Olives101.com

Deep in Andalucian olive country, expert olive oil producers perform their age-old alchemy, turning black fruit into gold.

by Arpi Shively,

The charmed life of a ripe Nuñez de Prado olive begins on a crisp late November morning above the town of Baena in Cordoba province, in the heart of Andalucian olive country. Over the next few days, this humble fruit will be transformed into liquid sunshine, to be poured over summer salads and winter vegetables wherever people love good food.

Spain is the world’s leading olive oil producer, its 300 million trees contributing almost one million tonnes of oil each year to the world market. Andalucía itself accounts for 80 per cent of Spanish olive oil output, dwarfing other regions such as Extramadura and Catalonia. Though much of this oil is exported for blending, especially to Italy, many chefs prefer to use the best Spanish oil.

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Slow Food/Coldiretti on Italian Oil : Made from 50% of Olives harvested abroad.

50% of Italian olive oil sold in supermarkets is made from olives of unknown origins. This is because law 204 from 2004 has still not become official for Italian oil producers which would make it mandatory to indicate the area of cultivation on extra virgin olive oil labels, rather than just the area in which it was bottled. It is a good law that is awaiting full application, but which now risks being drastically changed, reducing its efficacy.

An initiative in defense of this law, “Let’s defend the label! We want to know the source of the products we eat”, launched by Slow Food and Coldiretti, was presented at the Quality Oil event in Verona some days ago.

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Nous avions signalés un article à ce sujet dans un précédent post ICI, mais il est nécessaire d’en reparlé…

Composants chimiques dans l’huile d’olive, gare à la contrefaçon !

Par Leila M.,

La contrefaçon n’épargne aucun segment de l’économie nationale. Au-delà du préjudice que ce phénomène porte au développement économique, la contrefaçon est devenue un véritable problème pour la santé publique, après avoir touché les logiciels, la pièce détachée et le médicament, voilà que le champ des produits contrefaits touche à présent les produits alimentaires.

En effet, certains producteurs, peu scrupuleux, n’hésitent pas à incorporer des produits chimiques nocifs aux différents aliments que nous consommons, c’est le cas, par exemple, de l’huile d’olive.

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Par Radia Zerrouki,

Alors que l’Algérie a des capacités la classant 7e pays au monde en matière d’olives, la production nationale de ce produit et ses huiles restent en deçà des besoins du marché local alimenté à 95,5% par des produits importés.

C’est ce qui a été, entre autres, révélé par M. Abdelhakim Berrakech, représentant de l’Association des conserveurs d’olives, lors d’une conférence de presse, organisée hier, par l’Union générale des commerçants et artisans algériens (UGCAA), hier, en son siège à Alger.

Le conférencier a lié la faiblesse et le retard enregistrés dans la production d’olives et leurs huiles, ne couvrant que 4,5% des besoins du marché, à l’ancienne stratégie d’investissement et l’ancienne politique économique du pays, soit les années d’avant-2001.

Il a expliqué qu’à partir de cette date et suite à l’adoption d’une nouvelle politique économique, notamment dans le cadre du programme PNDRA (Plan national de développement rural et agricole), le marché connaît, par contre, une avancée considérable dans la production de ces produits, soit un taux de croissance de 7,23% réalisé entre  2001 (152 000 ha d’arbres d’olive) et 2006 (240 000 ha).

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Alan Greene, vice president of sales and marketing for California Olive Ranch in Oroville, has been elected Board President for the widely respected California Olive Oil Council.

“The COOC welcomes the leadership and vision Alan brings to the COOC and the entire industry. As dramatic growth continues, the board, with Alan at the helm is well poised to effectively proceed ahead,” says Patty Darragh, executive director of the COOC, in written comments.

Established in 1992, the COOC is a non-profit trade and marketing association with a purpose to promote the growing of olives and the production of olive oil in California

Mr. Greene says his major goal for the council is focus on expanding the support for universally accepted standards for extra virgin olive oil “that protect consumers and producers alike.”

California’s olive growers are estimated to be on track to roughly triple the output of extra virgin olive oil in the coming years to reach more than one million gallons annually by 2011. California already produces approximately 99 percent of all extra virgin olive oil produced in the United States.

[Source] Click here

We have talked about Olivenol in February, today when researchers in Japan undertook a study to research the effect of Olivenol on inflammatory diseases, they made an exciting discovery.

Study participants who suffered from severe skin disorders – psoriasis purulenta, erythema nodosum and allergic dermatitis – experienced marked improvement after just a few months of taking two Olivenol capsules daily.

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By Christopher Markuns,

Cooking oil used to be so simple.
There was vegetable and there was olive.

Today, simplicity has been supplanted by overwhelming options that can trigger almost comedic dilemmas. Dressing a salad? Will it be almond oil or walnut? Grapeseed is good. So is hazelnut. And if frying is on the menu, canola is nice, but avocado would be a cool twist.

Confused yet? Blame the gourmeting of America. As food television and celebrity chefs introduce us to a growing number of ingredients and techniques formerly the province of restaurants, grocers’ shelves have become choked with oil choices.

And our pantries aren’t far behind. The number of different cooking oils in the average American home has increased 14 percent during the past 6 years, says Harry Balzer, a food analyst for market researcher NPD Group. While that’s a little hard to envision in terms of your pantry shelf, that statistic is an indicator of real growth, Balzer says.

“What you have is a number of people who have gone from one oil to two, and a number of people who used to have two went to three, and so on,” he says.

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If you’re in the market for olive oils, you’re likely to be dazzled by dozens of drizzlers.
But which ones are the best to buy? CBS 2′s Consumer Reporter Kirstin Cole with the help of Good Housekeeping magazine performed a blind taste test of 12 brands to find the best.

A common question asked with so many olive oils stacked on your supermarket’s shelves is, “Are all extra-virgin olive oils created equal?”

Well, the experts don’t be they are.

Olives 101 has already reported this test in last February but here is the video and there is the CBS 2 article.

By Elyse Weidner,

One product that can soften your cuticles, condition your hair, moisturize your body, diminish sun damage to your skin and serve as a shaving product is sitting in your kitchen.

Extra virgin olive oil, rich in vitamins and antioxidants, helps soften skin without leaving behind clogged pores, extra grease or an overwhelming scent, says Alex Fiori, owner of Salon Di Marco & Day Spa, 733 Massachusetts St.

Fiori, a native of Italy, where people have been lathering up with olive oil for hundreds of years, says when it comes to at-home beauty remedies, our grandmothers were ahead of their time. Vitamin-rich olive oil has also proven to be a successful treatment for inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, she says.

By simply carrying that bottle of olive oil from the kitchen to the bathroom, you can cut down on the money spent purchasing multiple bath and beauty products. Instead of using shaving creams, gels or soaps, spread olive oil on your skin before shaving to prevent over drying or irritation of the skin as a result of the razor’s exfoliating action. Also, after massaging a few tablespoons of olive oil into your hair, Fiori says to let it sit for up to an hour before shampooing to help repair split ends and eliminate dandruff by softening the scalp.

[Source] Click here

L’huile d’olive tunisienne, qui fait de la Tunisie le 4ème exportateur mondial de ce produit, a tous les atouts pour être consommée et connue à l’international sous un label tunisien.

Ce produit biologique, lié à l’histoire de la Tunisie et écoulé sur les marchés extérieurs comme un breuvage anonyme, souffre encore d’un déficit d’image. Seul 1 % des quantités exportées est conditionné, le reste est vendu en vrac et est valorisé, sur les marchés extérieurs, par des sous-traitants étrangers.

Pour remédier cette situation et explorer de nouvelles pistes pour la promotion des exportations de l’huile d’olive conditionnée et repositionner ce produit tunisien sur les marchés extérieurs, le Centre technique de l’emballage et du conditionnement (PACKTEC) et le ministère de l’Industrie ont organisé, jeudi à Tunis, une journée d’information destinée aux producteurs, exportateurs, designers, experts en marketing et représentants de fonds spécialisés.

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By Gholam Rahman,

Question: What’s the difference between regular and extra-virgin olive oil? If you’re not a gourmet cook, do you really need the extra-virgin kind?

Answer: Extra-virgin olive oil is unique among oils in that it comes directly from ripe fruits of the olive tree. The fruits are milled and pressed by modern hydraulic machines to extract the juice. The oil is then separated from the water in the juice by centrifugal machines. If the expressed oil meets certain industry criteria, including acid content of less than 1 percent, it is given the status of extra-virgin olive oil, or EVOO as Rachael Ray, the Food Network superstar, has named it.

In the old days extra-virgin oil also bore the inscription of “first press,” or “cold press,” but the Larousse Gastronomique, the food bible, says these terms are no longer relevant since all the oil can be extracted at the same time and temperature is now electronically controlled. Limited amounts of artisan oils are still made by hand. An oil’s main characteristic is its fine fruity flavor, like the bouquet of fine wines. And like a fine wine, it can be very expensive.

Color is not really a criterion of quality. The bouquet can vary from country to country, even from region to region.

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By Karen Fernau,

Olives are so much more than a martini garnish.

They add easy, intense flavor to pasta dishes, baked bread, as toppings for seafood and in salads. Which olives taste best is personal. Flavors range from tangy, winey and fruity to spicy and tart.

Olives come packed with fat, but the “good” monounsaturated kind. Ten medium black olives have 50 calories and 4 grams of fat.

Today, many grocers, including Whole Foods, Safeway, Fry’s, Sunflower Market and AJ’s Fine Foods, offer well-stocked olive bars with global varieties. The advantage is mixing and matching, or buying just a few olives at a time.

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Par Moncef Mahroug,

Toutes les conditions semblent aujourd’hui réunies pour que l’huile d’olive conditionnée prenne une place beaucoup plus importante dans nos exportations de cette denrée. Une journée d’information organisée jeudi 5 avril tentera de mobiliser les opérateurs dans ce sens.

Avec la création du Fonds de l’Huile d’Olive Conditionnée (FOPRHOC), les préalables pour assurer à l’huile d’olive tunisienne conditionnée un meilleur positionnement sur les marchés à l’export semblent, enfin, réunis. Le 11ème Plan projette ainsi sur une évolution du volume d’huile d’olive conditionnée exportée pour atteindre 10% de la quantité écoulée à l’étranger, contre seulement 1 % actuellement, alors que la part de l’huile d’olive conditionnée dans les exportations n’a pas augmenté de manière significative.

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Children who eat a Mediterranean diet packed with fruit, vegetables and nuts are less likely to develop asthma and allergies, say researchers.

A study carried out on the Greek island of Crete found eating high quantities of traditional foods such as olive oil could protect youngsters from wheezing and other allergic symptoms.

[Source] Click here to continue

Les préalables pour assurer à l’huile tunisienne conditionnée un meilleur positionnement sur les marchés à l’export dans les années qui viennent semblent, enfin, réunis.

Les experts parient d’ailleurs à juste titre sur la mise en place d’un dispositif d’exportation de l’huile d’olive conditionnée. Dans le cadre du XIe Plan, les prévisions d’exportation de l’huile d’olive conditionnée par rapport au total exporté en vrac tablent ainsi sur un taux de croissance optimiste mais néanmoins réaliste, 10% contre 1% actuellement.

Au centre de ce dispositif, figure la création toute récente du Fonds de promotion de l’huile d’olive conditionnée (Foprhoc), alimenté par un prélèvement de 0,5% sur la valeur des quantités d’huile d’olive exportées en vrac. Depuis 1994, en effet, et malgré la libéralisation de l’exportation de l’huile d’olive, la part du conditionné dans les opérations d’exportation n’a pas évolué d’une façon significative.

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