What makes olive oil so healthy is the oil’s unique combination of healthy monounsaturated fats and powerful antioxidants known as polyphenols. .This combination helps block the oxidation of LDL cholesterol. Most have heard that LDL cholesterol is that “bad” cholesterol. Really, it is the oxidation of LDL cholesterol fuels relentless inflammation, which in turn causes coronary heart diseases among many other diseases.
Many other oils used in cooking and in processed foods such as palm, soybean, corn oil or vegetable oil can become hydrogenated. Hydrogenation, complete or partial, is a chemical process in which hydrogen is added to liquid oils to turn them into a solid form. Partially hydrogenated fat molecules have trans fats, and they may be the worst type of fat you can consume.
These oils are heated anywhere from five hundred to one thousand degrees under several atmospheres of pressure.
They then inject a catalyst into the oil for several hours. The catalyst is typically a metal such a nickel, platinum or even aluminum. As this bubbles up into the oil the molecular structure changes and increases in density and rearranges its molecules so that instead of a liquid at room temperature we now have either semi-solid or solid oil. This creates either partially hydrogenated or fully hydrogenated oils.
Hydrogenated oil is only one molecule away from being plastic. When you eat anything containing this material, just as the oil is now thicker and more viscous (dense), so too does your blood become thicker and more viscous right along with it. The heart now has to work so much harder to pump blood throughout the system. This is one of the major ways that consuming hydrogenated oils contributes to high blood pressure.
Some studies have shown that negative health effects of eating processed foods occurs within only minutes of consuming such foods.
This thicker blood which has a harder time pumping through the arteries and up to the brain. Hydrogenated oils can slow the micro circulation of blood through the body and brain increasing the risk of the same ailments that olive oil can protect against. Aluminum used in the hydrogenation process has been linked to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in a number of studies.
