Considering the health craze of avoiding linoleic acid, and eating extra virgin olive oil:
Linoleic Acid cannot be synthesized by humans, so it is an essential fatty acid.
Replacing saturated fat (an unessential fat) with this lower LDL cholesterol, and by a lot.
Signs of deficiency in children: Dry scaly rash, decreased growth, increased risk of infection, and poor wound healing.
Minimum intake is 11-12 g/day for women, and 14-17 g/day for males. Younger adults need toward the latter end of the range.
1 tablespoon of safflower oil gives 10.1 g of linoleic acid.
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil is 8.9 g of linoleic acid.
1 tablespoon of olive oil is 1.24 g of linoleic acid.
So olive oil is very low in this essential fat.
So to get adequate amount of linoleic acid, around one-two tablespoons of sunflower oil is enough. To get enough α-Linolenic acid, an other essential fatty acid, around 1/5th of a tablespoon of flaxseed oil is enough, some EPA/DHA supplement helps too.
So having vegetables and sweet potato (fat soluble vitamins) with some sunflower oil and a little bit of flax oil is probably a good idea. And to eat some nuts and seeds every day.
Although care must be taken in handling and processing of canola oil and other vegetable oils, canola oil is a safe and healthy form of fat that will reduce blood LDL cholesterol levels and heart disease risk compared to carbohydrates or saturated fats such as found in beef tallow or butter.Indeed, in a randomized trial that showed one of the most striking reductions in risk of heart disease, canola oil was used as the primary form of fat. [8] Whether using cold-pressed canola oil provides some small additional benefit is not clear.
Canola oil has 1.3 g of Alpha-linolenic acid per tablespoon.
One population study found that eating a diet rich in alpha-linolenic acid reduced the risk of high blood pressure by about 30%.
I can’t find how much linoleic acid there is in it.
