By Joan McDaniel August 5, 2012
And I’m not talking about Popeye’s Olive Oyl 
The health benefits of Olive Oil are well known and in my previous posts, I document the benefit of Olive Oil, Coconut Oil and the health dangers of hydrogenated oil or vegetable oil. These replacement oils may indeed be harmful Trans Fat. Trans fat and hydrogenated fats are harmful because they leave free-radicals in the body thus causing aging and disease. See my other posts for further explanations. According to Tom Mueller’s book, we may indeed be in-fact getting hydrogenated oil when we think we are going the extra mile and buying Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
In a book review from the New York Times published: December 7, 2011. “A few pages into Tom Mueller’s new book, “Extra Virginity,” there’s a funny moment when an olive oil expert holds up a bottle that’s covered with dubious claims: “100 percent Italian,” “cold-pressed,” “extra virgin.” The man shakes his head and says, perhaps with a hint of Don Rickles in his voice, “Extra virgin? What’s this oil got to do with virginity? This is a whore.”
Published: December 7, 2011
Tom Mueller
“Extra Virginity”
This is from a book review from the NY Books of The Times
Olive Oil’s Growers, Chemists, Cooks and Crooks
EXTRA VIRGINITY
The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil
(NaturalNews) According to Tom Mueller, the fearless author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, 70 percent of the extra virgin olive oil sold worldwide is watered down with other oils and enhancers. Mueller exposes the billion dollar Extra Virgin Olive Oil industry stating that during worldwide volunteer testing by suppliers to authenticate what they thought was pure extra virgin olive oils, every brand submitted in Australia during 2012 failed the tests and none gained certification for being pure. Authentication tests at UC Davis in 2011 uncovered similar results.
(NaturalNews) Avoiding anything labeled “light” that might indicate the lowest quality olive oil, you thought you were making an informed health choice by using extra-virgin olive oil? You probably never thought that a expensive bottle of EVOO might be cut with crap or doctored with chlorophyll to make it taste like olive oil — when in fact it was soybean, vegetable or another health-compromising, cheap oil.
How do you verify your Virgin Olive oil is real?
Local Olive Oil store in Eastern USA
Olive Branch & Grape Vine
ONLY the Best of NATURE
http://www.obagv.com/index.html
https://www2.freshpressedoliveoil.com/a/SAJWA04_EHO_08022012/dl
The two most important words to remember whenever you shop for extra virgin olive oil are freshness and purity. Now not too many of us live next door to a winery
Olive Grove
Nor do we have the great luck being close to the fresh oil cold press process
Fresh Press Process
Experts judge that freshness accounts for more than 80 percent of an olive oil’s flavor. This is because olive oil, unlike wine, does not improve with age. It’s at its healthiest and most flavorful the day it is pressed. Fresh cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, squeezed from olives at exactly the right moment at harvest time, is insanely bright-tasting and flavorful. You can taste the difference immediately. If you’ve ever traveled the picturesque countryside of Italy, Greece, or Spain and stopped at a local, family-owned farm to sample fresh, authentic extra virgin olive oil, you know why connoisseurs hail it as one of Mother Nature’s culinary marvels.
This is why, throughout Mediterranean countries, the locals go crazy for fresh-pressed extra virgin olive oil at harvest time, throwing parties to celebrate its arrival.
Important Health Tip: Consume Your Olive Oil
within Three Months after It’s Pressed
Freshness is critical for another reason—all those wonderful health benefits!
Bottled Olive Oils
So How Do You Tell if Your Olive Oil is Real?
Not by the taste, experts get stumped during taste tests. Real extra-virgin olive oil should have a vibrant, almost peppery flavor,
How about the color? Olive oil should be a forceful green color — green not yellow.
Olive oil breaks down when exposed to heat or sunlight, so it is typically stored in dark glass bottles, in a cool dark area to protect its health-promoting antioxidants.
According to the Heath Ranger at Natural News, “there are only two ways to prove the extra virgin olive oil is real. Observe the texture, appearance of your olive oil when refrigerated. Authentic olive oil will typically become slightly cloudy and a bit thicker than normal when refrigerated. If your olive oil remains mostly the same consistency when refrigerated, it more than likely contains additive oils or is in some other way adulterated. “
“Check to see if your olive oil is flammable. Real olive oil is flammable, which means that it can essentially be used as a fuel source for an oil lamp. If your olive oil does not burn when lit with a match, it more than likely is an imposter.”
So I gave my olive oil a test and it failed
So I gave it a test, I put my bottle of EVOO in the refrigerator waited 4 hours; it wasn’t anywhere near cloudy or thickened. Well, I don’t have a whole lot of money to be buying bottles of olive oil so I asked my neighbors. The result one neighbor showed me slightly cloudy and slightly thickened olive oil.
I didn’t give it the flame test yet. Thinking the Health Ranger must be wrong; I went to Wikipedia and looked up Olive Oil and guess what?
“In biochemistry and nutrition, monounsaturated fats or MUFA (MonoUnsaturated Fatty Acid) are fatty acids that have one double bond in the fatty acid chain and all of the remainder of the carbon atoms in the chain are single-bonded. By contrast, polyunsaturated fatty acids have more than one double bond.
Fatty acids are long-chained molecules having an alkyl group at one end and a carboxylic acid group at the other end. Fatty acid viscosity (thickness) and melting temperature increases with decreasing number of double bonds. Therefore, monounsaturated fatty acids have a higher melting point than polyunsaturated fatty acids (more double bonds) and a lower melting point than saturated fatty acids (no double bonds). Monounsaturated fatty acids are liquids at room temperature and semisolid or solid when refrigerated.
Sorry for the double talk but Olive Oil is Monounsaturated fat and Monounsaturated fats are semisolid or solid when but in the refrigerator. I do not know where to go from here. I will be looking online. I live in New York, we make wine not olive oil, so there is not a local farm I can go to. I did find a local bottler http://www.obagv.com/index.html.
(NaturalNews) The best place to buy the real thing is from local producers whom you know. Of course, not everyone lives in Italy or near an olive orchard. The next best way to find genuine, extra virgin olive oil from companies or online is to look for those whose products have been tested and certified as pure and organic. (http://www.foodrenegade.com/real-food-resources/#fats) Pure EVOO is not cheap, but then neither is fake EVOO; so you may not notice much of a difference in price, just in taste and health effects.
Alternatives to using olive oil
I like my olive oil on salad, or I thought I did. I wonder now, if I have ever even tasted real olive oil. I must of as a kid. That was in the 50’s and big business didn’t know about stuff like this then.
Coconut Oil — The best virgin cold pressed coconut oil is made without the use of high heat during processing. It’s a highly nutritious food packing a wide range of health benefits. Virgin coconut oil can be heated by expeller press, for cooking or consumed straight out of the jar on a spoon.
Red Palm Oil — Red palm oil is made from the palm fruit rather than the palm kernel, and in its unrefined state, it is high in vitamin E, tocopherols, tocotrienols and beta-carotene. It has no trans-fats and is stable when heated during cooking. It contains oleic acid, the main fatty acid found in olive oil and is monounsaturated.
Other healthful oils and fats
· Sesame Seed Oil
· Nut oils
· Avocado oil
· Flax seed oil
· Fermented cod liver oil
· Ghee
Be sure to avoid any olive oil labeled as “light,” as these are the lowest quality olive oils available.
Just one more word before passing, this is for your health. This is not for cooking tips, or the latest fad or diet craze. These discussions are for your health and I am deadly serious.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.obagv.com/index.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/036509_extra_virgin_olive_oil_fraud_bottle.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/035124_olive_oil_adulterated_canola.html
https://www2.freshpressedoliveoil.com/a/SAJWA04_EHO_08022012/dl
