Olive Oil

[harrie]

Can anyone tell me the nutritional differences between Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Extra Light Tasting Olive Oil? I been roasting vegtables in the oven lately that I season and toss in extra light oo. But if the EVOO is much more nutritious, I will switch.

[Lien]

The EVOO is pressed and the other oil is extracted chemically, usually. So I should think the former is healthier. But it's just what I think, not what I know.

Love

Jacqueline

[StephN]

Some time back we had a really good discussion on the benefits of the higher quality olive oil. Can't find it, seems to be gone. Can't even find my old posts on it either.

Here is a great link to a very good (to my mind) explanation of the processing and what you get with each method:

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/oliveoil.html

The GIST of this long article is:

" Almost all olive oil is processed in ways that result in the loss of nutrients which are essential to health. "

Also:
"These modem factories extract more oil more cheaply, but their processing methods substantially reduce the nutritional quality of the oil.
To reduce costs, olives are machine harvested along with leaves and twigs. Olives that have dropped on the ground, which can be said to contain bad oil, are often mixed with the good ones. They are shipped in all kinds of containers, many of which are poorly ventilated, and heaped in large piles where the olives are stored for too long and often become moldy. The oil is then extracted in a continuous centrifuge where hot water is used to help separate out the oil.
Antioxidant polyphenols are soluble in water and are washed away in this process, thereby lowering the shelf life and the nutritional quality of the oil. Italy alone produces 800,000 cubic meters of waste water per year from this process. Because substantial amounts of antioxidants are washed away, factory produced olive oils have a short shelf life of only months, whereas real olive oil lasts for two to three years. Factory produced olive oil is filtered and looks clear. Real olive oil is not filtered and looks cloudy. "

Then the last insult that has been uncovered is that the large olive oil "factories" have for years been cutting their OLIVE oil with cheap hazlenut oil from Turkey.

You get what you pay for. Buyer beware.

[ElaineM]

I only use a good quality extra virgin olive oil. I wonder what Tanya thinks?
That is terrible about some companies mixing oils.

[vlcarr]

Does anyone know a brand name for the good stuff?

[bashmaz]

Yes - is there a "best" brand of evoo? I ususally just buy the supermarkets' generic (e.g.Safeway) brand - but I do always go for the Extra Virgin.
-Marianne

[AlaskaAngel]

I hesitate to recommend any brand, but will say that there was an excellent article in the last year or so about this in the Costco monthly magazine if you can locate it (ours is either under something or inside something here like almost everything else I once saw). Anyway, as a result of the depth of that article and its discussion about how they choose their olive oil, I bought mine at Costco, although I noticed the last time I did a barge load from Seattle I didn't see the same stuff there.... as a Costco "connosour" we have found that different Costcos carry different things so maybe some have it and some don't.

[StephN]

Hi AA -
I know the article you mean, and it says that they have a "special" EVOO from a certain Italian estate and when that is gone they go back to another supplier until the next harvest from the "special" one.

There is a definite difference.

I get small farm produced olive oils from specialty stores. More expensive, but taste so much better and better for us.

Right now I have GIOLIO, which does have sediment and comes in a dark green liter size bottle. From around Florence, Italy.

[AlaskaAngel]

The article was a good one, but I defer to you, Steph -- The oil I liked from them was "all natural" cold pressed Filippo Berio Organic EVOO in a dark green bottle and cloudy, packed in Italy with oils from Italy, Spain and Tunisia.

A.A.

[hutchibk]

I know it's not terribly cheap, but this is where I plan to buy all my olive oil from starting next month (when my current bottle runs out). I will let you know how it is... local (central Texas), organic, EVOO.
http://www.texashillcountryoliveco.com/