The essential key to a great dish is using exceptional ingredients. Of course, sourcing the best quality ingredients is easier said than actually done. Not all of us live around the corner from a bounteously stocked farmers market or have a friendly butcher who can cut up a few locally raised lamb chops on request.
Olive Oil As A Main Ingredient
The backbone of Mediterranean cooking and drizzled into everything from cookies to chicken is Olive Oil. If you ask us, we think It's a pretty essential ingredient. And yet most of us don't have any idea what to look for when faced with bottles of "Freshly pressed!," "100-percent olives!," and "Direct from Sicily!" in the supermarket condiments aisle.
Add to that the problem of fraudulent vendors passing off subordinate Olive Oil as Extra Virgin Olive Oilas well.
What To Search For On An Olive Oil Label
Our Olive Oil experts suggest that you focus in on two things:
This is because all oils goes bad. The fresher the olive oil, the better it tastes and the higher the health benefits.
Olive Oils goes bad when it makes contact with the air around it. The best Olive Oilsare created using fruit pressed soon after picking and stored in airtight tanks, often under nitrogen, which helps stop oxygen from getting in.
Where Should Olive Oil Come From?
Let’s face the facts, only about 25 percent of the global production is truly Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Therefore our suggestion would be to do your due diligence and ensure you know and trust the brand of olive oil you are purchasing from. Price is often an indication but not all the time.
In simple terms, it means the highest quality grade. It is simply the juice of fresh olives which has not had any heat, chemicals, or solvents used to extract the oil. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is created by crushing fruit and extracting the juice. Nothing else.
Of course, there are a lot more steps involved in making Extra Virgin Olive Oil than simply squishing a few olives and bottling the Olive Oil.
Once you have selected that you would like to try Olive Oil to aid in your hair growth, you may have noticed how there are a variety of different types of Olive Oils to purchase. In most stores you will notice Olive Oil with the following names:
Take into consideration that the Olive Oil that is not used for human consumption is only suitable for use as lamp oil. Nonetheless, the other four Olive Oils are based on an assortment of grades of olive oil, and their quality is affected by which grade they actually have.
In addition, you may also want to know that grades of Olive Oil are chosen by the manufacturers. It is possible for manufacturers to buy a certification for these grades though, which will give you a much better reassurance that the Olive Oil you have purchased is genuinely the grade inside the container.
You may also notice that olive oil is sold in different types of containers.
Most of the time, the higher grade Olive Oils will be sold in glass or metal. Note that there can be extra benefits to buying Olive Oil in a metal can, as it won’t be exposed to light. A handful of Olive Oil glass bottles are also tinted, to prevent light from eroding away at the quality of the oil.
Refined vs. Unrefined Olive Oils
Refined olive oil has been made with a refinery process. Unrefined olive oil will have the “virgin” label attached to it. If you see an olive oil in the store that simply says “olive oil” chances are it is refined. There may be a small minor difference in looks, with the unrefined typically being a bit brighter and dark yellow colour.
The most notable difference between refined and unrefined is in the processing. All Olive Oil is extracted from the fruit, or olives, from the olive tree. It’s what happens during the process to extract the oils that matters, as well as the additives used, and what is the final level of free oleic acid remaining.
This will generally indicate the extent that the fat has been broken down into fatty acids. When it has a higher amount, it usually indicates more refining, and a less amount indicates less or no refining.
Free oleic acid is based on its level of acidity. This level is in correlation to the extent that the fat has been broken down into fatty acids. Typically, unrefinedOlive Oil is more pure and has been untreated. Refined Olive Oil has been treated to have its flaws removed from the oil.
Virgin Oil vs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Both virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil are made in a similar process, and both are considered unrefined oils. This means that when the oil is extracted from the olives, that heat and chemicals are not used, which is the process used for the refined oils.
For virgin olive oil, the purity and the taste of the olives remains, but it won’t have as stringent production guidelines as extra virgin olive oil does.
For extra virgin olive oil, it will have a more intense flavour and a lower level of oleic acid. This is also the highest quality olive oil that you can find on the market today. This type of oil must hold to stricter standards than other types of olive oil. It will also have a truer olive taste.
Extra virgin olive oil will contain more of the natural minerals and vitamins that are also contained in olives.
Basically, the main difference between extra virgin olive oil versus virgin olive oil is if you need the best type for its healing properties, rather than as a cooking oil. If you’re cooking, then it really doesn’t matter what type you use, though be aware that extra virgin olive oil will have a higher price on it.
Curiously, you’ll find that most stores sell regular olive oil or extra virgin olive oil, rather than just the virgin olive oil type.
What Is Usually The Best Way to Store Olive Oil?
No matter which type of olive oil you go with: regular refined olive oil, or one of the unrefined types: virgin olive oil, or extra virgin olive oil, you’re going to need to store it the right way.
Here are a few storage tips so that your Olive Oil doe not turn rancid before you have time to use it up.
Benefits of Olive Oil For Other Uses
When you purchase a tin or bottle of olive oil for your hair you may be wondering how you can use up all of your oil before the expiry date printed on the container.
Olive Oil can be used in your cooking and for other health and beauty purposes as well. Olive Oil can also be poured directly into salads for those same antioxidant properties, but it’s also beneficial as a moisturizer too.
Here are a few tips on how you can add olive oil to your health and beauty routine.
Having a great understanding about the different types of Olive Oil will aid you in your decision in proposing the best type. You may wish to get one type for cooking, and extra virgin olive oil to help with your hair loss.
Remember that even if you use it regularly for your bathroom beauty care routines, that you should store it away from the heat and moisture of the bathroom.
Olive Oil is the foundation of the highly suggested Mediterranean diet. Since the Mediterranean diet is so highly recommended, everyone should go right to their neighborhood grocery store and use olive oil for cooking.
We all wish it were that easy, but unfortunately, because of low quality olive oil providers, it isn’t as seamless.
Amazing Nutritional Facts about Olive Oil
Did you know that 1 tablespoon of olive oil contains an average of:
In addition, olive oil is also a great source of Vitamins E and K and no protein — so all the calories come from fats.
Essentially, what makes olive oil so outstanding to use is the types of fat it actually contains.
Quality Olive Oils generally contain 1318 mg of omega-6 fats and 103 mg of omega-3 fats. Furthermore, Olive Oil also contains over 10 grams of either mono - or poly-unsaturated fats — the healthier types of fats.
Olive oil also has almost 30 g of phytosterols, a type of plant substance which is chemically comparable to cholesterol but assist in maintaining heart health as a result of inhibiting the absorption of cholesterol from food and lowers the amount of LDL cholesterol, the “bad” cholesterol that is associated with heart disease.
Finally, Olive Oil is rich in antioxidants such as oleocanthal and oleuropein — those plant substances that can aid in reducing the oxidative damage caused to our bodies by high levels of blood sugar.
So What is the Best Form of Olive Oil?
The fact is that there are a great amount of people out there making and selling olive oil with less than 100% pure high quality olive oil. Olive oil has become so popular, there are an assortments of forms of olive oil that are not pure olive oil.
So first, you need to purchase reputable, well- known brands of olive oil and only get 100% extra virgin olive oil —extra virgin olive oil is pressed— it is not subjected to any heat or any chemicals, it is simply pressed.
How Can Olive Oil Help A Diabetic?
Olive Oil can help diabetics in a variety of ways:
Olive oil is, as mentioned before, high in antioxidants. Antioxidants can assist in diminish the damage that is due to the oxidative stress caused by high levels of sugar in the blood — and in that way, reduce the risk of the complications of diabetes, including:
Olive oil is an anti-inflammatory food. Since inflammation is at the main root of most if not all chronic diseases, adding olive oil to your food can help reduce this inflammation and the damage that long-term inflammation can inflict on cells.
Long-term inflammation is thought to play an essential role in diabetes and the complications of diabetes. The primary substance in olive oil that play a role as an anti-inflammatory agent is oleocanthal, which acts on the COX enzyme system in such a way similar to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen.
Olive Oil reduces the risk of vascular and heart disease by:
Overall, Extra Virgin Olive Oil is highly suggested – ultimately, you can use it on salads, drizzle it on breads and use it in cooking, though using lower heats may provide the best benefits because there is less chance of heat damage to the fats in olive oil.
