Olives101.com

Sedat Kirt,

Shocked by the destruction of a forest of ancient olive trees amid the environmental degradation of a coal mine, a young businessman from Datça has initiated an extraordinary eco-project.
Building engineer Timur Kabaklarlı, 32, now owns 1,500 olive trees after seeing the centuries-old trees being cut for coal mining. During a business trip to [...]

By Mark Logan,
The Mediterranean diet, which includes copious amounts of olive oil, is well known for its health benefits but that is not why retired physician John Milla, and his wife Lorraine, took to planting olive trees at Abilene Grove 13 years ago.
An avid tree planter, Mr Milla was initially interested in the investment opportunities [...]

Do you like olives? Either the black or green variety? Then eating seven a day could help to keep the doctor away, say health experts.
They say it does not matter how the olive is prepared or whether it is green or black, it contains essential amino acids, minerals and vitamins, fundamental to the Mediterranean diet.
Eating [...]

An olive tree on the Mount of Beatitudes blessed by Pope John Paul II is the only one producing olives this year, according to the forester at the site.
Catholic Online reports in the Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land stopping at one point to bless an [...]

By Johann Fleck,
Olive oil is the crowning glory for grilled seafood, a salad, over Feta cheese or other sheep’s milk cheese. It rounds out pasta dishes and vegetables, and is used to sauté and fry. There is hardly a Mediterranean dish that does not include olive oil in the recipe.
As a result of the high [...]

Know in ancient times as “juice of the gods”, olive oil has only enhanced its reputation over the years. While it may not be the ticket to immortality, there is evidence that it can lead to a longer and healthier life.
“The traditional Mediterranean diet is high in olive oil and certainly there’s evidence to suggest [...]

By Natalie Tadic,

Shirley Bougourd knows olive oil. She tells me she’s still learning, that the past three years of running The Olive Pit, haven of oil and good taste in general, has been quite the experience; that she’s still taking in new information each day. But to the average lay person, Shirley knows her stuff. [...]

Spain is the leading producer of olives and olive oil. It produces, on average, 1 million tons of olive oil annually. Spain’s more than 300 million olive trees cover more than 8,800 square miles - an area comparable to the size of Massachusetts.
Experiment and discover what types of olive oil suit your tastes. The simple [...]

By Nikos Xydakis,
Although many jokes have been made about the sunflower oil contamination scandal, it is no laughing matter.
It is not even an isolated incident, because along with the contaminated oil from Ukraine, we are also seeing large quantities of sunflower oil from Belgium – the heart of the European Union – being withdrawn from [...]

By June M. Lay,
My oil of choice is Olive Oil, because while a fat is a fat when we refer to calories, not all fats (including oils) are equal when we refer to our health.
I’ve chosen Olive Oil because it leads by a margin when we compare it to other oils that are good for [...]

By Dr. Erin Elster,
Anyone who has travelled to the Mediterranean can tell you about the wonderful, healthy food in that region. Much of the health benefits and flavor are due to the generous use of olive oil on salads, pasta, vegetables, fish, and almost anything else.
Researchers are learning that people who consume olive oil regularly [...]

By Gillian Hirst,

I THINK at last count I had 10 different styles of olives in my pantry. They are the perfect snack food. We enjoy them with wine and cheese, add them to salads, roast them with vegetables and use them in pastas.
I have a beautiful (if I do say so myself) recipe for olive [...]

Paul Levy notes that Italian olive oil output is declining and prices seem to be going up. Are recent EU regulations actually helping?
A few weeks ago I received an alarming email from Armando Manni who makes what is certainly the most expensive olive oil in the world, and the one that a great many people [...]

An extract derived from olives may provide protection against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, according to a study published in the “Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.”
Researchers examined the effect of an antioxidant chemical known as hydroxytyrosol, which has previously been shown to be connected to the health benefits of olive oil, such as LDL (”bad”) [...]

By Maricel E. Presilla,
On my first trip to Peru many years ago, I was captivated by the country’s black olives. Juicy, meaty and flavorful, they were a far cry from the rubbery California black olives of U.S. salad bars and a welcome change from the sharp, briny green Manzanilla olives I grew up eating in [...]

By Tina Caputo,
California olive oil history dates back hundreds of years to the late 1700s, when the first olive trees were brought over from Spain. As the industry grew, olive trees became a common sight in Northern California and the Central Valley, and olive oil processing mills began opening to meet demand for the golden [...]

By Greg Atkinson,
Last September, when I was in California, I enjoyed a picnic in the shade of some enormous old olive trees. The tables were covered with Provençal fabrics, and when we sat down to eat, we were greeted with bright green olive oil poured onto plates for dipping the artisanal breads that awaited us [...]

By Charlene Laino,
If you or a family member are scheduled for heart bypass surgery, stock up on the olive oil.
That’s the advice of Greek researchers who found that an olive-oil-rich diet may lower the risk of having a heart attack or stroke or dying from cardiovascular disease in the month after heart surgery.
“There’s a lot [...]

Extra virgin olive oil has become such a symbol of healthy eating that it is hard to believe that it was once accused of increasing the harmful cholesterol. It was a fat, so it had to be bad for us. Extra virgin olive oil has become such a symbol of healthy eating that it is [...]

By Caroline Bellamy,
Olives lower blood cholesterol and are also full of antioxidants which protect the heart, the therapeutic benefits of olives and olive oil have been known for centuries, Mediterraneans have long prized the small fruit of the Olea Europaea for its health-boosting properties.
Now, those properties are being harnessed for use in supplements, tinctures, creams [...]

By Laura Kurtzman,
After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the University of California, Davis established a research department that led to the flowering of the California wine industry now, it hopes to do the same for olive oil.
The challenges to the emerging industry are significant. They include finding economical ways to produce fine oil, dealing [...]

JAMES HIPKISS writes on the history, varieties and best ways to enjoy olives.
Most Malaysians are familiar with olive oil. It is now commonly available in ever increasing varieties in nearly all supermarkets and specialist shops.
However, the olive itself is not so commonly used here, and perhaps not so often seen in most Malaysian kitchens.
After all, [...]

Hoping to do for olives and olive oil what it has done for grapes and wine, the University of California, Davis, today launched the first university-based olive research and education center in North America.
Plans for the new UC Davis Olive Center, which is part of the university’s Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, [...]

Would you like to know more about French Extra Virgin Olive Oil ?
Alain Maes, a Frenchman who live in Chicago wrote a few days ago a passionate and interesting article on the subject.
Via this post and Costas

by Jon Evans,
By using a combination of liquid chromatography (LC), mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, Spanish food scientists have managed to uncover several novel antibacterial compounds in table olives. This work should not only help to highlight the health benefits of eating olives, but also lead to a better understanding of [...]