All You Need to Know About Polyphenols

There is a huge amount of buzz around polyphenols and their role in our general health. While polyphenols exist naturally in plenty of plants, in certain plants you can find them in higher concentrations and certain polyphenols are also far more beneficial for you.

 

There is a selection of powerful polyphenols in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is why it has been considered a natural superfood since antiquity. If you are here reading this, you may already be aware of that, but rather than just know the headline, it may be useful to know a bit more about what these polyphenols are and why we need them in our daily diet.

 

So, what are polyphenols?

They are a family of antioxidants or naturally occurring organic compounds in plants. Also known as biophenols, they are good at scavenging free radicals and have been shown to have a major impact on preventing, slowing the effects or even contributing to the fight against chronic illnesses.

 

There are more than 8,000 individual polyphenols found in plants and available to us to consume – 36 polyphenols have been identified in Extra Virgin Olive Oil alone, offering a complex set of goodness.

 

The principal polyphenols you have probably heard about are oleocanthal, oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol. These powerhouse polyphenols…

 

 

Which Extra Virgin Olive Oils have higher concentrations of polyphenols?

Naturally, not all olives have the same polyphenolic potential. It depends on the cultivar, the time of harvesting, the climate, the location and then also the way that the olives are handled in the mill. These are all things that are hard to understand from the label and that is why we are here to help you navigate this.

 

Being as Extra Virgin Olive Oil is essentially freshly pressed juice, the polyphenols also go on a journey through the lifespan of the oil – they are found in higher concentrations when the oil has just been pressed. This is a principal reason why we only offer our oils once a year for a limited window of time – it gives you access to the very freshest oils with the highest concentrations of polyphenols.

 

 

What constitutes a high polyphenol Extra Virgin Olive Oil?

A red flag for me is if anyone claims their oil to have the highest polyphenol level – this is something that is determined by nature and changes from year to year. It is also impossible to know all levels of polyphenols because they are not publicly published. So that’s just a marketing spin.

What you should know is that for an Extra Virgin Olive Oil to be considered as having high polyphenol levels, we are looking at around 250mg/kg as confirmed by the EU Regulation 432/2012 health act. This typically rules out oils that have been harvested later in the season, that have been delayed in getting to the mill, that have been handled with anything less than extreme precision in the mill itself.

 

All of the oils that we offer are over this threshold of 250mg/kg. Many of them are regularly (year after year) over 750mg/kg and occasionally we have one or two oils that are over 1,000mg/kg. But this depends on nature and the hands of the frantoiani – it is a fine art that requires an incredible amount of skill. We have certificates for all of the oils that we work with and we track the polyphenol levels each year, this mapping process helps us to understand quite a lot about the climatic changes, the cultivars and the people who we trust and work with.