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Mostly fats and carbs (sugars). A teaspoon of olive oil is about 40 calories. And most people use a lot more than they realize, especially when it requires saut

Mostly fats and carbs (sugars). A teaspoon of olive oil is about 40 calories. And most people use a lot more than they realize, especially when it requires sauteing. That can add up quick. Also, using fattier cuts of meat compared to leaner cuts (chicken thighs vs breasts). Of course that's part of the "fat" equation. Besides flavor, mouthfeel is part of what makes a food taste good. Fats usually provide good mouthfeel for the average people. What I do to minimize the amount of calories I need to use is use non stick spray (near 0 calories for a splash of oil), leaner cuts of meat, and sugar substitutes like stevia. If you give people a meatloaf using turkey, sugar free ketchup, no breadcrumbs, and minimal use of oil OR a meatloaf using 80/20 ground beef with bread crumbs and real ketchup, they'll probably pick the "unhealthier" meatloaf if the seasonings are equal.

feoren 6y ago
I don't have evidence for this but my gut tells me that people are not getting fat off of olive oil, and in fact if they used more it would tend to offset a larger number of calories from other sources.
- meowzero 6y ago
  Olive oil is a fat. There is 120 calories for 1 tablespoon. Sure it’s healthy fat, but it still has a lot of calories. Butter actually has less calories per tablespoon than olive oil.
  - giantDinosaur 6y ago
    Nobody disputes olive oil's caloric content. It does seem like a stretch though to imply it has anything to do with the obesity crisis in the western world. Olive oil is not a recent introduction to our diets. Perhaps people are using much, much more - but that seems somewhat implausible, it doesn't actually taste that good by itself and I'd like to see something showing that the amount use to sauté the average unit of food has increased significantly in the past few decades. Either way, having tried/trying to gain weight I can confirm that olive oil is not particularly useful in that respect, it's easy to get ~80 calories with it but difficult to go beyond that. In a lot of cases you will not consume all the oil you used for frying or whatever anyway - so it is also misleading to imply that the volume used in cooking equals calories ingested, and unless you're cooking for yourself only, the amount needed to sauté e.g. onions is basically constant for 1-5 people, so you'd likely be consuming only a fraction.

feoren 6y ago

I don't have evidence for this but my gut tells me that people are not getting fat off of olive oil, and in fact if they used more it would tend to offset a larger number of calories from other sources.

meowzero 6y ago
Olive oil is a fat. There is 120 calories for 1 tablespoon. Sure it’s healthy fat, but it still has a lot of calories. Butter actually has less calories per tablespoon than olive oil.
- giantDinosaur 6y ago
  Nobody disputes olive oil's caloric content. It does seem like a stretch though to imply it has anything to do with the obesity crisis in the western world. Olive oil is not a recent introduction to our diets. Perhaps people are using much, much more - but that seems somewhat implausible, it doesn't actually taste that good by itself and I'd like to see something showing that the amount use to sauté the average unit of food has increased significantly in the past few decades. Either way, having tried/trying to gain weight I can confirm that olive oil is not particularly useful in that respect, it's easy to get ~80 calories with it but difficult to go beyond that. In a lot of cases you will not consume all the oil you used for frying or whatever anyway - so it is also misleading to imply that the volume used in cooking equals calories ingested, and unless you're cooking for yourself only, the amount needed to sauté e.g. onions is basically constant for 1-5 people, so you'd likely be consuming only a fraction.