Your Olive Oil is (probably) a Lie

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As extra virgin myself, I'd like to thank you for covering this story

My mom's family has olive plantations in Lebanon and they make their own olive oil, and throughout my entire life, I've always wondered why the store bought "extra virgin olive oil" doesn't taste as good as their oil, not even close. Now I think I know the answer!

I am Italian. I've been living with Extra virgin olive oil all my life. I moved to Andalusia in Spain 15 years ago. Here, the culture of olive oil is a step higher. As with wine you select the grapes by name (Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot noir,...), in Spain we select our oil by the name of the variety of olives (Picual, Arbequina, Hojiblanca, ...) and I can certify that on average Spanish olive oil is of better quality

I live in Portugal and my father has some olive trees. With those olives, he takes them to a special place where everyone can bring their own olives to be pressed and juiced for their oil. Like a community mill. Let me tell you, that original and unprocessed olive oil tastes nothing like the ones you see on the market. It's darker and has a much more intense taste. It works very well for some dishes, but not for soups and salads. At Christmas, we always have 2 bottles, one from home made olive oil and one bought in the supermarket for those who don't like it, it goes really well with our christmas dish of boiled potatoes, lettuce and cod fish.

This was a huge scandal in Denmark six years ago. Some of the oil sold as "Extra virgin olive oil" were deemed unfit for human consumption.

As a greek I feel fortunate and priviliged that I never had to buy olive oil from the supermarket since I have relatives making it. And trust me , every other greek has some similar source of olive oil through a friend or relative. You can definitely taste the difference between the real thing and processed junk.

Italian here. I love how you adressed the mafia aspect. It is truly a scourge on this amazing land that too often gets glorified in movies and media with tropes like the "gentleman thief" or "gangster's honor". These are not honorable family loving men. These are murderers and parasites

I'm glad that you mentioned the fact that Spanish EVOO is actually being sold as "Italian" EVOO. It's good to remember that half of the global production of olive oil comes from Spain. But well, Italians are really good at marketing and their food is also amazing.

As a Greek with olive trees in Peloponisos near the river Neda I can truly feel sorry for people getting scammed cause olive oil is a true health benefit! Be careful guys and girls and only buy from reputable brands.

Hi everyone, I am a Greek olive oil producer myself. I’m not selling olive oil - and I mention this in advance for obvious reasons. First of all, something I was hoping to hear and I didn’t is that the olive oil you are buying in the USA and in general in any non-Mediterranean country is a second class olive oil. Depending on its oil acridity you define the quality of your oil. All people know and buy the extra virgin olive oil, which is a B class here in the Mediterranean counties. What we produce and eat/drink is the ‘so called’ Extra Extra Virgin olive oil. The acridity must be between 0 and 0.8. What you get is actually olive oil more than 0.8 acridity (0.8 to 2.0). You can’t even grasp the difference between an olive oil of 0.3 and 1.8. It’s almost like you’re getting something else. Another product. The reason why most producers don’t achieve these low numbers of acridity is mostly due to profit and/or lack of knowledge and manpower. It costs a lot to only collect (labour is expensive and quantity not enough) the olives that are still on the branches - it’s a very intensive job during the winter months where rain can ruin the quality of the olives as well as your equipment. Many producers decide not only to collect the ones already dropped in the ground, but there others (lazy ones) not even following the traditional way of collecting them and they just put some cloth on the ground waiting for all olives to fall naturally. This method increases acridity dramatically, therefore, the olive oil quality. And now you can understand the reason why you don’t get this quality of olive oil anywhere else. Producers would rather keep the good quality locally for their families or extensive families and close friends. Who ever gets to help in this very hard and intensive task, will be rewarded with the ‘so called’ golden liquid. At least now you know. When a little of an extra extra virgin olive oil costs here in Greece 10-12 euros, you can’t really expect to get it for 15 dollars and get the real deal.

The Czech food inspection just did a big test of extra virgin olive oils from stores a couple weeks back. Out of the 21 different brands they tested, only 7 passed the test for actually being extra virgin olive oil. The rest of them were all lower quality olive oil, mostly pommace oil, but 2 of the samples they tested actually turned out to be lampante oil, the lowest quality olive oil that's not produced for human consumption but instead for use in oil lamps. We do have laws stemming from the common EU law for food labeling. Still doesn't protect you from fraudulent products. Some even had the PDO seal on them. Still turned out to be cheap crap pretending to be extra virgin olive oil. These scammers will always find a way to make it work.

Late November/December is harvest time for olives here in Portugal. My late grand parents, had Olive groves, they used to put burlap tarps around the trees, used wooden ladders (made by my granddad) and kind of a rake (don't know the name in English) to strip them from the branches. When I was a kid, I wondered why the olive oil in the supermarked looked like sunflower oil, so much different from the one at home.

Thank you for covering this topic.

My favourite part is how the google doc and video don't explicitly state a SINGLE brand you can trust whatsoever. Like, he has the studies and the info. He clearly buys some he trusts himself. But won't give us any insight on the name of the company he buys from.

In NZ, I was told, that oil from nz groves can be tested independently in Australia to confirm their oils are indeed EV. I buy direct from a grove I visited and met the owner and saw his small process plant and shop

I'm just gonna eat olives

Wow I never realized how lucky I am to be consuming the organic extra virgin olive oil my father produces with his own hands here in Greece all these years! Just took it all for granted!

My uncle in Algeria makes olive oil. I'm in Canada, and the first time I tasted it, I was floored!!! It tasted INCREDIBLE, wasn't perfectly filtered so it still had some tiny remnants of olives in it. I simply couldn't believe the difference compared to any other ''olive oils'' I bought over here.. It tasted, well, like actual olives for god's sake... We've been scammed for way too long, by greedy criminals and lazy governments.

If you'll ever be travelling to Slovenia (coastal region) I'll be glad to take you on an olive oil tasting, we are one of the northest region that produce olive oil, so it is very bitter, but also very specific taste and I only buy from local families. Great video btw!