Dr Steig: By now everybody knows the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids, but have you heard of Omega 6. And did you know that Both 3 and 6 are contained in a new wonder oil, will take a look: Let’s hear it for fact. Essential fatty acids that is, they are called essential for a reason. Your body cannot do without them. Fatty acids support heart and brain health. Help to regulate hormones and keep your skin, hair and nails looking good. Fatty acids include Omega 3, 6 and 9. A rule of thumb about 30% of your diet should come from fat, no more than ¼ from saturated fats such as meat and butter. ¾ should come from healthier fat such namely mono and polyunsaturated. Cooking oils provide an excellent source including sesame, sunflower, canola, corn, and the raining star olive oil, proven in studies to lower cholesterol. But make a room on the shelf Argan has arrived.

Nutritionists hail Argan as the new super food containing Omega 3 in greater amounts than olive oil, it delivers the type of Omega 3 found in both nuts and fish, It contains plenty of Omega 6 too, since the body doesn’t produce 3 or 6 on its own, finding ample amounts of both fatty acids in one oil is good news. It has more vitamin E than sweet almond oil, and it is packed with cancer fighting antioxidants. So where can you get this oil? Morocco.

Extracted from a tree, The Berber villages believe that Argan oil taken as a tonic helps prevent cancer lowers cholesterol and applied to the skin is a cure for eczema, acne and stretch marks. This honey colored oil had a hazelnut flavor Berbers call it Liquid Gold whatever you call it Argan is one fat that is friendly and good for your health.

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For a young celeb, sudden startdom can lead to obsessive paparazzi attention and a stint in rehab. For natural ingredients, popularity can be just as dangerous. The success of palm oil led farmers to burn parts of the Indonesian and Malaysian rain forests to plant palm orchards; illegal trading of caviar caused a drop in the rare egg-producing sturgeon; and the overuse of sandalwood had depleted the sweet-smelling Indian tree. Fortunately, the latest botanical phenomenon, the antioxidant argan oil, not only rivals all other free-radical fighters to date, but its high demand will actually help the environment as well.

Pressed from the nut of the argan tree’s fruit (a favorite snack of local goats), argan oil has protected the hair and skin of Morocco’s Berber women for centuries. Recent research has proven the oil is packed with skin-beneficial compounds: hydrating essential fatty acids, potent antioxidant polyphenols, and nearly three times the amount of vitamin E in olive oil.

Liz Earle, creator of Liz Earle Naturally Active Skincare, discovered its moisturizing effects at a Moroccan hammam 10 years ago. “It was the best facial I’d ever received,” she says. “I had to know more about the oil called the ‘gold of Morocco.’” She brought a bottle to her London laboratory for analysis. The chemists, impressed by its antioxidant activity, formulated Superbalm, a healing skin treatment, around it.

“The antioxidants and fatty acids work synergistically to stop inflammation,” says Pat Peterson, the executive director of research and development for Avada, which is launching a skin-care line, Green Science, based around the extract this month. According to the company’s clinical tests, subjects showed a 38 percent improvement in lines after eight weeks of twice-daily use of the argan-rich firming face cream. Plus, scientist believe argan oil may also have anticancer properties. In a study in Cancer Detection and Prevention, the growth of three types of in virto human prostate caner cells were inhibited 48 hours after being treated with sterols and polyphenols extracted from argan oil.

The extract is proving to have serious girl power, too. In 2002, the Moroccan government helped established female cooperatives to manufacture argan oil. These programs prevent abuse of the forests’ limited supply of trees and provide workers with a steady income and basic education classes. “Purchasing the oil from the women’s cooperatives supports their social and economic welfare,” says model Josie Maran, whose namesake beauty brand includes a pure argan oil moisturizer.

Although extracting the ingredient is labor-intensive (machines grind the kernels, but each nut needs to be cracked by hand), only a small amount of the oil is needed in a product to deliver results.

As far as some experts are concerned, argan oil is a win-win. “Unlike other exotic resources such as caviar ad marine algae, it offers the best of both worlds,” says Leslie Baumann, MD, the director of cosmetic-dermatology at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. “It’s an antiager and it’s eco-friendly.”

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The road from Marrakesh to Essaouira is craggy and bleak, an arid moonscape dotted only by a few roadside towns and the occasional Berber village. In the ’60s and ’70s, Essaouira was a stop on the hash-filled hippie trek — land in Marrakesh, load up your magic bus and head west for the windswept beaches and clear blue waters of this former Portuguese fishing village. Back then, Jimi Hendrix made the pilgrimage, as did Bob Marley and Cat Stevens. Essaouira still has remnants of its boho past: crocheted Rasta beanies are sold alongside fezzes in the souk; surfers come to lap up the waves in what is now one of the world’s top windsurfing and kiteboarding spots; and a dilapidated fort, which legend has it was the inspiration for Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand” (he actually recorded the song nearly two years before touching down here), is just south of town.

In recent years, well-heeled Europeans have started to flee the more touristy Marrakesh for Essaouira, where they stay in luxurious riads in the medina and sunbathe on the pristine white beaches. The town has also developed a vibrant cultural life, with galleries, music festivals and souks filled with high-end artisanal crafts. You can pick up everything from carved wooden instruments to inlaid boxes here. The real find, however, is argan oil, made from the nuts of the argan tree, which grows almost exclusively in this region. The oil, which is said to have restorative and age-defying effects, has become one of the latest miracle ingredients in the beauty industry. High in vitamin E and essential fatty acids, it is believed to help all sorts of skin conditions: dry skin, acne, psoriasis, eczema, wrinkles. Moroccans slather it on their skin, hair, nails and even their babies. They eat it, too — drizzling it over salads and couscous, or using it to make amlou, a tahinilike spread of the oil, almonds and honey.

Approaching Essaouira’s sandy-colored ramparts, passing the olive groves and grazing donkeys, you see signs announcing women-run argan cooperatives: Argan Co-Op, Women’s Argan Collective, Miracle Oil. And so on. If you pull over to a cooperative, the Berber women — and it is only women who make argan oil — will often invite you in to watch them work. In most of the cooperatives, the older village women sit in the courtyard and work as the younger bilingual girls walk you around, giving a tutorial about the process. (Pull over too many times, though, and be prepared to hear all about the process again. And again.)

The nuts, which look like a cross between a walnut and an almond, are picked out of the fruit of the squat, gnarled argan trees that dot the yellow hills above Essaouira. Depending on the season, there might be goats up in the branches, munching on the fruit. The nuts destined for salad oil are roasted on an open flame over a large steel drum, like chestnuts, which brings out their distinctive peppery flavor; those that will be used for skin- and hair-care products are left raw.

The women first crack the shells with sharp stones. They then place the kernels between two Flintstone-size slabs of rock, grinding them into a brown paste, which resembles chunky peanut butter. The paste, kneaded by hand to extract the oil, transforms into a solid hunk and is sent to nearby factories, mainly in Agadir, where more oil is extracted by a press. Some is made into soaps, creams and shampoos, but it is the pure oil that is most sought after.

The souks of Essaouira are filled with little jars of argan oil that have suspicious locals rolling their eyes. “Vegetable oil,” they’ll warn you. (Check the bottle for provenance; if it has a cooperative’s name on the label, it’s probably authentic.) The best way to find the real deal is to follow the smell of roasted nuts that will lead you to the cooperatives.

Argan is not so new in Europe: English and French tourists have been bringing it back from Moroccan seaside vacations for years, and it’s all over the markets of Provence, lined up next to the lavender and olive oils. But now, thanks to the substantial efforts of the Moroccan King Mohammed VI (who has been praised for his efforts to promote women’s rights) and the local government, the oil is being exported worldwide, moving from the mud-and-stone co-ops into spas and Sephoras around the world.

Because the extraction of argan oil is a labor-intensive task perfected by the Berber women native to the area (it takes a few days to produce one liter), the government has established a fund for the cooperatives. Outside groups, like the government of Monaco, have gotten involved as backers. Women from the villages nearby are invited to work half days (so they can still tend to their families) in exchange for fair wages and good working conditions. Eventually, the cooperatives should pay for themselves. Unesco has designated the 10,000-square-mile argan-growing region as a biosphere reserve.

Meanwhile, more Western cosmetic companies are starting to distribute this “liquid gold,” as it is often called. Liz Earle, who runs an organic skin-care line in England, uses argan oil that she buys from two of the cooperatives in Essaouira in her Superskin Concentrate. “When I first found argan oil, I brought it back to the U.K. to have it analyzed,” says Earle, who forages the globe for raw ingredients. “It was so remarkably high in vitamin E and had these very interesting phytosterols, which are good for scar tissue and so many other things” — including, she says, that hard-to-define problem of lackluster skin.

But what Earle likes most about the oil is that the production passes the sustainability test and directly benefits the women who make it. “Culturally, what it does is good,” she says. “It provides income to a group that wouldn’t otherwise have it.”

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