STORY: Could these green olives help soccer players recover faster and play harder?
That’s what business partners Nicolas Netien and Nick Schizas believe.
From these olive groves in Cyprus they’re producing capsules of early-harvest oil, that they say have been supplied to elite athletes, from soccer players to cyclists.
“There’s a tradition in the Mediterranean, especially in Greece and Cyprus, of doing some olive oil really early in the season when the olives are still green, like we do. And this oil was kept at home to be used as a medicine. So what we are doing is we are taking this traditional ancient knowledge with thousands of years of empirical evidence and we bring the science to it.”
The benefits come, they say, through picking the olives early when they still contain high levels of polyphenols – which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits.
There is – as yet – no scientific proof the oils improve endurance or recovery.
A study is underway by Cypriot universities researching the impact of high phenolic olive oil, on the performance of athletes. The producers say the results already speak for themselves.
“…I was a FIFA licensed agent, and when this came across, I thought I’d give it to some of the players that I was working with. And they were coming back feeling a lot more, like, much more energy. They were recovering quicker between their games, between their training, and without even me sort of pushing them, they were coming back and asking for more”.
As for how to consume them; there a few different ways:
“You can put it on your food, you can put it in your smoothie, in your coffee.”… “But the way I do it is I bite on the tip there (bites into capsule) Ahh!”.
Dining and Cooking