Olive oil is not the problem. The pour is.
Το ελαιόλαδο δεν φταίει. Η ποσότητα φταίει.
Every piece of nutrition advice written in the last forty years agrees that olive oil is good for you. None of them mention that it is 884 calories per 100 g, which is more than sugar, more than bread, and more than the chicken you are cooking in it.
Both things are true
Olive oil genuinely is among the better fats available and the Mediterranean pattern of eating genuinely does look good in the research. It is also the densest source of calories in most Greek and Cypriot kitchens, and those two facts do not cancel each other out.
What the numbers are
- A level tablespoon is about 13.5 g — roughly 119 calories
- A free pour into a hot pan is commonly 30 to 40 g — roughly 265 to 350
- A tray of roasted vegetables, generously done, can take 50 g — about 440
- Fried aubergine absorbs an extraordinary amount: a tray can take 200 g of oil, which is around 1,770 calories going into the aubergine
That last one is why moussaka has the reputation it has. It is not the meat and it is not the potato. It is that the aubergine was fried.
What to do about it
Roast what you would fry. Aubergine brushed with 30 g of oil and roasted hard tastes very nearly the same as fried and costs about 1,500 calories less across a whole tray.
Use a spoon for cooking oil and keep the free pour for the finish, where you actually taste it. Oil poured raw over a salad or a rusk at the end delivers far more flavour per calorie than oil that has been heated in a pan.
And weigh it for two weeks. Not forever — just long enough that you know what 10 g looks like coming out of your own bottle. After that you can stop.
The bit people get wrong in the other direction
Do not remove it. Fat carries flavour and fat-soluble vitamins, and a meal with no fat in it is a meal you will not make twice. The books weigh the oil precisely so that it can stay in.
Greek and Cypriot dinners rebuilt so the protein is the point — including the ones you were told to give up.
18+. General information about food, not medical advice. EVZO is not run by dietitians, nutritionists or doctors. Not suitable during pregnancy or breastfeeding, with a history of disordered eating, or alongside a medically prescribed diet.