Love Olive Oil? Avoid These 4 Mistakes When You Buy

“The Six-Month Rule” and lots more tips on how to buy and store your olive oil [View web version]( [Almanac Shoppe]( Dear Almanac Reader, Thank you for subscribing to the Almanac newsletter. To support our free newsletter and free Web site, the Almanac will occasionally send advertising emails like this one from a sponsor. The content is written by the advertiser. Although the information is presented in good faith, the Almanac does not sell this product nor make any warranties; it's offered to our subscribers for their benefit and through a third-party organization. Sincerely, The Editors of The Old Farmer's Almanac 4 Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When Buying Olive Oil An expert’s guide to choosing the freshest, most flavorful and nutritious olive oils in America By T. J. Robinson, the Olive Oil Hunter Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is on just about everyone’s shopping list these days. It has been hailed as a superfood by Harvard Medical School, acclaimed by the Mayo Clinic, lauded by the Yale School of Public Health, and recommended by scores of leading MDs for its numerous health benefits. EVOO is the cornerstone of the healthy Mediterranean diet, renowned for enhancing longevity. EVOO has also become the rage among those on the Paleo, keto, and Atkins diets because it’s a delicious, zero-carb food that makes almost any meal more flavorful and deeply satisfying. “Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil and You Might Just ‘Forget to Die’” —Headline in Reader’s Digest Scientific studies have confirmed that extra virgin olive oil lowers bad cholesterol and cuts your risk of heart disease and stroke. It may help protect you against cancer, especially cancer of the breast, prostate, and colon. It can be a godsend for arthritis sufferers because it can reduce inflammation and ease joint pain without side effects. According to the New York Times best-selling book Genius Foods, extra virgin olive oil “has been shown in large, long-term trials to protect the brain against decline and even improve cognitive function.” As reported in USA Today, “Temple University research shows extra virgin olive oil protects against memory loss, preserves the ability to learn, and reduces conditions associated with Alzheimer’s disease.” Extra virgin olive oil also lowers blood pressure and reduces your risk of diabetes. If you want to avoid osteoporosis, olive oil is outstanding because it enables the calcium in your food to be better absorbed into your bones. Extra virgin olive oil is also loaded with antioxidants and polyphenols that help regulate your immune system, protect your body against disease, give you more energy, balance your hormones, improve your skin, and lower inflammation throughout your body. As if all this weren’t enough, a delightful “side effect” of EVOO is that it makes your food taste delicious. As any great chef will tell you, fat is where the flavor is, and that’s why you always want a bottle of delectable, harvest-fresh EVOO in your pantry. But there are four major mistakes that almost everyone makes when buying olive oil. These four mistakes can prevent you from enjoying the health benefits and wonderful flavors that the best olive oils are famous for. Mistake #1: Buying Any Grade Other Than Extra Virgin When you shop, stick with extra virgin olive oil (or as Rachael Ray calls it, EVOO). It’s the most flavorful, nutritious, and most natural form of olive oil. It’s also the only grade that retains its natural phenols (antioxidants) and other health-promoting compounds. Extra virgin olive oil is cold pressed, meaning it’s not extracted using high heat or harsh chemicals. It’s minimally processed, which leaves in all the wholesome nutrients that Mother Nature meant it to have. All other olive oil grades, such as “virgin,” “pure,” or “light,” have been chemically altered to mask defects, which typically destroys the healthful phenols. Mistake #2: Buying Stale Supermarket Olive Oil However, even if the label says “extra virgin,” you’re not home free. Many supermarket olive oils are old, stale, rancid, adulterated, or even counterfeit. Here’s what’s wrong with supermarket olive oils and why I recommend buying online, direct from high-quality, award-winning farms that deliver right to your door. Olive oil, unlike wine, does not get better with age. Olives, after all, are a fruit. And olive oil is actually a fruit juice. Just like orange juice, olive oil tastes so much better when it is fresh-squeezed. This is why the culinary experts at America’s Test Kitchen sum up in four words the best advice you’ll ever read about how to buy olive oil. "The fresher, the better." A recent New York Times article by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Julia Moskin confirms the same guidance. "More than the flags on the bottle, more than the varietal, more than whether the oil appears grass-green or butter-yellow, many experts and producers now say the biggest factor in the deliciousness of olive oil is its freshness." The big problem is that fresh olive oil is almost impossible to find in supermarkets. That’s because most olive oil is shipped to the U.S. on slow-moving cargo ships. Then these oils languish in warehouses and on store shelves for months. As a result, olive oils in stores are often technically within their “best if used by” date but months beyond their window of peak freshness, flavor, and nutritional potency. Because of these and other factors that cause staleness and rancidity, a study from the University of California, Davis, found that 69% of imported olive oils labeled as “extra virgin” sold in stores were so substandard that there was no way they could qualify to be classified as “extra virgin olive oil,” the highest grade. The Six-Month Rule When you shop for olive oil, forget the “best if used by” date on the label. It tells you nothing about how recently the olive oil was pressed. You need to find EVOO with a pressing date (also known as the “harvest date”) on the label, preferably a date no more than six months before your date of purchase. Unfortunately, the producers of mediocre, mass-market olive oils sold in stores do not put pressing dates on the label because they don’t want you to know how old, stale, or rancid their oils may be. In fact, you can verify this by checking the bottle in your own pantry right now. If you bought it in a store, the overwhelming odds are that the pressing date was intentionally omitted from the label. This is no coincidence, and it’s no way to buy your EVOO, not when freshness is the most critical factor in olive oil flavor and nutritional goodness. My Recommendation: I recommend buying online, directly from award-winning farms that proudly show the pressing date on their labels. These top artisanal producers want you to know that you’re securing outrageously delicious olive oils fresh from the latest harvest. That’s when olive oil is bursting with just-plucked-from-the-tree flavor and goodness. Try fresh-pressed olive oil from a good online company, and you’ll likely never go back to store-bought oils. Your first taste will be a revelation of how incredible EVOO tastes when it’s fresh from the harvest. Below, I’ll tell you how you can try some of the world’s finest harvest-fresh EVOOs so you can taste for yourself the remarkable difference that freshness makes. Best of all, as part of a special marketing promotion, you can try some of these best-of-the-best, super-fresh olive oils with a 100% money-back guarantee. You must agree that these are the best olive oils you’ve ever tasted, or you’ll get all your money back and won’t even have to return any oils. That’s quite a deal. More in a moment. Mistake #3: Unwittingly Buying Fake Olive Oil As you’ve probably heard, fake olive oils have been flooding U.S. supermarkets. If you’ve missed this disturbing story, here are just a few quotes from articles you can read online. NBC News has reported that “fake olive oil is rampant.” The Wall Street Journal adds, “American grocery stores are awash in cheap, fake ‘extra virgins.’” In an explosive exposé, 60 Minutes has cautioned that you face a “sea of fakes” when you shop for olive oil in stores. Why Is This Happening? Thanks to the many health benefits of authentic olive oil, demand is soaring worldwide. But pure extra virgin olive oil is quite expensive. Just as counterfeiters pocket fortunes by creating cheap knockoffs of designer clothing and handbags, they palm off fake olive oil as extra virgin, the highest grade. The New Yorker magazine has reported that the profits in counterfeiting olive oil are “comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks.” Because America is the world’s largest consumer market, the counterfeiters have successfully targeted U.S. supermarkets as a favorite dumping ground. Cancer-Causing Agents in Fake Olive Oils? In his New York Times best-selling book, Extra Virginity, olive oil expert Tom Mueller warns of contaminants and even cancer-causing agents in fake olive oils. He writes: “Italian investigators have found hydrocarbon residues, pesticides, and other contaminants in fake oils, and pomace oil, a common adulterant, sometimes contains mineral oil as well as PAHs, proven carcinogens that can also damage DNA and the immune system. Then there’s the 1981 case of toxic oil syndrome in Spain, when rapeseed oil adulterated with an industrial additive, sold as olive oil, killed eight hundred people and seriously injured thousands more.” This is why it’s so important to know for certain that your olive oil is not counterfeit. But how do you do that? My Recommendation: Buy from a supplier whose oils are independently lab certified to be 100% pure extra virgin. This gives you protection against all the fakes. All the olive oils I mention below meet this requirement. Mistake #4: Thinking That All Olive Oils Taste Alike. If you’ve always bought your olive oil in a supermarket, odds are you’ve never experienced the extraordinary diversity of flavors that await you among the finest artisanal olive oils. You see, ordinary mass-market olive oils sell in such huge volumes that they must combine inferior olives from many large “factory farms” and different growing regions with little regard for flavor compatibility. This typically results in a dull, lifeless flavor profile. In contrast, award-winning artisans create their oils from olives grown on small boutique farms. These proud and dedicated family farmers are free to strive for flavor perfection from each different type of olive. This makes their award-winning creations as rich, complex, and distinctive as the finest wines, especially when you use them with your favorite foods. For example, some olive varietals naturally possess a bright, spicy flavor. These oils are audaciously bold and pair magnificently with a hearty charred steak or grilled lamb. Other artisanal olive oils are pressed from olives that yield softer, more buttery nuances. These will perfectly complement—without overpowering—your delicately baked halibut. Still other olives naturally yield a greener, more herbaceous oil that will enhance your salad greens and veggies with a garden-fresh flavor. Discovering these delectable differences in fine artisanal olive oils is such fun. And, as any good chef will tell you, by educating your palate in this way and being more discriminating in your selection of olive oils, you will master one of the great secrets to elevating your favorite foods to new heights of flavor and satisfaction that you, your family, and guests will immediately notice and love. Where to Shop for the World’s Purest, Freshest, Most Flavorful, and Most Nutritious Olive Oils You can find superb, award-winning olive oils by doing your homework online. Located around the world are quite a few dedicated artisanal producers who offer their harvest-fresh olive oils directly to consumers. However, if you’d just as soon save yourself the time and hassle of researching dozens of online olive oil producers, deciphering websites in foreign languages, conducting independent lab tests to guarantee purity, and arranging international shipping, I invite you to join me and a group of passionate olive oil lovers on a culinary adventure of a lifetime. We’ve set up a society that makes it delightfully easy to enjoy the purest, freshest, and most delicious olive oils from the top undiscovered small farms around the world. We also share our impressions of each oil as well as recipes and lots more. Let me tell you our story and how we like to welcome new members, including you. Try This Hand-Picked Trio of Best-of-the-Best Olive Oils from the Latest Harvest. They’re Guaranteed to Be the Best Olive Oils You’ve Ever Tasted—Or Your Money Back… As a food writer and a former professional chef, I’ve been a passionate olive oil lover for most of my life. Several years ago, while on a writing assignment in Sicily during the olive harvest, I tasted authentic harvest-fresh olive oil for the first time. It was an epiphany, a life-changing experience. I had no idea how divine EVOO tastes when the olives are pressed immediately after being plucked from the tree at harvest time. I decided to share this discovery with a few of my fellow chefs and foodie friends. I started a small, private society for olive oil lovers like me who want to experience the world’s finest artisanal olive oils direct from artisanal family farms at harvest time. These olive oils are never available in US supermarkets or gourmet stores. The group I started is called the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club, and what a wonderful job I’ve given myself. Every three months I adventure around the world, visiting the latest harvests in various countries to select the purest, most delicious olive oils from the world’s top gold-medal winning small family farms. I personally inspect, taste, select, and bottle the finest oils available from each new harvest. Then I rush my newfound oils to my club members in America. Every olive oil I select is independently certified to be 100% pure extra virgin. This means you’ll never again have to worry about serving your family or guests olive oil that’s fake, stale, or diluted with cheap, potentially harmful ingredients. Your Trio of Best-of-the-Best Olive Oils Has Just Arrived from the New Harvest If you’re even mildly curious about joining us and discovering how glorious EVOO tastes at the peak of harvest-fresh flavor, I’d like to send you something special to introduce you to our club. It’s my handpicked trio of the finest olive oils direct from the new harvest. Why a trio? As I mentioned, just like the finest wines, the best artisanal olive oils are lovingly crafted from different olive varietals to produce distinct and incredibly palette-pleasing flavor profiles. I would like to send you one bottle of each of our finest bold, medium, and mild olive oils so you can fully appreciate the amazing differences they will make in your favorite meals. “I have died and gone to Italy!!!” In the coming weeks, you’ll anticipate enhanced dining pleasure every single day as you drizzle these divine harvest-fresh olive oils on your crisp salads; delicate fish; grilled steaks; fresh veggies; luscious pastas; hunks of warm, crusty bread; or chunks of tangy cheese. Some members love these oils with their morning oatmeal, and one club member described them as “deeply, indescribably satisfying on gelato!” Another club member, Jennifer of Newport, Rhode Island, said of her first experience with our harvest-fresh olive oil, “I have died and gone to Italy!!!” To Entice You Even More, I’ll Send You Three Bottles But Charge You for Only Two I invite you to experience these three exceptional olive oils at zero risk. Here’s the club’s ironclad guarantee: these must be the freshest, most flavorful olive oils you’ve ever tasted or your money back in full, no questions asked. And you won’t even have to return any of the oils. All three will be yours to keep, free, even if you claim your 100% refund. To make this offer even more tempting, I’ll send you the three full-size bottles but charge you for only two. In effect, if you buy two bottles, the third is on me. This is how I invite people to join our unique and exclusive olive oil club—by letting our olive oils do the talking and you do the tasting! And no matter what, you can always get your money back in full. A Strictly Limited Supply…RSVP If you’d like to try our unique club and receive three bottles for the price of two, I suggest that you act now. Unlike supermarkets, our inventory is strictly limited because we work exclusively with small family farms and never sell any olive oils unless they’re harvest-fresh. So, after each harvest, we completely sell out our inventory, and then must wait until the next harvest to repeat the process. Speaking of small family farms, I want you to know that as a member, you will also empower our club’s mission to support family farmers who respect the environment, uphold the highest standards in local agriculture, treat their workers fairly, and live in harmony with Mother Nature to produce the finest, 100% pure extra virgin olive oils on earth. So this is a win-win proposition for everyone, including our Mother Earth. A Food Critic’s Rave The publicity this oil is getting is quite something. Foodies, celebrity chefs, and food writers are raving as well. For example, Larry Olmsted, the award-winning food and travel journalist, recently wrote this in his New York Times best-selling book, Real Food/Fake Food. “I now get most of my oil from T.J. Robinson’s Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club, and every time I open a bottle, my kitchen literally fills up with the smell of fresh crushed olives—the scent explodes out of the bottle. Just breaking the seal transports me to Italy or Spain or Chile.” When you click on the link below, you’ll see similar comments from many other olive oil lovers as well. Extra Bonus If You Respond Now Click on the link below, and I will toss in an extra bonus. It’s our club’s fabulous e-book, 16 All-Time Favorite Recipes for Health and Longevity. As a professionally trained chef, and in my role as the Olive Oil Hunter, I’ve dined all over the world. In my travels, I’ve collected hundreds of outstanding recipes. For this collection I’ve chosen the 16 recipes that have received the most compliments from friends, family, and members of our Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club. From mouthwatering appetizers you can whip up in less than five minutes…to sublime main courses…to one of the most delicious desserts you’ll ever bite into (Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies!), these will take their place among your favorite go-to recipes. [>> Click here to claim your $39 Bottle-for-a-Buck and bonus recipe e-book](  P.S. At this link, I also provide a short article, “The Best Ways to Store Your Olive Oil.” It’s a must-read for anyone who uses olive oil.  P.P.S. Have no fear. This offer is not a scam. If you want to continue in the club, you can. If you don’t, that’s fine too. Just cancel and that’s it. And no matter what, you are protected by our no-questions asked, full money-back guarantee on any purchase you ever make from us. And even when you request a refund, the oils are yours to keep.  P.P.P.S. And here are some comments from doctors about these olive oils:  “T. J. Robinson secures what I’ve found to be the purest, healthiest, and best-tasting olive oils on the planet. The result is extra virgin olive oil like none I had ever experienced before. They are remarkably bright, flavorful, fresh, and brimming with off-the-charts nutritional value. They are from the top award-winning farms in their native lands and never available anywhere else in the U.S. Thank you, T. J.” —Joe W. Frazer III, MD, specialist in geriatrics and anti-aging medicine. * * * “These fresh-pressed olive oils take your favorite dishes to new heights of flavor. I know this personally because one of the ways I relax is by puttering around my kitchen. I happily drizzle these scrumptious oils over my Greek shrimp salad, bay-steamed halibut, baked wild salmon, balsamic chicken salad, julienne green beans and other veggies, just to mention a few of my ‘specialties of the house.’  “And it’s not just the fresh-pressed flavor I’m after. These harvest-fresh extra virgin olive oils are bursting with off-the-charts levels of polyphenols and antioxidants. These are among the nutrients that make olive oil renowned for its health benefits. And they are most abundant when olive oil is harvest fresh.  “In studies, these nutrients have been shown to be associated with lower risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. They may also help protect you against other conditions such as Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, and even certain cancers.” —Ronald Hoffman, MD, author of numerous books and articles for health professionals and the public. He is the host of the popular nationally syndicated radio program Intelligent Medicine, and the Internet podcast of the same name. * * * When you click on the link below, you’ll see similar comments from many other olive oil lovers across America.  [>> Click here to claim your three bottles for the price of two and your bonus recipe ebook. At all times you are protected by a 100% money-back guarantee, and you never have to return any oils to receive your 100% refund. <<]( Are you on social? Enjoy more Almanac wit & wisdom! [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( [Pinterest]( [Twitter]( [Visit Almanac.com]( [Shop Our Store]( You received this email because you signed for updates from The Old Farmer's Almanac. If you do not wish to receive our regular e-mail newsletter in the future, please [click here to manage preferences](. *Please do not reply to this e-mail* © 2022 Yankee Publishing Inc. An Employee-Owned Company 1121 Main Street | P.O. Box 520 | Dublin, NH 03444 [Contact Us]( [View web version](