Bone Broth Got a 3. Olive Oil Just Keeps Winning.

Every January, the food world hands out report cards. This year's verdict was clear: the ingredients built on whole, real food are pulling ahead. Bone broth, once the centrepiece of every gut-health shelf, is losing its place. Extra virgin olive oil — a ritual older than nutrition science itself — keeps climbing.

This isn't a passing trend. It's a pattern worth understanding.

The diet that keeps winning

In the US, US News & World Report has ranked the Mediterranean diet the world's best overall diet for the better part of a decade. The ranking isn't opinion — it leans on trial data like Spain's landmark PREDIMED trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil measurably reduced major cardiovascular events compared with a low-fat control diet.

Olive oil is not a side character in that diet. It is the diet's main fat source, present in almost every meal, every day, across the populations researchers keep studying. No capsule replicates that. No powder does either.

Why the body notices real olive oil

This isn't a claim built on vibes. Genuine extra virgin olive oil carries:

• Polyphenols — plant compounds linked to lower inflammation and oxidative stress
• Oleocanthal — the compound behind its peppery finish, with anti-inflammatory effects a study published in Nature found comparable to ibuprofen
• Monounsaturated fats — the fats that support healthy cholesterol
• Oleic acid — now studied for its role in mitochondrial function and cellular ageing

The bodies responsible for public health guidance agree, on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, the British Heart Foundation points to a 24-year study linking a daily swap of saturated fat for olive oil with a 5–7% lower risk of heart disease. In the US, the American Heart Association cites a large cohort study finding that people consuming more than half a tablespoon of olive oil daily had lower rates of premature death from cardiovascular disease and other causes.

Fresh olive oil is alive. That is not a marketing line — it is closer to fresh fruit juice than a processed cooking oil, and it behaves like one: vibrant, fragrant, and changing with time.

A ritual, not a regimen

What today's wellness data actually shows is a shift toward identity, not just outcome. People are not only asking whether something works — they are asking whether it fits a life worth living. That is a fair standard to hold a daily ritual to.

It is the standard Oliiv is built around. A harvest-dated bottle. A pour with real depth and flavour. Not a compliance checkbox, but a small, deliberate act — repeated daily — the same way it has been across the Mediterranean coast for generations.

The takeaway

Food trend scorecards will keep arriving every year. Most of what tops them will be forgotten by next January. Extra virgin olive oil has held its place for roughly 5,000 years, and this year's research gave it one more reason to stay there.

The ritual doesn't need reinventing. It needs the real thing — fresh, harvest-dated, and put at the centre of the day.

Sources: US News & World Report Best Diets · PREDIMED trial, NEJM · Oleocanthal/ibuprofen study, Nature · British Heart Foundation · American Heart Association.