'Olive Oil: Production - Composition - Quality. Its Role on Nutrition and Health and Mainly on Preventing Oxidative Stress' is the title of a talk organised by the Department of Food Sciences and Nutrition at the Faculty of Health Sciences.
The talk will be held on Wednesday 10 April, at 12:00 in Seminar Room 2 (C2) Opposite Mater Dei Chapel, Mater Dei Hospital.
For more information contact Prof. Vasilis Valdramidis.
Description
Olive oil, is a natural juice obtained from the fruit of the tree Olea europaea, by mechanical means. It is a naturally monounsaturated oil containing polyphenols, flavones and other compounds that have strong antioxidant properties. Olive oil also contains other micro-components, such as aroma and taste compounds, pigments (chlorophyll, pheophytin), both of which, contribute to its good aroma and taste and further more facilitate the absorption of all of the useful components (e.g antioxidants) presend in the food.
Quality of olive oil is affected by several factors such as cultivar, fruit maturity, micro-environment and processing technology (two - phase or three - phase decanter). Phenols and other constituents of olive oil characterized as functional constituents are seriously affected by the processing techniques and the conditions applied.
Antioxidants present in good quality olive oil protect our body from oxidation stress, which causes several diseases (e.g stroke, atherosclerosis, cancer, early aging ) and is the result of the unbalance between free radicals formed in our body and the presence of antioxidants. It should be mentioned that two important phenolic compounds oleocanthal and oleacin have similar action with ibuprofen in preventing inflammation.
The purpose of this presentation is to provide information about the production and quality of olive oil and mainly of its functional constituents and to provide an overview of evidence that good quality olive oil, is an important original functional lipid food, playing a very important role in our health protecting us from several diseases and even has an effect in successful aging.
