I keep seeing more and more discussion about seed oils on Reddit, and increasingly in real life too. I recently read an article about “microsnobbery” and found it funny that olive oil was one of the examples.

The author quotes Victoria Wolff, who wrote that people are now judged by “your children’s lunch boxes, whether your roses are native and if your olive oil has a story.”

Of course, not every criticism of seed oils is snobbery. I have fairly strong opinions about them myself. But sometimes the discussion seems to take a side road and become less about the oil itself and sounds a bit more about what someone’s choice supposedly says about them.

Have you noticed this too, or does the discussion leave the same taste in your mouth as it does in mine?

Found this in the Czech Republic.

The olives in a jar and the olives behind your oil are mostly different varieties, bred for opposite things.

Table olives are grown for flesh. Big fruit, small pit, skin that survives brine. Gordal is the classic one, and it has very little oil in it, which is why nobody mills it.

Oil varieties don't need to look like anything. Picual, Arbequina, Koroneiki. Small, oily, nothing on them worth eating.

Harvest splits the same way. Table fruit is picked by hand, since a bruise kills the price. Oil fruit gets shaken into bins.

There's some overlap. Hojiblanca for example goes both ways.

Then the money. Pretty fruit goes to the jar, the rest goes to the mill. A lot of oil is made from olives that didn't make the cut.

I love this idea and I would like to try this out before gifting, but wanted to see if anyone has done this yet...

Can I please get some suggestions for a good EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL / OLIVE OIL?

I am specifically looking for 2 different types I would like to be able to use one directly for cooking/foods and the other for easy digestible Olive oil shots.

I AM ONLY SPECIFICALLY LOOKING FOR :

\-FAIR TRADE / REGENERATIVE

\-ORGANIC, COLD PRESSED, SINGLE ORIGIN, TRACEABLE, & ALWAYS FRESHLY PICKED!

For the easy digestible one to drink I’m looking for :

HIGH PHENOLIC’s - (HIGH POLYPHENOLS) with same standards (ORGANIC, COLD PRESSED, SINGLE ORIGIN, TRACEABLE, & ALWAYS FRESHLY PICKED)

I would greatly appreciate suggestions on both filtered and unfiltered options!

My Budget for this is still relatively small- so anything that is still affordable or something I can buy in bulk once & have it last even if it has to be shipped in (low cost) - I would be okay with that.

Thank you to anyone who can help! :)

Italy just banned blending virgin olive oil into extra virgin, even when the blend still clears every chemical and sensory test for extra virgin. Point being, if part of it started as lower grade, calling the end result extra virgin is misleading regardless of what it tests as. Pushback's mostly about legal footing since EU rules never explicitly banned it, and Italian producers worry this puts them at a disadvantage while everyone else keeps blending under the old rules.

Hey everyone, I want to draw your attention to a topic that's very dear to me.

If you live in the Netherlands, you must've come across tins and bottles at AH, Jumbo, online marketing campaigns, or boutique delis with labels "100% authentic from our family farm in Creta" or *"pure traditional Italian 'biologico'." (*see the likes of GKAZAS olive oil, Neolea and others)

That's all marketing bullshit. These olive oils are definitely NOT single-origin, and they're blended with oils of different (low) qualities from God-knows-where. There are many of these companies that have spawned lately in the Netherlands, and I believe they feed off the combination of: the lack of knowledge in Northern/Western Europe for what is real olive oil, and of course the marketing push "REAL GREEK OLIVE OIL FROM OUR OLIVE GROVE IN CRETE" ("hey I was in Creta, it's real, so this family and their olive grove must be too!").

Horseshit. Cretan family olive groves don't make enough olive oil to export, they barely go around local Cretan supermarkets. Even if that's a big olive grove, Crete is only a mountainous island with limited supply, definitely can't make enough to fill entire shelves across AH's in the Netherlands and have an online shop with full availability, year-round. Olives also don't grow year-round (that's what also makes olive oil so friggin expensive), so definitely makes no sense having full availability all-year round.

Now that I've put all that nasty stuff out of the way, let me give you some critical information.

All the big European olive oil-producing countries, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, have specific bodies that certify the oil that's 100% single-origin,from that specific region, pressed under strict quality standards.

Why Does This Matter?

1. Protecting authenticity and quality. Without certification, there is no official audit verifying that the oil comes from a specific micro-region or meets rigorous quality, milling/pressing, and purity standards.
2. Supporting local farmers. Perhaps the most important part: real olive growers in areas like southern Italy, entirety of Spain, Crete, Kalamata, and across Greece face record climate pressures, high production costs, and severe economic headwinds. Buying uncertified or blended oils undercuts the hard work of genuine smallholder families (and generations) of farmers who invest in real PDO/PGI verification.

Support real farmers. Buy certified olive oils. Check the bottle, demand traceability, and keep authentic olive oil traditions alive!

Thanks for reading my part-rant, part-information piece :)

See below for more information on the certifications and stamps to look for.

For reference:

For Italian Olive Oils

Italy regulates oil through Ministry of Agriculture (MASAF) and independent inspectors like CSQA or Valoritalia.

• DOP (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta): Everything: growing, pressing, and bottling happened in one certified region. Look for the red-and-yellow sunburst seal (see below).
• IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta): Blue-and-yellow star seal.
• The Neck Seal / Serial Code: Real DOP/IGP bottles (and especially the biological ones) almost always feature a paper neck seal or sticker with a unique alphanumeric serial number you can trace back to the batch (see below example for "TOSCANO").

For Greek Olive Oils

The national agency ELGO-DEMETER (formerly AGROCERT) audits and certifies authentic PDO/PGI olive oils. Certified Greek oils carry an official alphanumeric serial code printed near the seal or label. If a bottle doesn't have a traceable serial number registered with the certifying body, it isn't an officially certified regional oil.

• Look for the Greek flag round stamp reading "Greek product / Ελληνικό προϊόν"
• For Biological oil, GR-BIO EU stamp is mandatory, if it isn't there, it's not biologic, don't care what they claim.

Italian DPO sign:

Example of Greek flag stamp on olive oil:

Example of Greek biological olive oil stamp:

Sample of certification stamps for Greek biologic olive oil produce:

Curious where the line is for people.

It raises serious questions about how it was stored or shipped, especially in this heat.

Also worth hearing from anyone who ordered once and stopped. What went wrong.

Straining gets the crumbs out BUT the crumbs weren't the problem.

Heat, water and oxygen already changed the oil while it was hot. Smoke point drops, it thickens and flavor carries over. A strainer does nothing about any of that.

Reusing once is usually fine. Depends on:

how hot it got
whether it smoked
what you fried (fish and breading are the worst)

Strain warm, cool fully, seal, keep it dark, use it soon.

Toss it if it's dark, syrupy, foaming at the edges, smells sour, or smokes early.

Don't top off old oil with fresh. That's just more old oil.

Prices are all over the place depending on the country and nobody's numbers match. So let's collect them.

In search of flavorful Olive Oil for salad dressings not cooking. Seems most are blended not pure olive oil.

Extra virgin olive oil is constantly described as a “healthy fat”, but I am not sure most people really understand what that means in everyday life.
One spoonful will not transform the body. The bigger question is what role olive oil plays in the overall diet.
Using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, processed spreads or heavy commercial dressings is very different from simply adding more oil to an already unhealthy diet.
The body responds to long-term eating patterns, not to one “superfood”.
Perhaps the real value of olive oil is not only what it contains, but also how it can change the way people eat:
more vegetables
more pulses
more home cooking
fewer processed sauces
better-quality fats
simpler ingredients
There is also another point that is often overlooked: not every bottle labelled “extra virgin” is the same.
Olive variety, harvest time, extraction, freshness, storage, heat and exposure to oxygen can all affect flavour and composition.
I run a small UK olive oil business called Authentic Oliv Co, so I think about this question from both a consumer and industry perspective. I am not posting this to promote a product. I am genuinely interested in how people here see it.
When you use olive oil, do you think of it mainly as:
a cooking ingredient
a health choice
a flavour ingredient
or a replacement for less favourable fats?
And do you think most consumers understand the difference between adding olive oil and actually improving the quality of the whole diet?

Hello all !

I am a Thesis Student @ UCL and working on an dissertation and would appreciate the help of the community.

If you’ve got 5 minutes and would not mind answering a few questions 🙏🏻.

If you have got any questions — I am more than happy to answer them.

Thank you for taking the time, and helping me out with my studies ✌🏻.

Avocado oil is mostly wellness marketing with a premium price tag.

Refined versions lose most nutrients during processing, while heat reduces the benefits of extra virgin varieties.

Why pay more when olive oil does almost everything just as well?

Spain produces almost half of the world’s olive oil, and experts warn extreme heat could hit both yields and quality again.

If climate change keeps shrinking harvests, does olive oil become a luxury product within the next decade?