Are you buying the right olive oil?

olive oil is one of the more expensive ingredients that we buy as home cooks but there are so many different kinds for example what's the difference between extra virgin virgin pure and light olive oil what about filtered versus unfiltered and what does first cold pressed mean with all of these terms including some questionable marketing tactics how are we supposed to know which stuff is the good stuff so there are a couple great videos on how olive oil is made but as described in on food and cooking the general process is first cleaning the olives then crushing the pits and all before finally grounding them into a paste which breaks the fruit cells and frees up the oil that paste is then pressed and squeezed so the oil and watery liquids separate from the solids of the olives and this is also known as the first cold press which is the most delicate and stable oil and most likely to yield extra virgin olive oil speaking of what exactly is extra virgin olive oil so the international olive council came up with grades of olive oil which though the us is not an official member the usda has adopted themselves in general there are four types of olive oil these are extra virgin olive oil virgin olive oil regular olive oil and then refined olive oil and the primary differentiators between them are the amount of processing to the flavor and odor and three the free fatty acid content so extra virgin olive oil is defined as having excellent flavor and odor with median defects or equal to zero it also has a free fatty acid content of no more than 0.8 grams per 100 grams of oil or 0.8 virgin olive oil has reasonably good flavor and odor with median defects between 0 and 2.5 and its fatty acid content cannot be higher than 2 percent now fourth on the list first refined olive oil is probably virgin olive oil that has higher than two percent of the free fatty acid so it is processed to remove all the impurities from the remaining oil molecules including the desirable flavor molecules which results in a flavorless and odorless olive oil this also could not have a free fatty acid content of higher than 0.3 grams per 100 grams or 0.3 now third on the list is actually kind of a frankenstein blend of the two and this is one that you'll very commonly see and one that a lot of people buy so olive oil is a blend of refined olive oil and virgin olive oil that yields some flavor and odor with characteristics of virgin olive oil additionally its free fatty acid content is no more than one gram per 100 grams or one percent so in general between all the oils there is an inverse relationship here the less processing the oil goes through the more flavor molecules the olive oil retains and generally is also the more expensive so this is good and all but why should you care about free fatty acids well as mentioned in on food and cooking olive oil quality is judged by its overall flavor and by its contents of free fatty acids and these should be bound up in intact oil molecules but instead are floating free and that is evidence that the oil is damaged and unstable so the monosaturated oleic acid is desirable in olive oil but not when it's floating free because this means the oil is vulnerable to oxidation which can happen while heating the oil up or just when it is stored over time this oxidation can produce off flavors in the oil that are stale and harsh now some other terms you may see on an extra virgin olive oil bottle are one first cold pressed or just cold pressed which means exactly what it says this olive oil was from the first press of the olive paste which again typically yields the extra virgin olive oil cold pressing ensures that the olives never got above 27 degrees celsius or 80 fahrenheit because higher than that can cause more free fatty acids in the oil second unfiltered or filtered so filtering is just a process that traps and removes any particles of olive fruit that may be in the oil and unfiltered oil can have a slight difference in color though it will also have an enhanced taste and flavor but because of that it has a much shorter self-life so it must be consumed more quickly and is not as good for cooking you'll likely only see this at olive oil specialty shops most of the olive oil you see at your major grocery stores will be filtered as it has a longer shelf life so this information is all good but how do i know that i'm actually getting the real stuff well first you can have a look at the ingredient label in general it will either say extra virgin olive oil only a blend of virgin and refined olive oil or refined olive oil only so if you are international there is a list of countries that are members of the international olive council who do produce olive oil under their specifications but if you're in the u.s you're unlikely to find a ton of imported olive oil and actually it might be lesser quality just because of the time that it takes to get over here instead there's probably three large third-party seals that are from the california olive oil council the north american olive oil association and third the olive oil commission of california and the last one actually has the most stringent of all evoo specifications and this is why the 100 california olive oil ranch eboo is the one that i really like for my personal kitchen and it works for both flavoring and cooking now if you don't see a seal you can always check out their list online for a brand you may see at the store for example the kirkland brand is certified by the california olive oil council you also want to take a look out for the harvest date on the bottle in general this is just a good transparent practice and typical harvest dates start in october and end in february so if you're buying a bottle right now in september 2021 you'll see a date from either late 2020 or early 2021 and depending on the maturation of the olive fruit themselves it can change the properties of the oil which is how we get all these different flavors even across extra virgin olive oils the question still remains though which one should i get from my kitchen so from a culinary perspective olive oil can really just play two primary roles one finishing or flavoring such as a salad dressing or maybe just dipping bread into so it's raw or secondly it can be used as a cookie medium for say sauteing vegetables or frying now for number one if the goal is to optimize the flavor and smell you want an extra virgin olive oil that you enjoy maybe this means going to an olive oil store and looking at the flavor characteristics and in fact there is a whole tasting wheel that has all the unique flavors and olive oil can potentially have now cooking is where things get interesting in my opinion remember those free fatty acid content so the lower the free fatty acid content this means fewer impurities in the oil which could have an implication on how the oil reacts when it's heated specifically a study on the evaluation of chemical and physical changes in different commercial oils during heating shows a table with evo virgin olive oil and olive oil and of the three virgin olive oil as expected has the highest percent of ffa and interestingly has the lowest smoke point at 175 degrees celsius or 347 degrees fahrenheit now in general the university of california davis fact sheet notes that olive oil can have a smoke point ranging from 347 degrees fahrenheit all the way up to degrees fahrenheit depending on the grade quality and freshness now as adam showed in a video smoke point is not the only thing that matters when it comes to the stability of cooking oils and actually extra virgin olive oils are one of the most stable of all oils at higher temperatures so if extra virgin olive oil is great for cooking at high temperatures too but you don't want the flavor of it should you get the odorless and flavorless refined olive oil well you could but here in my kitchen is where i turn to peanut oil so according to the food lab peanut oil is higher in saturated fat at 17 percent compared to just 13 in most olive oils and higher saturated fat helps food become crisper peanut oil is easily my preferred frying oil and this along with extra virgin olive oil are the only two oils that i think are absolutely essential in every home cook's kitchen price is also a consideration so here's the price per 100 grams of extra virgin the extra light or refined olive oil and peanut and as you can see the refined olive oil even though on the bottle it says it the tasting oil is actually just an expensive neutral oil remember the usda definition is odorless and flavorless now with all that being said here is my recommendation for the average home cook choose a mid-tier extra virgin olive oil that only lists extra virgin olives or olive oil on the ingredient list this can be used for both cooking and flavoring if you would like a specialty oil for flavoring or dressing purchase a small unfiltered extra virgin olive oil from your favorite producer and specifically if you are in the united states look for a seal of approval from either the california olive oil council the north american olive oil association or the olive oil association of california with a harvest date on the bottle to ensure that you are getting the freshest olive oil all right everyone so hopefully this video helped you a lot with all the information about olive oil so you can make an informed decision the next time you are out at the grocery store but that's going to wrap it up for me in this one if you guys enjoy videos like this let me know down in the comments i can definitely do some more of them that's going to wrap it up for me in this one catch y'all in the next one [Music] foreign

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 2,220,486

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, extra virgin olive oil, olive oil benefits, best olive oil brands, olive oil test, best olive oil, best olive oil for cooking, real olive oil vs fake, how to detect fake olive oil, virgin olive oil, fake extra virgin olive oil, olive oil uses, olive oils, benefits of olive oil, best olive oils, olive oil fraud, extra virgin vs regular olive oil, different types of olive oil, olive oil smoke point, fake olive oil, extra virgin vs virgin olive oil

Id: 9GNrwBYjoFg

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021