
Are seed oils lighter than extra virgin olive oil?
Very often we hear someone say that seed oils are "lighter" than extra virgin olive oil, but there is nothing further from the truth. This statement is certainly due to particular advertisements that have led to false beliefs in the consumer. Seed oil is generally an industrial product, extracted with chemical processes and with the use of solvents.
Research on the subject has shown that extra virgin olive oil, whose main component is oleic acid (monounsaturated), is the most tolerated by the stomach. In fact, our stomach makes a considerably greater effort to digest a seed oil than to digest an equal quantity of extra virgin olive oil; if we are dealing with corn oil, the effort is even triple.
Certainly, seed and olive oils differ in many things, but as regards the caloric intake, that is the amount of energy they provide to our body and the amount of "fat" they deposit in our body, they are perfectly identical. Seed and olive oils, in fact, all provide us with about nine Kcal. per gram, the only difference is that seed oil is tasteless, so more is used, while a few drops of a good extra virgin olive oil are enough. The first element that already makes us recognize a seed oil from an olive oil and which can easily make us think of a greater lightness, is the much lighter colour than olive oil.