Download - The Veg Fruit
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My diet is the sun and moon; when I eat well (about 95% of the time), I am a bit health-crazy. However,
if I decide to take a leisurely retreat from my healthy habits, I enjoy my break thoroughly. My diet most
days can be termed a vegetarian diet. A loose definition of vegetarianism is a diet that excludes meat,
fish, and poultry. Therefore, meals can be expected to consist of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, etc. Of
course, this is excluding that 5% of the time when I ache for a steak. Anyway, the main reason I became
a vegetarian was that I wanted to be just like Tina Turner, also a vegetarian. No, just joking. Actually it
was a decision made during my years at community college. A boy handed me a flyer with a website on
it that, out of sheer curiosity, I looked up. For twenty minutes I watched blood drain from animals while
they were still alive and I saw animals beaten, kicked, cursed, and tortured. After that, it did not really
matter whether it was a gimmick or not; I just could not go back to meat. I later learned that 18% of the
worlds pollution was due to animal production and that the overconsumption of meat in American was
leading to our populations increase ofobesity, cancer, and heart attacks (Bittman). Although I believe
that vegetarianism was a wonderful decision for me, it did require me to find new edible favorites. One
of these discoveries was olives, which do not just have interesting origins, but delicious and amazingly
healthy benefits.
Olives are fruits of the Olea europea tree (a remarkable tree that typically lives for hundreds of years).
As just-picked olives are too bitter to eat, curing methods depending on the olive variety, region
cultivated, and desired taste, texture, and color are used to reduce their intrinsic bitterness before they
are consumed. Contrary to belief, olive color does not always correlate to olive maturity. Some olives
start green and remain green or end up black, while others start black and remain so or turn green. For
instance, the California Mission Olive, which is the olive that is particularly unique in the United States,
are typically picked green and un-ripened, lye-cured, and exposed to air to trigger the oxidation and
conversion to a black outer coat (Slevkoff). In addition to the olives scrumptious taste, they are known
to promote numerous health-protection nutrients. Most recognized are the olives considerable
antioxidant and anti-flammatory properties. On another note, diets containing olives also decrease therisk of osteoporosis in estrogen lacking individuals; a health benefit discovered by French researchers
testing the effects of olive rich diets on ovary-less rats (Olives).
As olives are a delectable treat and remarkable source of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory
phytonutrients that have the potential to protect from diseases in the cardiovascular, respiratory,
nervous, musculoskeletal, immune, inflammatory, and digestive systems, I think we all have a perfect
excuse to eat these black and green treats daily.
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Bibliography
Shifko, Robert. Nutritional Benefits of Black Olives. LIVESTRONG.COM The Limitless Potential of You.
17 October 2010. eHow Health. 16 January 2013. < http://www.livestrong.com/article/281836-
nutritional-benefits-of-black-olives>.
California MissionOlive. Slow Food USA Supporting Good, Clean, and Fair Food. Mission Olive
Preservation, Restoration and Education Project (MOPREP). 16 January 2013. .
Slevkoff, Jack. How I Cure: Olives Using a solution of water and lye. GemWorld. 16 January 2013. .
Vegetarianism in a Nutshell. The Vegetarian Resource Group: Vegetarianism in a Nutshell. The
Vegetarian Resource Group. 16 January 2013. < http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/nutshell.htm#what>.
Olives. The Worlds Healthiest Foods. The George Mateljan Foundation. 16 January 2013. .