Does Olive Oil Break a Fast?

Depending on your goal with Intermittent Fasting, olive oil can definitely be used. But here’s what you need to know.

Does Olive Oil Break a Fast?

If you are following Intermittent Fasting for religious purposes or you are following a water or dry fast, then any food of any type will break your fast. However, for the purposes that we follow with the Complete Intermittent Fasting Bundle protocols, olive oil will not break your fast.

One of the main goals with Intermittent Fasting is to reduce how often insulin is released in order to tap into fat burning mechanisms. Pure fat sources, such as butter, ghee, olive oil and coconut oil, do not spike the storing hormone insulin and therefore keeps the body in a fat burning state. This is called a “fasting mimicking” state. On the other hand, products that contain protein or carbohydrates can cause insulin to spike and therefore will break a fast.

Although olive oil can be used during the fast, if gut health is your primary goal, you’ll want to keep all olive oil consumption to your eating window. Anything other than water and electrolytes during the fast can halt the natural gut cleaning process called the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC). When looking to maximize for gut health, the goal is to stimulate the MMC through Intermittent Fasting. So if gut health is the primary goal, you might want to consider sticking to a “clean” Intermittent Fast with just water and electrolytes instead.