Olive Oil – 3 Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When Buying

“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 Three Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes When Buying Olive Oil An expert’s guide to the freshest, most flavorful and nutritious olive oils in America By T. J. Robinson, the Olive Oil Hunter The folks at The Old Farmer’s Almanac have invited me to talk with you today about how to choose a great olive oil for your table. Well, in a moment I’ll tell you about the most divinely flavorful olive oils I know and the award-winning farms they come from. I’ll even tell you about one of the best in the world (normally $39) that you can receive just a $1 shipping charge as part of a no-risk introductory promotion. But first let me explain why olive oil is in such high demand today and the three biggest mistakes almost everyone makes when buying, no matter where you shop. “Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil and You Might Just ‘Forget to Die’” —Headline in Reader’s Digest Extra virgin olive oil is on just about everyone’s shopping list these days. It’s 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. Extra virgin olive oil is the cornerstone of the healthy Mediterranean diet, renowned for enhancing longevity. It 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. 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 extra virgin olive oil 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 olive oil in your pantry. 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 refined 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 who 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 fresh-squeezed. Olive oil remains at its zenith of glorious flavor and nutritional content for about six months after the harvest. The problem is, harvest-fresh olive oil is almost impossible to find in supermarkets. Most olive oil is shipped to the US on slow-moving cargo ships. Then it languishes 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 “extra virgin” sold in stores were so substandard, in no way could they 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 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. If fact, you can verify this by checking the bottle in your own pantry right now. If you bought it in a store, the odds are overwhelming 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: Remember these four most important words whenever you shop for olive oil: the fresher, the better. And that means avoiding olive oil sold in supermarkets, where the oils sit on the shelf for months or even years, growing stale, musty, and rancid. That’s definitely not healthy. I recommend buying online, directly from award-winning farms, where you can secure outrageously delicious olive oils fresh from the latest harvests around the world. That’s when olive oil is bursting with just-plucked-from-the-tree flavor and goodness. Try just one bottle of 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 delicious EVOO is when it’s fresh from the harvest. Below, I’ll tell you how you can try one of the world’s finest harvest-fresh EVOOs for free as part of a special marketing promotion (all you have to pay is $1 to help cover shipping, and there’s no obligation to buy anything now or ever). It’s an excellent opportunity to discover how EVOO is meant to taste at its peak of freshness and flavor. 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. More on a convenient way to do this in a moment. 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 award-winning, 100% pure, 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 dedicated to enjoying 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, possibly you. An Invitation to Sample a Free Bottle of One of the Finest Olive Oils on Earth (Normally $39 Retail) 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 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. Such ultra-fresh olive oil is bursting with flavor and nutritional potency that’s impossible to find in supermarket olive oils. The club 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. Before You Say “Yes” or “No,” Try a Free $39 Bottle So You Can Taste the Difference Yourself 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 a special gift to introduce you to our club. It’s a $39 bottle of my finest EVOO, just in from the new harvest and brimming with more vibrant flavor than any supermarket olive oil you’ll ever taste. And I don’t ask you to take my word for that promise. All I ask is for the chance to prove it to you with a free $39 bottle if you’ll be willing to pay just $1 to help me cover the cost of shipping. That’s how I invite people to join our unique and exclusive olive oil club—by first sending them a free $39 bottle of my finest fresh-pressed EVOO—direct from the new harvest—for just a $1 shipping charge. This way you can taste first and then decide. There’s no commitment or obligation whatsoever on your part to buy anything, now or ever. Here’s What I Invite You to Experience As soon as you receive your free bottle, open the cap and inhale the oil’s harvest-fresh bouquet. You’ll instantly notice the air around you fill with a farm-fresh fragrance, as if you’ve opened a garden in a bottle. Then realize that this vibrant, grassy aroma, akin to new-mown hay, results from nothing more than 100% pure extra virgin olive oil straight from the harvest—not a single ingredient added! Next, for a truly stunning revelation, compare your newly arrived farm-fresh EVOO to the olive oil sitting in your kitchen pantry. Perform a simple taste test with each, and you’ll immediately realize what bountiful fresh flavor and aroma you’ve been missing in all your dishes, all these years. “I have died and gone to Italy!!!” With your free $39 bottle, over the next month you’ll anticipate such enhanced dining pleasure every day as you drizzle this divine harvest-fresh olive oil on your crisp salads, delicate fish, grilled steaks, fresh veggies, luscious pastas, or simply on a hunk of warm, crusty bread or piece of tangy cheese. As one 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!!!” Obviously, our club couldn’t sustain itself very long giving away $39 bottles of EVOO—unless the vast majority of those who accept these gift bottles come back for more. And that’s exactly what I expect will happen with you. But you will be the judge. A Limited Supply…Please RSVP to Let Me Know If You’d Like a Free Bottle If you’d like to try our unique club and receive one of our harvest-fresh $39 bottles for just $1 shipping, I suggest that you act now. In contrast with supermarkets, we always have very limited inventory because we work exclusively with small family farms. What’s more, as a member, you also empower our club’s mission to support small family-run farms that 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 ebook, 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 ebook](  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 just for giving the club a try and paying $1 to help cover shipping, you get to keep the free $39 bottle of premium harvest-fresh olive oil.  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 antiaging 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 for more information on the Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club and to claim your risk-free invitation to try their independently lab-certified, 100% pure extra virgin olive oils from award-winning artisanal small farms. <<]( Are you on social? Enjoy more Almanac wit & wisdom! 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