Olive Oils On The Grocery Store Shelves Aren’t Always As They Appear….
Check out this article “Your Olive Oil Is Almost Certainly Fake” written by Maddie Oatman for the website Mother Jones, a piece that sums up what we are here for at Pour Olive- quality oils and vinegars bringing flavor to your meals and health to your hearts.
A lot of us choose olive oil over butter or margarine for daily cooking, salad dressings, and baking. It’s a liquid gold filled with antioxidants and omega-3s to really boost your health while adding flavor to your food, too! Unfortunately, this is not always the case *gasp*. And that is no joke either. As a consumer you are free to choose whatever food you like, and when most of us choose olive oil it’s for those very aforementioned health benefits. Whether you’re dipping your crusty bread into it, drizzling it for extra flavor over your grilled fish, or using it as a base for your hummus or pesto what you always assume is that you are, in fact, using a fresh olive oil which provides you with flavor and health!
The truth? The olive oil you may buy from ANY grocery store, be it high-end or those touting organic and non-GMO products, is not the quality you are seeking. And at times it’s not even olive oil at all *gasp again*. Why is this? The U.S. does not have strict labeling or quality standards on olive oil so those seeking a profit take advantage of this. That really hurts when the U.S. is one of the leading importers of olive oil…
A lot of companies are out there working hard hoping to be inspired and make some money. Then there are those who just want to make as much money as they can and are no longer inspired by their customers or the products they sell- long story short, the latter uses sunflower oil and other oils to cut your precious olive oil and make more money. They heat up the olives while they crush them to extract the most oil possible, this heat degrades your oil (meaning it’s killing off those antioxidants and breaking down the healthy fatty chains) before it even reaches the bottle! They’ll use chlorophyll and citric acid to make this inferior blend taste as close to olive oil as they can, then throw it in some clear plastic bottle allowing the sunlight to degrade the oil yet again. By the time you get the chance to use this oil it’s no better than liquid margarine, devoid of its natural health benefits and wonderful flavor.
Interested in more info on our standards for our olive oils, known as Ultra Premium- the highest quality rating on the market?
Leave A Comment