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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. .