06 Oct

Remove Tar From Clothing With Olive Oil

If you've ever had the misfortune of stepping on freshly paved asphalt and sinking into the ground a little, you'll know the tar in asphalt is difficult to remove from shoes and other bits of clothing. DIY blog Tip Nut has a few tricks to getting it off, including using olive oil as a softener.
 
To start, cover the stain in olive oil, then let it work into the material to soften the tar for about an hour. If the tar is gone, you're done and you should wash it up with soap and water.
 
If it's not or a stain still remains, you need to use a solvent, like gasoline. Soak a corner of a rag in gasoline, then apply it to the stain in a dabbing motion. It should come right up now, and again, remember to clean it with soap and water.
 
Olive oil and gasoline aren't the only common household items you can use, check out the Tip Nut post below for a full list.
 
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06 Oct

Can Olive Leaf Extract cure high blood pressure?

have the Leaves have the highest antioxidant levels among the various parts of the olive tree

The olive tree is a traditional symbol of abundance. Its cultivation is economically significant in the Mediterranean region, with attention focused on olives and olive oil.

At the same time, uses are being sought for other parts of the olive tree. During pruning and harvesting, many olive leaves and small branches are collected. Given the health benefits of olive oil, interest has turned to the potential benefits of olive leaves.

Herbal teas have been made from the leaves, and extracts used to produce capsules. The most promising area to date has been in the use of olive leaf extracts for high blood pressure.
 

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05 Oct

Californian Olive growers decry foreign subsidies

Life as a California olive farmer isn’t exactly easy these days, farmers say U.S. government is hurting, not helping. The number of olives harvested across the state this season is expected to shrivel by about 86 percent from last year. The price schedule for growers is the same as last season despite the dried-up supply. Some growers don’t even know if picking their fruit will be worth it.
 

And now, adding insult to injury, many olive farmers say their own government is working against them.
 
In an effort to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth in Morocco, the U.S. government has promised to give $301 million to the North African country to help farmers there rehabilitate existing olive trees and expand production of olive, almond and fig trees.
 
Morocco is one of California’s largest foreign competitors. Moroccan farmers, because of the subsidies they receive from the U.S. government, are able to send lower-priced fruit here and undercut domestic prices.
 
“It’s ludicrous,” said Rod Burkett, a local grower who farms 29 acres of Manzanilla olives and one acre of Sevillano olives. “We’re a small industry. We have less than 24,000 acres (of olive trees) in the state. [Morocco] has more than 1 million acres. That gives them a real advantage. Now [the U.S. government] is taking my tax money and giving it to those people so they can make their trees more productive.”
 
Created by Congress in 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) is a foreign-aid agency that, according to its website, “is helping lead the fight against global poverty.”
 
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05 Oct

Bell Carter Foods in Corning, CA is bustling

 

The olive plant is the largest ripe olive producer in the world. The company processes 52,000 tons of olives a year on average, keeping it's 400 employees hard at work. But this years olive crops are falling a bit short thanks to mother nature. " Weather we're having now can offset next years harvest, weather we had last November can offset this years harvest", said Tim Carter, Bell Carter's chief operating officer.

Bell Carter stays busy despite the crop size, thanks to plenty of reserves, many of which stem from 2010's record breaking harvest of more than 160-thousand tons. But freezing temps last winter and rains in the spring during bloom may be partly to blame for this years lower crop prediction of 25,000 32,000 tons, but olive growers say there's always a silver lining. " This will be a shorter crop, but sizing is good which means the value of the fruit will be higher", said Carter. 

Olive farmers do say the recent rains are good for the crop, and could help the fruit on the trees grow even larger before harvested, which should wrap up in mid November. But a problem farmers are facing now, is finding workers to pick the fruit. " The migrant workers, once they hear that there's a shorter crop in an area, they have a tendency to go somewhere else", said Corning olive farmer Scott Patton.

Olives bring in on average a thousand dollars per ton, and while this years harvest won't be as plentiful as last's, farmers say new branch growth on trees and large fruit size are all indicators that next years crops will be even better. " We are as farmers, we're eternal optimists"

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04 Oct

Olive oil heart health benefits

 

Several epidemiological (population-based) studies have found significantly lower rates of death from all causes, particularly heart disease, among those whose dietary habits are closets to traditional Mediterranean diets (rich in plant foods, olive oil and low in saturated animal fats). 
 

Recently, researchers from the University Of Athens School Of Medicine reviewed all of the epidemiological studies which evaluated the association between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and the occurrence of coronary heart disease outcomes. These studies showed that Mediterranean diet adherence resulted in a reduction in the risk of CHD varying from 8% to 45%. 
 
The seven countries study followed approximately 13,000 healthy middle aged men from Europe, Japan and the U.S. for 15 years. Throughout this time, a total of 2,288 of the men had died. Analyses of the participant’s dietary habits revealed that although total fat intake and polyunsaturated fat intake were not significantly correlated with the risk of death, the greatest dietary correlation was the intake of monounsaturated fats. 
 
A recent case-control study in Spain compared the diets of 171 patients who had recently suffered a non-fatal heart attack, with 171 non-heart attack patients of the same age (age-matched controls). The results of this study found that those who consumed the most olive oil had an 82% reduced risk of heart attack compared with those who rarely consumed olive oil.
 
 

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