The Olive Oil

“ Olive oil is one of the most digestible of the edible fats. ”

Olive oil is a fatty oil taken from olives. It is one of the most digestible of the edible fats.

Like other fats olive oil is a high energy food. Its chief ingredient is olein, a glycerine compound. Olive oil is used chiefly in salad dressing and as a frying fat. It is also used in soap, perfumes, and medicines. The olive oil obtained by modern crushers stand in stainless steel tanks, and the sediment that naturally settles to the bottom of the tank is drawn off.

The olive oil stands in the stainless steel tanks for two or six months, during this time, the additional natural sediment that settles out is drawn off several times. The flavour of olive oil depends upon the variety of olives used, their ripeness when picked, the way they are handled, and length of time they are stored before pressing. The best olive oil comes from olives which are picked just after they ripen and before they turn black, if the olives are picked too green, the oil is bitter, if they are picked too ripe, the oil is rancid.

The flesh of ripe olives is about half oil, when the skin is broken, a great deal of the oil comes out of the pulp. Such olive oil is called "extravirgin" or "first pressed" olive oil. It is the highest grade of olive oil. A cheap grade of olive oil is made from the pulp left over after the first pressing. Most of the olive oil produced in the world come from the Mediterranean countries. Fat is one of the most important foods of animals and plants, without it they would die. Liquid fats, such as olive oil contain more oleic acids.

The most important of the fatty acids are palmitic, stearic, and oleic. Fats furnish more than twice as much fuel and energy for the body as the same amount of proteins or carbohydrates.

This is because fats contain more carbon and hydrogen, when carbon and hydrogen burn, they give off huge amounts of heat. Fat is not digested in the stomach, but in the small intestine, vegetable oils contain almost 100 per cent fat.

Vegetable oil is used chiefly for cooking, medicine, lubrication, and paints. Processor obtain edibly oil by cleaning the fruits, flowers, or seeds, then pressing out all the oil possible, no heat is used in this process. Oil obtained in this way is known as cold-pressed oil (heat of the paste below 27° C.). The best cold-pressed oil is of course extravirgin olive oil.