Comment on Those of us who don't use ChatGPT will get this one ;)
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 weeks ago
For anyone interested, this mean it’s shit olive oil. Good olive oil is obtained directly from olives using only mechanical methods. It then passes taste test to determine if it’s only “virgin” or “extra virgin” (better, pure taste). Bad olive oil is extracted using chemical processes. This is not edible and normally was used in lamps but you can refine it in other industrial processes, add some virgin oil for taste and sell it. This is the bad kind. Don’t buy that shit.
That is really interesting. I always wondered what virgin and extra virgin mean (other than just “better quality”) but never got to looking it up.
Refined oils usually have the benefit of being able to be heated to a higher temperature before braking down though. This is why most cold pressed oils should not really be used for cooking.
Olive oil has a high breakdown temp as far as I know and is fine for cooking.
Good that you mention it, I should have done that. Yes, virgin olive oil itself has a high breakdown temperature and is fine for cooking. It’s just not recommended for deep frying.
As a comparison: unrefined sunflower or rapeseed oil for example are not suitable for heated foods (although both can be expected to be refined, if not stated otherwise). When they are refined, they are fine for even deep frying.
One interesting thing I found: According to the wikipedia smoke point chart, unrefined rapeseed oil is fine for cooking. My german source says it’s not.
My sources:
English: en.wikipedia.org/…/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin…
German: www.alnatura.de/…/warenkunde-erhitzbare-oele/
i have no idea what to do when two sources contradict. i guess I’ll believe neither: it’s not okay for cooking and not unacceptabke for cooking. it is necessary for all cooki g and always has been
This is why most cold pressed oils should not really be used for cooking.
All of the Mediterranean is dead apparently lol.
I know that they informed you that (extra) virgin oil is fine for cooking, but I had to, sorry.
Hey, finally a topic I can contribute something to (I dabble in making my own olive oil).
Depending on what you mean by chemical methods, you might not be 100% correct. The vast majority of food grade olive oil (including really high quality stuff) is extracted by crushing the olives into a mash, mixing it with warm water and spinning the resulting paste in a centrifuge. The quality varies according to the quality of the fruit, when it’s picked, how much oil you’re trying to squeeze out, and the variables you control are basically the quality and quantity of water in the mash. It’s classified as virgin or extra virgin according to the chemical composition, and the “cold pressed” is more of a marketing term than an actual process. It’s nowadays supposed to mean that the mash doesn’t get over a certain temperature in the extraction, but if it did it would be poor quality oil anyway, so it’s pretty meaningless for “decent or above” oil quality. Purely mechanically pressed oil is exceedingly rare and has a more muted flavor because it skips the process of mixing the mash with water, which activates the aromatic compounds.
I believe the refined oils are extracted using solvents. This is how Aceite de Orujo (Pomace Oil?) is made for example.
Yeah, you’re right. I don’t have any experience with industrial oil making but that process sounds nasty.
Look out for stuff that is sold next to Olive oil called Pomace Oil. It’s packaged almost exactly the same and ‘Pomace Oil’ is usually hidden in fancy script somewhere. It’s much cheaper because it’s made from running the garbage that is left over through a couple questionable processes to squeeze out every last ml of oil out of it.
It’s possibly unhealthy to consume regularly and definitely the poorest quality. That’s why the 3 liter tin is only like $25
Also, the Italian/Greek/whatever Olive Oil was probably sourced from a bunch of different places and only packaged in the stated country.
Look for ‘First Press’ oils to have some chance at quality product, though the producer may be lying about that too, or mixing a legal minimum of the stated high quality product with the cheapest garbage they can boost their margins with.
also i’m pretty sure that the “refined” plant oil is harvested by heating the plant materials up first and then pressing it? instead of cold-pressing it.
the heat makes the oil less viscuous so it flows easier. so you can press it out more fully, but also the heat chemically alters the oil and make it go rancid faster or sth?
pretty sure this is the one pictured btw www.waitrose.com/ecom/…/034141-17087-17088
For lights? Like to burn??? Wth kind of plant is olive to be making that much oil?
StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Also want to add something I saw in the US: light olive oil. It advertised itself as olive oil with a lighter flavor. It was olive oil diluted with vegetable oil, yet sold at a premium.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The amount of astoundingly shit product that are casually sold in the US is mind boggling. You just cannot trust anything over there.