Stone pressed olive oil versus "mechanical" pressed?

[dariorpl]

I'm looking for raw, stone pressed olive oil, but all I see are oils that claim to be cold-pressed "by mechanical means". Do you know what this is about? I saw in a lot of oils from Italy. To me, mechanical means that there are no chemicals involved, I suppose? But it doesn't say if it's a machine that can generate high temperatures somehow.

[eveheart]

Mechanical means something was used to press the olives. Presses can be stone, metal, wood. At industrial capacity, presses and their contents can get hot.

Extraction is a more general word. Chemical solvents can indeed be used to extract oils.

Both methods lead to an oil that turns rancid quickly. You can grind/press your own olive oil. My neighbors from Morocco do that in a contraption that looks like a manual coffee grinder with a spout.

Best of all, olives can be eaten whole, while still containing the oil. While you chew them, your taste buds inform your stomach that it is about to digest an olive.

You can see pictures online of all of this if you google olive oil press. Also, search this forum for the many good threads about olives.

[dariorpl]

Thanks, I'll look into it. I'll also look into where I can get actual raw fresh olives. All the olives I've ever seen were pickled in brine.

[eveheart]

In a large city like mine, raw olives can be bought at the ethnic markets of any Mediterranean country. If you live in an olive-growing region, olives are ready approximately from late summer to early fall.