The Food is Medicine (FIM) movement is a growing national effort to integrate nutrition more directly into healthcare by recognizing food as a key tool for preventing, managing, and even treating chronic disease. Though there are some conceptual overlaps, in contrast to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, FIM is primarily policy-driven, health-system oriented, and relatively non-partisan.
It includes initiatives such as medically tailored meals, produce prescription programs, and nutrition counseling covered by healthcare systems aimed towards bridging the gap between the clinic and the kitchen. At its core, FIM emphasizes that access to nourishing, whole foods and nutrition should be considered essential components of healthcare, not optional add-ons.
When it comes to getting the word out about health initiatives and healthy lifestyle habits, visuals can be powerful, and if we want to get people’s attention in a positive way, it’s time for an upgrade. My colleagues and I in the nutrition community often laugh at how an apple and a measuring tape are often used in graphics related to the topic of nutrition. For starters, it’s completely overplayed, but also, it misses the point that a healthy diet is about so much more than weight and waist circumference. So what might we choose instead for an update?
So, coming back to FIM: if we were to choose a single food to put on a Food is Medicine poster—one that has the opportunity to be a catalyst for promoting food-based nutritional interventions into healthcare and be a step-one in adopting healthier eating patterns— it’s hard to think of a more worthy food than olive oil.
Here are five reasons why:
1. For the Food is Medicine symbol to be the most effective, it should come from one of the healthy food groups cited by the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute: fruits, nuts, fish, vegetables, plant oils, whole grains, beans, and yogurt. Because fats serve as a foundational building block for all eating patterns—including in the preparation of dishes made with the other healthy food groups—a great choice would be a widely available, nutrient-dense, and minimally processed plant oil. Olive oil checks that box.
2. Several years ago, when The New York Times reported on a Morning Consult poll asking nutritionists what foods they considered healthy, olive oil was on the top-10 list, and for good reason. From a health standpoint, no other plant oil has been so thoroughly researched and studied, with strong evidence supporting olive oil’s role in preventing and/or treating a wide array of chronic diseases, in many cases due to its anti-inflammatory properties. Consuming olive oil has even been shown to be effective in treating obesity, one of the nation’s most pressing health problems. An observational study found that among all fats, including butter and other plant-based oils, only the consumption of olive oil was inversely associated with weight gain.
3. Consumers already have a high awareness that olive oil is healthy. In that same Morning Consult poll, consumers were also asked to name healthy foods, and they also ranked olive oil among the top 10 healthiest plant-based foods you can eat—even outperforming kale!
4. Among widely available healthy plant oils (those rich in monounsaturated fat and low in saturated fats), extra virgin olive oil is hands-down the least processed. It’s extracted mechanically without chemicals or high heat and unrefined, and as a result, rich in healthy bioactive compounds like antioxidants, phenols, and squalene, which many researchers believe provide the mechanisms for its impact on our health. Although avocado oil is extracted the same way and also a great source of healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, the vast majority of avocado oil in the market is refined, and the high heat from the processing destroys natural bioactives. This makes extra virgin olive oil a standout option.
5. From a culinary standpoint, extra virgin olive oil is delicious itself, but more importantly, it makes other healthy foods, like vegetables, beans, fruits, fish, and whole grains taste better too. When challenged by health professionals who questioned the logic of promoting the vegetable-dense Mediterranean diet in places like the U.S. where the population generally doesn’t like to eat vegetables, Dr. Antonia Trichopolou, Head of the Center for Public Health Research and Education at the, Academy of Athens, whom many consider the godmother of the Med diet, responded that Greeks don’t like vegetables any more than Americans do—unless they’re cooked in olive oil. And yes, “cooked” in olive oil is key. It’s widely known that extra virgin olive oil is perfect to use raw as a condiment or in dressing salads, but many people still believe it’s not safe to cook with. However, olive oil is actually a very safe—if not the safest—oil to cook with, making it both healthy and versatile.
Not surprisingly, apples were at the top of the Morning Consult lists for both nutritionists and consumers. We’re all familiar with the old adage about an apple a day keeping the doctor away, but for the reasons stated above, I’m convinced extra virgin olive oil would be even more effective in conveying the core FIM principles and inspiring healthy changes.
Jessica Cording, MS, RD, CDN, IFNCP is a dietitian, health coach author, and speaker.