olive oil: clarity and quality

[personman]

I recently bought some olive oil that came in a large can and that was very clear when I opened it and poured it out. What does the clarity of olive oil say about its quality? It claimed to be "olive oil" 100% on the tin and the remaining selections were in clear bottles. My question is whether this is worth consuming or should I discard it altogether? I am currently in a remote location and have no access to better quality food fats other than butter and rendered corn-fed tallow. Any recommendations?

[zeno]

Gosh, it sounds like your sources sure are limited...

I would avoid foods packaged in biologically reactive containers such as aluminum (tin), regardless of the clarity of the olive oil. If vegetable and nut oils are your only option at the very least search for unpasteurized nuts and oils packaged in glass.

[personman]

Thanks for the reply. I will avoid the aluminum containers from now on. What would you recommend(if anything) for olive oil. Is it worth the hype and highly touted polyphenols etc?

[TylerDurden]

Thanks for the reply. I will avoid the aluminum containers from now on. What would you recommend(if anything) for olive oil. Is it worth the hype and highly touted polyphenols etc?

I doubt it.  Iguana pointed out how even 100% "raw" olive-oil is subjected to high pressures(which induce high heat).

[eveheart]

Is it worth the hype...?

If by hype you mean "extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion," simply look at the worth of the olive oil industry or the shelf-space devoted to this commodity in any grocery store. We live in a world of hype. I always try to look through the hype and understand why it's being used. There is always the sale of goods and services behind it.

My question is whether this is worth consuming or should I discard it altogether?

What are you using it for? Was there some therapeutic benefit that you were looking for? I'm not saying that polyphenols are valuable or worthless. If you have a reason to try such a therapy for some valid reason, then by all means try, but look for an unprocessed source. If you think there is a beneficial element in olive oil, try eating some olives.

[TylerDurden]

If you think there is a beneficial element in olive oil, try eating some olives.

Precisely. Many people, such as myself, experience health-problems from eating even lightly-processed raw foods such as raw olive-oil, whereas many thereof have no problem at all in digesting raw, solid olives.

[raw-al]

Precisely. Many people, such as myself, experience health-problems from eating even lightly-processed raw foods such as raw olive-oil, whereas many thereof have no problem at all in digesting raw, solid olives.

I agree with both of you. Processed is processed.

Consuming anything based on hype/advertising is a bad idea. I have done it many times in the past and it is easy to do especially if the advertising is done in a clever way or repeated by someone who should have the benefit or betterment of everyone in mind.

[Dorothy]

I just took a little course in olive oil from a small store in town that sells only olive oil. It was quite disheartening what they said but jived completely with my own experience. I haven't had a decent non-rancid olive oil that smelled right in years.

I learned that all truly extra-virgin olive oil is raw. If they label it raw - it's just a way to make it more expensive. The heat cannot be higher than in the 80 degrees F or it will make it more acid than fits the description of extra-virgin. But........ over 70% of oils being sold as extra virgin simply are not. There is no regulation. There is soooo much that goes into whether or not the oil is healthy or not. We did taste testing where we learned how to taste good oil. The color is not to be gone by because nowadays they add coloring to oil to make it look more green because people do not know how to smell or taste good olive oil in our country. I also learned that the Italians import oils from other places and ship them out again so that it can be said to be from Italy therefore Italy is not the best source for olive oil any more. Believe it or not the best place is Australia because they have good laws! I bought an oil from the people at Con Olio that originated in Australia (date of press labelled - vitally important) that smells like wheatgrass and tastes like heaven.

If the oil is not labeled as to the press date - don't buy it. Almost all oils are already rancid on the shelf and most are mixed with other oils and even if they charge you $40 a bottle it could still be crap. The KEY element is freshness. I wish I could teach y'all over the internet how to smell and taste the difference!

You could all just have Con Olio ship you Hojiblanca and you would know. The smell is delightful, if you slurp it it burns the back of your throat like pepper (all good oils do) and it's light.

It's also important at what stage of development the olives are picked at. Most olives aren't picked at the right time.

Oh - I could go on and on and on ......... I adore a really good olive oil.

Throw that stuff in the tin away - it more than likely rancid and toxic and might not even be olive oil. No good olive oil is completely clear. For all you know it might have been cut with canola. 

[RawZi]

    Oil makes me freeze, but stone pressed olive oil is not shabby.

[Dorothy]

I didn't add something important. You don't want the "harvest date" you want the "press date" because they can leave those olives sitting around a year before they press them with press date and the oil will be rancid upon pressing! Olive oil goes rancid in a year and there are few oils on the shelves that are not already 2 years old. Look for the harvest date of under a year or it's probably already rancid. Some countries like Australia have to put the date on by law.

Dark glass bottles only too.

Oh - Rawzi - all olive oil even if it says stone pressed is still extracted by machine today. But that doesn't really matter because the machine does nothing to damage the oil. First pressed means truly nothing any more. Virgin means ONLY a percentage of acid and that's it. The only way to get that low acidity is to take olives picked at the right stage and process them at low heat like in the old days with stone. They can write anything they think that you might like on the bottle. They will take the same crappy oil and put it in a different fancy bottle and sell it for twice as much and write all the buzz words that they think people want to hear and put dye in it. The only way to really tell is to know what really good fresh oil smells and tastes like. If it says stone pressed it far from guarantees a good oil. The term "raw" means truly nothing. You can only trust the nose and the palate. If you eat an oil and it makes you feel bad or freeze - it very likely was just still not a good oil. Very few Americans if they haven't traveled abroad to olive country know what a good fresh oil smells and tastes like.

[raw-al]

Wow Dot, You're the best. I use olive oil for daily abhyanga, so the info is very useful.

[Dorothy]

Al - I had to look up abhyanga. I thought it would be an Indian dish but instead it's self-massage!

"Abhyanga provides the means for trans-dermal absorption of the healing qualities of the material used in the massage, and it helps the skin, which is the largest organ in the body, perform its diverse functions efficiently, whether it is allowing toxins to be released from the body or nourishment to be absorbed by the tissues. It is like oiling the engine of your car -- if you do it regularly, your engine will be in peak condition, and give you years and years of trouble-free performance."

You know now that I have this really good oil that's a wonderful idea! I often wondered about putting less than perfect oils on one's skin when going for a massage. I rub coconut oil on my hands and let it soak in - why not olive oil?

Do you ever leave the oil on for the day under your clothes to let it absorb more fully? Do you ever add a drop or two of an essential oil for the aroma? 

You know - I've been watching the sunset and bathing my closed eyes in sunshine (eye sight improving - thanks for the push with that back some time) and this makes me wonder about doing massage around my eyes with the olive oil too! There are some important acupuncture points around the eyes. Absorbing good oils directly through the skin is a very nice way to take in good fats and nutrition.

I'm going to try it.

Thanks!

[Löwenherz]

Precisely. Many people, such as myself, experience health-problems from eating even lightly-processed raw foods such as raw olive-oil, whereas many thereof have no problem at all in digesting raw, solid olives.

Due to my skin reactions I know that all so called "extra virgin olive oils" are already rancid. Olive oil causes a lot of oxidative stress in my body. When this happens I get brown spots on my forehead and my arms. It's the same with pasteurized butter and other unhealthy fats.

Löwenherz

[Dorothy]

Lowenherz you are right - there are very few olive oils on the shelf that are not already rancid at least here in the US. I didn't find one that wasn't rancid at Whole Foods or Central Market (the big stores in my area with supposedly healthier choices and shelves upon shelves of olive oils). You would need to be in a place that makes the oil and go to the farm and make sure they are making it right or buy it from someone like this couple that imports only the best from small farms that are really fresh... or... get some that is made in Australia that has the harvest date on it.

Harvest date, taste, smell and now we can add how it affects the skin and body will tell you if the oil is rancid or not.

But oil that is not rancid and fresh is an entirely different food.

It's a little bit like the difference between eating old regular meat wrapped in plastic from a big store raw and eating fresh grass-fed meat from a neighborhood farm raw. You can't compare the two.

My skin reacts very fast to bad oils too! I guess that's going to be the ultimate test of this fresh oil I got. The new season oils are just coming in now. I can get oils from olives that were picked just two weeks ago. I have some from the last seasons harvest and I can try some from this season's harvest and see if there is any difference for my skin.

[aLptHW4k4y]

Why not just eat olives?

[RawZi]

Oh - Rawzi - all olive oil even if it says stone pressed is still extracted by machine today. But that doesn't really matter because the machine does nothing to damage the oil. First pressed means truly nothing any more. Virgin means ONLY a percentage of acid and that's it. The only way to get that low acidity is to take olives picked at the right stage and process them at low heat like in the old days with stone. They can write anything they think that you might like on the bottle. They will take the same crappy oil and put it in a different fancy bottle and sell it for twice as much and write all the buzz words that they think people want to hear and put dye in it. The only way to really tell is to know what really good fresh oil smells and tastes like. If it says stone pressed it far from guarantees a good oil.

    Which olive oils that you buy, Dorothy, have a label that reads "stone pressed"?  I'm not supposed to eat oil anyway, just animal fat.  I learned the smell thing from AW.  She told me I would learn by smell, and it didn't take very long to learn that.  Smells very much affect me, no matter how faint or distant.  Luckily, eating right, although the faintest smell is strong and clear to me, it's not unpleasant anyway. Do you press your own olive oil?  I understand using stones to press, how it was done long ago, tends to never get as warm as the common day extra virgin olive oil methods. 

    By the way, any idea what pomace oil is? http://www.buycheapr.com/us/result.jsp?ga=us14&q=pomace+olive+oil

Edit: I'm thinking pomace must meat pit, as in cherry stone meaning cherry pit.

[Dorothy]

Why not just eat olives?

Depends on when they were picked. But yeah - I love olives - but doing a massage with them might not be as nice.   I like the oil in certain applications where olives don't work as well.

[Dorothy]

    Which olive oils that you buy, Dorothy, have a label that reads "stone pressed"?  I'm not supposed to eat oil anyway, just animal fat.  I learned the smell thing from AW.  She told me I would learn by smell, and it didn't take very long to learn that.  Smells very much affect me, no matter how faint or distant.  Luckily, eating right, although the faintest smell is strong and clear to me, it's not unpleasant anyway. Do you press your own olive oil?  I understand using stones to press, how it was done long ago, tends to never get as warm as the common day extra virgin olive oil methods. 

    By the way, any idea what pomace oil is? http://www.buycheapr.com/us/result.jsp?ga=us14&q=pomace+olive+oil

Edit: I'm thinking pomace must meat pit, as in cherry stone meaning cherry pit.

Hmmm - maybe my post was too long. I will repeat.
The label stone pressed means NOTHING today. ALL oils are extracted by machine.
Raw means nothing. No oil that is extra-virgin is heated because then it would not be extra-virgin no matter what it is labeled. It can still be and likely will be rancid - which means more.
They can write anything on the label that they think you would like to hear because there are no laws that say they can't in the US.

Buy oil that has the harvest date on it that is labeled extra virgin from Australia because they have better laws. The closer to harvest date the better - but it will be rancid within a year.

Con' Olio is a little store here in Austin. That so far has been the only place in the US where I have smelled/tasted a decent oil in the last 10 years. Maybe they can ship. I thought about buying an oil press for seeds and maybe it would work for olives - but it's almost as hard to find fresh olives as it is to find fresh olive oil in general - and for me now with Con' Olio it is easier to find fresh raw olive oil than fresh raw olives.

[Dorothy]

Oh - look - they have free shipping on orders over $100. That's great for me because now I don't have to drive up north and spending a hundred bucks there is very easy for me. 

http://www.conolios.com/index_files/Page367.htm

[RawZi]

    Which olive oils that you buy, Dorothy, have a label that reads "stone pressed"?

I will repeat.

Oh - look - they have free shipping on orders over $100.

    Sorry I made my post too short.  All oils make me feel cold.  Olive oil burns me AND makes me cold at the same time, it's a very talented extact. I will not buy over a hundred dollars worth of olive oil. Thank you for finding the deal on shipping. I try to eat whole foods where I can.  I do have a lot of raw olives here. I don't eat them much, but they don't burn me or make me cold, as I eat then nor after nor from getting near them.

    Nice seeing you. I will resume eating my jar of butter now. I'm going out to a restaurant with my gentleman, and I don't want to feel hungry there.

[Dorothy]

RawZi - I still don't think that you are understanding!

I highly doubt that you have EVER had fresh oil!!!!!

If you have not bought from someone that has a HARVEST DATE on the label every single time you have tried olive oil it was highly likely that it was totally RANCID!

I didn't mean for you to buy that much oil or even any oil from the place I posted. That was more general. But please don't assume that all oil will make you feel the same.

If you don't get sick from fresh olives you likely will not get sick from fresh olive oil.

It's all about the freshness. You can't trust anything on the label. The only way to know it is fresh if from the harvest date, the smell, the taste and how it makes you feel.

There are MANY olives that make me feel sick too because they are not fresh.

[RawZi]

If you don't get sick from fresh olives you likely will not get sick from fresh olive oil. ... There are MANY olives that make me feel sick too because they are not fresh.

    I have tried dozens of varieties of raw olives, including picking them myself etc. I have not had a reaction to any. I only buy expensive and high quality oils. I've tried many brands, always the best. Doesn't matter how natural or organic or fresh some things are, there are still some people who it isn't made for. I could use oil when I was younger, the good quality ones. I'm not the same person. I don't care. Raw animal fat is better in all respects, afaic.

[Dorothy]

Zi - I'm not saying that oil is for you and that it's better than animal fats. I'm saying that I have tried countless olive oils - the best of the best in the stores - and every single one of them was RANCID! Without a harvest date it doesn't matter if it costs $100 a bottle.

I had good oil in Spain and used to be able to get good oil here but that stopped about 15 years ago and I've been wanting it ever since, but couldn't find it. I must have wasted thousands of dollars looking for oil that didn't smell or taste rancid.

You can't judge just by the fact that someone (especially the person selling it) says it's high quality. It's all about freshness and there are NO bottles of oil on the shelves of any store I have been to that are fresh.

I'm trying to say in general - not to you in particular - not to bother with olive oil at all if it doesn't have a harvest date stamped on the bottle. Otherwise - they're all a bunch of liars and the labels, no matter they say, mean nothing.

They take crap oil and put it in a fancy bottle with all the buzz words and say it is the best and charge 10 times the price for it - when it's not the highest quality - just fancy labelling. It can say raw, first-pressed, cold-pressed, stone-ground extra-virgin from Italy in the most beautiful bottle you ever saw - and it likely is still rancid and not extra-virgin. 

Again - in general - not directed specifically at you Zi: If you can't find an oil with a harvest date on it - don't bother - save yourself some money and go out and buy raw suet or marrow or fatty fish or butter or avocados or whatever instead.

They did a test where they asked Americans to guess what the good oil and what the rancid oil was and 70% picked the rancid oil as being the way olive oil should be - because most Americans simply have never tasted good oil no matter how many bottles of the most expensive oils they have bought. 

I'm sorry if you thought I was saying to you to eat olive oil Zi - I most certainly wasn't. I think some of our communication broke down a bit. I hope I was clearer this time.

[RawZi]

    Suet and avocado don't work right for me either, Dorothy. I know how to find good food, I just got tired of posting it, so I'm glad you're here to do that. Would you mind naming a brand labeled stone pressed that gave you a reaction or a reaction to someone you saw? Seriously, as very very few have that label. Do you like the pomace oil?

[Dorothy]

Zi - just before Suet and Avocado and other ideas for fat I said it was In General and not directed at you. I know you know how to get food that is right for you.

I've never had pomace oil and I've tried so many kinds of olive oil over the years that I couldn't even begin to remember the names. When it's rancid who cares to remember what brand it is?

Again - stone pressed means absolutely nothing. Machinery now does the same thing. No heat and slow. No one stone presses - that's just a buzz word. What makes it good or not is freshness and low acidity. There are more variables that affect flavor - the age of the trees, the soil, the environment - but that's personal taste. If it says stone ground - so what? Old is old, rancid is rancid. You might have found an oil that wasn't rancid. That was lucky.

HARVEST DATE! That's what the number one thing matters.