the fact that it is replacing the consumption of other oils.  At least with this as my salad dressing, I can say that olive oil is my primary oil. I probably need to do more research on this.

Next, I need to tackle olive oil-based mayo.

 

Pecan Cinnamon Scones for the MIND diet recipe makeover

Olive Oil, Recipes,

Scones are one of my favorite things to have for breakfast.  All of the recipes I have for them including cutting in butter or margarine sticks. I decided to try to use the rules I found to substitute olive oil for the sticks.  Looks like the rule is to use about 3/4 as much oil as the butter or margarine the recipe calls for.

I am using this Pecan Cinnamon Scones recipe as a starter. It looks good and I especially like that it has pecans in it, because I like pecans and because nuts are recommended on the MIND diet.  I used all whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, which was plenty sweet. Following the rule to use 3/4 as much olive oil as butter, I used 3/8 of a cup (6 TBSP) instead of 1/2 cup. I also used regular salt and regular 1% milk instead of buttermilk.

Pecan Cinnamon Scone
Pecan Cinnamon Scone

My scones turned out great!  The brown sugar and whole wheat is so good with the pecans.

They are moist yet a bit crumbly good. There is a down side, though. The calorie count with all those pecans is 372 per scone — more than I usually eat for breakfast.  Bur, they have whole grains, nuts, and olive oil.  I suppose they count as a “pastry or sweet” so I will have to count each as one of my four per week to get the point for avoiding pastries and sweets.

Pecan Cinnamon Scones for the MIND diet                 PDF version

  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 6 TBSP olive oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 4 to 5 TBSP 1% milk
  • 2 tsp. white sugar
  1. Toast the pecans in a 375 degree oven for 5 minutes, turning after each minute.
  2. Mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
  3. Whisk the egg and add the olive oil and vanilla to it.
  4. Gently stir the liquid into the dry ingredients just until barely mixed.
  5. Add 4 TBSP of the milk and the pecans.
  6. Mix gently as little as possible. Knead it with clean hands right in the bowl. If it doesn’t cling together well, add 1 more TBSP milk.
  7. Turn out onto greased baking pan and pat into a round disc about 6 to 7 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick.
  8. Cut into 8 wedges but don’t separate.
  9. Sprinkle with the white sugar
  10. Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Scone after kneading in bowl
Scones after kneading in bowl
Scones after than have been cut
Scones after they have been cut

 

nutrtition info
Calculated in MyFitnessPal