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Extra virgin olive oil might be the most common staple in the biohacker kitchen, but there is massive variation between the oils.
Polyphenols may be a reason for the association between olive oil consumption and improved health outcomes1 2 3.
Common brands have between 50-250 mg/kg of polyphenols, while high-phenolic oils typically provide around 400-900 mg/kg.4.
For example, Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint Snake Oil is 438 mg/kg, and the one I’m currently using is Oilalà, which has roughly double that at 847 mg/kg.
Neither of those oils even come close to making the top 5, but we will include them at the end for the value comparisons.
There’s an ongoing competition between producers to see who can come up with the highest polyphenol content, with the bar being raised all the time, so let’s see who’s on top right now.
5: PhenOLIV Organic High Phenolic
PhenOLIV has the lowest amount of polyphenols on this list, which is pretty incredible given that it has 2,011 mg/kg.
The price on their website is $29 for 200ml. The prices I’m giving are in USD to make it easier to compare.
4: Pamako Organic Monovarietal
Pamako steps it up in both polyphenol content and value. It has 2,081 mg/kg and costs $35 for 500ml, making it about half the price of PhenOLIV.
3: Hypereleon Ultra Gold
Hypereleon has won over 120 awards for their range, and their Ultra Gold has an even higher 2,150 mg/kg of polyphenols.
Some would put this one in 1st place as the best olive oil overall, due to its high quality HPLC testing, low acidity, and high vitamin content.
It costs $104 for 260ml, so it’s a lot more expensive than the previous 2 entries.
2: Atsas Gold Limited Edition
The top offering from Atsas steps it up with a big 2,663mg/kg, but that also comes with a big increase in price: $331 for 250mL.
1: Sparta Green Label
Sparta have the highest polyphenol content I found for the current harvest year, at a whopping 3,501mg/kg. That’s not even their highest count ever; in one previous year, it was measured at over 4,000mg/kg!
Prices vary online but the cheapest I found was $386 for 250mL, which again is a big hit.
Comparison
It’s really interesting to see how far producers can push their olives, but for regular people, it’s not likely we will buy the most expensive ones.
Let’s try to find the best value in the list, with some more common ones thrown in as a baseline.
| Product | Price/100mL oil | Price/mg polyphenols |
|---|---|---|
| Blueprint | $5 | 13c |
| Oilalà | $4 | 5c |
| PhenOLIV | $15 | 8c |
| Pamako | $7 | 4c |
| Hypereleon | $42 | 21c |
| Atsas | $132 | 55c |
| Sparta | $154 | 48c |
Now that we’ve standardized these numbers, we can see that the best value for those who want the most polyphenols are Pamako and Oilalà.
Conclusion
If you’re rich and you just want the most polyphenols, all of the top 3 options will be wonderful. Otherwise I recommend considering the better value options.
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