The Olive Oil Shot Trend: Should You Really Drink Extra Virgin Olive Oil Every Morning?

Scroll through wellness content lately and you may notice an old Mediterranean staple appearing in a surprisingly new format: the morning olive oil shot.

People are swallowing a spoonful or small shot of extra virgin olive oil on its own — sometimes mixed with lemon — with claims ranging from better digestion to glowing skin and improved general wellbeing. The trend has become prominent enough to feature among the major wellness movements of 2026.

But olive oil itself isn't new.

For thousands of years, Mediterranean communities have been using it every day. The difference is that traditionally, they haven't needed to treat olive oil like a supplement.

They simply eat it.

And that may be the more enjoyable way to make high-quality extra virgin olive oil part of your daily routine.

Why olive oil is suddenly having a wellness moment

Today's food trends are increasingly moving beyond calories and macronutrients toward what are often called functional foods — foods valued not only for nourishment and flavour, but also for naturally occurring compounds such as polyphenols. Interest in polyphenols and antioxidant-rich foods continues to feature prominently in current functional-food research.

Extra virgin olive oil fits naturally into that conversation.

Unlike refined oils, genuine extra virgin olive oil retains naturally occurring minor compounds from the olive fruit, including polyphenols.

And that's one reason the quality and freshness of the oil matter.

Not every bottle labelled olive oil delivers the same flavour, freshness or composition.

So, should you take a shot of olive oil?

You can.

But you don't have to.

There isn't something magical about drinking olive oil from a shot glass rather than enjoying it as part of a meal.

In fact, one of the great advantages of extra virgin olive oil is how easily it becomes part of food you already eat.

Drizzle it generously over tomatoes.

Finish grilled vegetables with it.

Pour it over beans and lentils.

Dress a salad with fresh EVOO and vinegar.

Spoon it over sourdough instead of reaching automatically for butter.

Finish pasta, soup or grilled fish with a fresh pour just before serving.

That's much closer to the way olive oil has traditionally been consumed within Mediterranean-style eating: regularly, generously and as part of real food.

The overlooked question: how fresh is your olive oil?

The viral trend focuses on how people consume olive oil.

We think there's another question worth asking:

What olive oil are you consuming?

Extra virgin olive oil isn't a product that improves indefinitely in the bottle.

It's fresh fruit juice, essentially — extracted from olives — and its flavour and aromatic character evolve after pressing.

A recently harvested oil can be dramatically different from an older bottle that's spent months sitting under supermarket lighting or in a warm cupboard.

Fresh oil can deliver vibrant aromas of freshly cut grass, herbs, green tomato and artichoke, depending on the olive variety.

It can also carry the bitterness and peppery sensation that surprises people tasting genuinely fresh extra virgin olive oil for the first time.

Those characteristics aren't flaws.

They're part of what makes fresh olive oil exciting.

This is where Olio Nuovo comes in

Olio nuovo literally means new oil.

It's the oil produced at the beginning of the olive harvest and enjoyed while its fresh-harvest character is at its most expressive.

Instead of thinking about olive oil as something anonymous that permanently lives at the back of the pantry, olio nuovo encourages you to think about it as a seasonal food.

Something connected to a harvest.

A place.

A variety of olive.

And a particular moment in the year.

That's the philosophy behind Olio Nuovo.

We source fresh harvest olive oil across both hemispheres, allowing our customers to experience newly harvested oil more than once a year rather than waiting twelve months for the next local harvest.

The Mediterranean habit beats the wellness hack

Wellness trends come and go.

Olive oil doesn't need one.

Global olive oil consumption recovered to more than 3.2 million tonnes in the 2024/25 crop year, according to the International Olive Council, showing that olive oil remains far more than a niche wellness product.

For Mediterranean cultures, olive oil has never been a mysterious health hack.

It's breakfast.

It's lunch.

It's dinner.

It's cooking.

It's dressing.

It's dipping.

It's finishing.

Perhaps the most useful thing about the current olive oil shot trend isn't that everyone suddenly needs to start drinking oil from a glass.

It's that people are paying closer attention to the olive oil they're consuming.

And once you start paying attention, freshness becomes difficult to ignore.

Try this instead of an olive oil shot

Tomorrow morning, skip the shot glass.

Toast a good piece of sourdough.

Add ripe tomato.

Pour fresh extra virgin olive oil generously over the top.

Add a little sea salt.

Then taste the oil.

Notice the aroma.

Notice the fruitiness.

Notice whether there's bitterness.

Notice the peppery finish.

That's not a supplement.

That's food.

And when the olive oil is truly fresh, that's exactly how it should be.

Discover the latest Olio Nuovo harvest and experience olive oil while it's still genuinely new.