What is olive oil for? 

Olive oil has many uses in many fields and facets of our life. 
Some of them are the following ones: 

Olive oil serves in the kitchen as food: 

Olive oil is a vegetable fat used mainly as a food. It contributes 9 KCalories per gram. Our body use it mainly as a source of energy and to build the cell membranes of our organisms.

The most common uses in the kitchen are: 

- For dressing salads and meats. 

- As an ingredient for sauces, such as mayonnaise and aioli or vinaigrettes. 

- In Mediterranean countries it is used to fry food: meat, fish, potatoes, eggplant, croquettes. (Tips for frying with olive oil, advantages of frying with olive oil)

- Olive oil is used in high-level restaurants with bread as a starter of the meal replacing the butter. 

- Olive oil is consumed raw in breakfasts with toasted bread. In some parts, you add crushed tomatoes, garlic, salt or sugar. (How to choose the best olive oil for breakfast).

- Olive oil serves as a preservative. It does not proliferate bacteria and microorganisms that in other ways, such as water or milk. This is why it is used in the canning industry: there are canned sardines in olive oil, tuna in olive oil, octopus in olive oil, etc. In the same way, it has been also used in homemade way as preservatives: cheese in olive oil, loin in olive oil or lard, etc.

-Mild olive oils are being used more and more in bakery. The olive oil in sweets, cookies and biscuits is used to make them healthier than if they had been made with butter. (Use olive oil in bakery).

Olive oil is used to improve our health:

Olive oil has many health benefits, (and with each investigation are discovered more and more) 

- Olive oil serves, along with a balanced diet and a little daily exercise, to reduce the risk of suffering from cardiovascular disease.

- Olive oil is used to reduce the total cholesterol levels, and helps to reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) and to increase the good one levels (HDL). (How does olive oil help to reduce cholesterol?) 

-Extra virgin olive oil with high levels of polyphenols helps to prevent triglycerides from rusting in the blood torrent and causing lesions on the blood vessels.

- Olive oil serves to reduce the Omega 6/Omega 3 ratio. Currently this relationship is around 10. Experts suggest that it should be between 5 and 3. This ratio is so high today because the food industry uses in its prepared dishes many oils rich in omega 6 (sunflower oil). Since olive oil is mainly rich in Omega 9, replacing sunflower oil with olive oil helps to reduce this quotient.

- Olive oil also improves intestinal transit and serves against bad breath. 

- Olive oil is often used as a gastric protector. Some mothers give their children a few tablespoons before their young children go out on weekends and consume alcohol.

- Some  scientific investigations have recently been carried out in which the consumption of olive oil decreases the incidence of certain types of cancer. On the other hand, a molecule discovered in olive oil, oleocanthal has anti-inflammatory properties similar to ibuprofen, and some investigations have demonstrated antitumoural activity in vitro.

You can know all the benefits of olive oil in this link.

Olive oil for beauty, cosmetics and hygiene:

- Olive oil serves since historical times to make soaps. Currently there are many creams, gels and soaps whose base is olive oil.

- In the world of cosmetics olive oil has been used as a skin moisturizer. This is due, among other components, to the presence of squalene. This prevents the formation of wrinkles and keep our skin young and soft. 

- Olive oil is also used to hydrate and nourish our hair. It is usually applied from the root to the ends, by doing a soft massage and covering your head with a hot towel. Clears up after five minutes.

- Olive oil is used to apply to the skin after a burn. After washing the burning area with fresh water, olive oil is applied to it. The olive oil hydrates the area of the burned skin and reduces the risk of infection. 

- Olive oil is also good for removing thorns, stings and splinters that have been stuck in the skin. Apply a little olive oil in the area and with some tweezers are removed easily.

Olive oil in the Christianity: 

Olive oil has a great prominence in the Old and the New Testament: 

- Samuel the Prophet anointed Saul with olive oil to be King of Israel. In the same way it happened with the rest of the Kings. The word "Christ" means anointed, in reference to this ritual of symbolic blessing with olive oil.

-Olive oil serves as the basis of the Saints oils, used in the anointing Sacrament of sick, and the chrism, used in baptism and confirmation.

Other uses of olive oil:

- Olive oil is an excellent homemade lubricant. It prevents rattle hinges, can be used to grease chains and bicycle gears. 

- Olive oil also serves as a temporary protector of metal parts against oxidative processes.

- In some special situations, olive oil has been used as a motor vehicle fuel. This is quite unusual because olive oil is quite expensive to use in these needs. For example in Spain, after the Civil War, truck engines were modified so that they could use olive oil as fuel.

-In antiquity, olive oil was used as fuel. So olive oil was used to feed oil lamps (like Aladdin's). Obviously, the worst quality olive oil, called Lampante, was the used one. The word lampante is still being used nowadays to name the worst quality olive oil that is not suitable for human consumption.