•History •About Olive Oil •Olive Oil quality •Glossary

Olive Oil quality

The olive tree was already praised for its qualities by the Greeks and the Romans. Even in the Bible the olive tree is often referred to as a symbol of health, peace and victory.
Olive oil has been used for ages as an oil, as a medicine and as a beauty product. Olive oil is still very popular in the Mediterranean and it has been proved that the use of olive oil in an alimentary diet has a positive influence on one's health.
In Belgium, most of us have only just started to discover all the benefits olive oil can do to the human body. The identity of olive oil is dominated by mono-unsaturated fatty acids (positive for the body) and contains only few free fatty acids (negative for the body).
The quality of olive oil is now protected by European Community regulations, so one can buy the 'liquid gold' with confidence. The name olive oil can only be given to an oil from 100% olives and excludes all mixtures. For consumption we normally only use olive oil from a first pressing which means that the olives have been washed, crushed, pressed and filtered (some oils are not filtered). This oil can have the different names corresponding to the following criteria :

• Extra virgin olive oil: can not contain more than 1% of acidity, which means that the free fatty acids do not exceed 1 gram per 100 grams. Always try to cook with this type of oil.
• Virgin olive oil: can not contain more than 2% of acidity, which means that the free fatty acids do not exceed 2 gram per 100 grams
• Olive oil:can not contain more than 3,3% of acidity, which means that the free fatty acids do not exceed 3,3 gram per 100 grams

Conclusion: the lower the degree of acidity, the higher the quality of the olive oil. But apart from the scientific quality, the taste and the colour of olive oil are determined by a combination of factors such as the variety of the olive tree (more than 50 varieties are registered), the climate, the soil, the exact time of harvesting (between November and February) and the way of gathering and treating the olives.
Olive oil is known as a positive factor in the prevention or the healing of diseases as digestion problems, stones in the gall bladder, cancer, cardiovascular & coronary heart diseases, constipation, diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol. All these diseases are less frequent in the Mediterranean area.
For instance, a recent study proved that the daily use of olive oil (even without changing anything else to the normal eating habits) can have a significant positive effect on blood pressure and cholesterol, due to the unsaturated fatty acids of olive oil.