Olive Oil – The Most Natural Of Oils
Here is the fact that sets olive oil apart from every bottle beside it: good extra virgin is not manufactured, it is squeezed. It is a fresh fruit juice, made by pressing, where seed oils are industrial products coaxed out with heat and chemistry.
Reach along a supermarket oil shelf and almost everything you touch — sunflower, rapeseed, corn, soy — is a refined product. The oil is extracted from small seeds, usually with heat and solvents, then bleached and deodorised into something pale and neutral. Extra virgin olive oil is the odd one out, and gloriously so: it is simply the juice of a fresh fruit, the olive, separated from its water and solids by pressing. Nothing added, nothing refined out. That is the whole difference, and it explains almost everything else.
Squeezed, not manufactured
To make extra virgin, ripe olives are crushed, the paste is gently worked, and the oil is separated by pressure or spinning — a mechanical process, no solvents, no high heat. What comes out is unrefined, so it keeps the fruit’s colour, aroma, bitterness and peppery bite, along with its natural antioxidants. That is why a great oil tastes green, grassy and alive: you are tasting the actual fruit. A refined seed oil, by contrast, is deliberately stripped of all character — the flavour is processed away on purpose.
| Extra virgin olive oil | Typical seed oil | |
|---|---|---|
| Source | The flesh of a fresh fruit | Small seeds |
| How it is made | Crushed and pressed, mechanical | Extracted, often with heat and solvents |
| Refining | None | Bleached and deodorised |
| Flavour | Fruity, bitter, peppery — kept on purpose | Neutral — stripped on purpose |
| Really a… | Fresh fruit juice | Refined industrial oil |
Which means it is perishable
The catch of being a natural juice is that olive oil behaves like one: it is alive, and it ages. Exposed to light, air, heat and time it goes stale and then rancid, losing its aroma and turning flat and greasy. A refined seed oil, stripped of the very compounds that spoil, sits on a shelf almost indefinitely and tastes of nothing throughout. So the price of olive oil’s naturalness is that you must treat it as fresh food — buy it in dark glass with a harvest date, keep it cool and closed, and use it up rather than hoard it.
Natural, but not automatically virtuous
One honest caution, because ‘natural’ gets oversold. Being a fresh-pressed juice makes olive oil delicious and worth choosing — but it does not make it calorie-free, nor a medicine, and the word ‘pure’ on a bottle is often refined oil, not the good stuff. Naturalness is a reason to buy real extra virgin and enjoy it fresh, not a health halo to switch off your judgement. Taste is your best guide: fruity and lively is the real juice; flat and waxy is either refined or old.
How to treat a fresh-pressed oil
- Buy extra virgin — the unrefined, genuinely pressed grade.
- Choose dark glass or tin with a harvest date.
- Store it cool, closed and dark, like the perishable food it is.
- Use it up in months, not years — freshness is the whole point.
- Do not trust ‘pure’ or ‘natural’ as proof — taste it instead.
Olive oil, the natural oil: common questions
Why is olive oil called a fruit juice?
Because extra virgin is literally the juice of the olive fruit, separated from water and solids by crushing and pressing — not refined or chemically extracted like seed oils.
How is that different from seed oils?
Seed oils are extracted from seeds, usually with heat and solvents, then bleached and deodorised into a neutral product. Extra virgin is simply pressed and keeps its flavour and antioxidants.
Does that make olive oil healthier automatically?
It makes it more natural and flavourful, and a sensible choice — but it is not calorie-free or a medicine. Enjoy it as good food, not a health cure.
Why does olive oil go off?
Because it is a fresh juice full of natural compounds, so light, air, heat and time turn it stale and rancid. Refined oils, stripped of those compounds, last far longer but taste of nothing.
How should I store it?
In dark glass or tin, cool, closed and away from light and heat, and use it within a few months of opening — treat it as the perishable food it is.
The single most useful thing to understand about olive oil is that it is a juice, not a manufactured oil — squeezed from a fruit, not refined from a seed. Once that clicks, everything follows : why the good stuff tastes green and peppery, why it costs more, and why it goes off. Treat it like orange juice, not like motor oil. Buy it fresh, in dark glass, with a harvest date, keep it cool and closed, and use it up. And do not be seduced by ‘pure’ or ‘natural’ on a label — your own tongue is a better test than any word.
General background on mechanical extraction of extra virgin olive oil versus refined seed-oil processing, and on oxidative staling; described qualitatively.