Olive Oil

[Leothebear]

It seems that it's the latest super-dooper food.
I read some people just drink the stuff. Not sure I want that. Anyone consume a sufficient quantity of it other than drowning their saladss and pasta in it?

Does it need to be the really need to be extra virgin and therefore expensive?

[Mike4]

I consume a fair amount of it on toast instead of butter.

Particularly delicious with lashings of Marmite on top too!

[Imbiber]

Beware

I buy mine from a local wholefood shop, not cheap but maybe unadulterated...

https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/world/oli ... list/36802

[servodude]

I consume a fair amount of it on toast instead of butter.

Particularly delicious with lashings of Marmite on top too!

I don't bother toasting it
Decent bread dunked in oil mixed with decent salt and balsamic vinegar seems the easiest way for me to get my quota

[Urbandreamer]

We use an Olive oil based spread instead of butter.

I also cook with the liquid oil, half of the time. Sometimes I use sunflower, but it depends upon what I'm doing.

Not sure that I'd drink it, but there are recipes that use oil instead of butter when baking. Not you understand that I have anything against butter.

I don't usually buy the cold pressed virgin stuff. It's more expensive (costs more to produce) and has a stronger flavor. That's the stuff you want for salad, though arguably for the health benefits as well.

A lighter oil givens you more options, other than salad.

[Dicky99]

It seems that it's the latest super-dooper food.
I read some people just drink the stuff. Not sure I want that. Anyone consume a sufficient quantity of it other than drowning their saladss and pasta in it?

Does it need to be the really need to be extra virgin and therefore expensive?

The health benefits of olive oil have been known for a long time. What's more recent is the tendency to raise a particular food, drink, supplement etc to fad status in the endless search for a panacea to first world discontentments.

[MuddyBoots]

I've also started using olive oil as an alternative to margarine, not only for any possible health benefits of it, but also to avoid bad effects from the artificial and synthetic nature of marge. A friend once told me that ants and other wildlife don't touch marge when he leaves it out in the garden as an experiment.

When I visited Pompeii and Herculaneum a few years ago I learned that the Romans (the rich ones at least) used olive oil for skincare. At the public baths they had a process of rubbing their skin with it then scraping it off with a tool called a strigil. I don't go that far but after reading the ingredients of the cheap moisturiser I used to use I started using olive oil instead. It took a bit of getting used to because it's more, well, oily than moisturiser, but now I prefer it. It's another way to get antioxidants too, though I haven't found out whether absorbing oil through your skin counts towards your daily calories.

[Dicky99]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.
It's a while since I last had to stock up on oil and so it was like a punch in the nuts in Tesco last week to see that their lowest cost olive oil was over £7 for a litre.
Their lowest cost rape seed oil was about £4.20 for a litre.
Later I spotted a litre bottle of oil in the world foods section. At £2.50 I assumed it was cheap vegetable oil because it wasn't identifiable from the foreign label but the small print ingredients on the back label included English and revealed that it was first pressing rape seed oil. It's called Kujawski and seems to sell elsewhere at north of £4.00

[swill453]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.
It's a while since I last had to stock up on oil and so it was like a punch in the nuts in Tesco last week to see that their lowest cost olive oil was over £7 for a litre.
Their lowest cost rape seed oil was about £4.20 for a litre.

The oil labelled "Tesco Vegetable Oil" at £1.85 per litre is 100% rapeseed oil.

Scott.

[Lootman]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.

It's a while since I last had to stock up on oil and so it was like a punch in the nuts in Tesco last week to see that their lowest cost olive oil was over £7 for a litre.

Their lowest cost rape seed oil was about £4.20 for a litre.

The oil labelled "Tesco Vegetable Oil" at £1.85 per litre is 100% rapeseed oil.

There are a few different names for rapeseed oil. My father, who grew up on a farm, called it mustard seed oil. It is also called canola oil.

Cook with it; olive oil should never be used for frying IMO.

[mc2fool]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.

After my last set of blood tests showed both my cholesterol and diabetes markers a little above the normal range my GP referred me to the nutritionist nurse at the practice and her very first bit of advice was to avoid seed oils. Do a simple google for seed oils and the consensus seems to be somewhere between they're not as bad as some claim to they're nasty and really bad for you.

I actually don't use much in the way of seed oils, just toasted sesame seed for some stir fries or occasionally a flavoured sunflower. I mostly use non-virgin olive oil for cooking and the good stuff for salads and the like. The nurse confirmed that olive oil is good for you but did point out that all oils are pretty loaded in calories, so one should go as light as is reasonably possible on them.

[Lootman]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.

advice was to avoid seed oils. Do a simple google for seed oils and the consensus seems to be somewhere between they're not as bad as some claim to they're nasty and really bad for you.

Yeah, all oils are fatty and so bad for you. It is about finding the least harmful. Or not frying I guess.

My wife has 5 shelves in our kitchen devoted just to oil and vinegars. As well as various types of olive and rapeseed oil I see that we have peanut oil, hazelnut oil, avocado oil and rice bran oil.

[Dicky99]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.

After my last set of blood tests showed both my cholesterol and diabetes markers a little above the normal range my GP referred me to the nutritionist nurse at the practice and her very first bit of advice was to avoid seed oils. Do a simple google for seed oils and the consensus seems to be somewhere between they're not as bad as some claim to they're nasty and really bad for you.

I actually don't use much in the way of seed oils, just toasted sesame seed for some stir fries or occasionally a flavoured sunflower. I mostly use non-virgin olive oil for cooking and the good stuff for salads and the like. The nurse confirmed that olive oil is good for you but did point out that all oils are pretty loaded in calories, so one should go as light as is reasonably possible on them.

With the usual rider about all oils containing lots of calories both the NHS and BHF websites reference olive oil and rapeseed oil as boosting good HDL cholesterol and lowering bad LDL cholesterol which is good enough for me.
I guess beyond that it's about understanding which oils are adversely affected, hence unsuitable, for very high temperature cooking such as wok frying.

[bungeejumper]

Later I spotted a litre bottle of oil in the world foods section. At £2.50 I assumed it was cheap vegetable oil because it wasn't identifiable from the foreign label but the small print ingredients on the back label included English and revealed that it was first pressing rape seed oil. It's called Kujawski and seems to sell elsewhere at north of £4.00

+1 for Kujawski. A Polish brand, and our bottle doesn't mention any English ingredients, but we've had it for a while because we don't fry much, so maybe we're out of date? Might as well mention that the horrible plastic bottle lacks some of the kitchen cachet of glass, if that sort of thing matters to you.

I normally like olive oil to be a bit peppery, but I'm pretty happy with the bottle of extra virgin La Espanola that I bought for a bargain £5 last year. (Normally nine or ten quid!) https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p ... /306817499. It's marketed for skincare as well as cooking,which might be why it has a rather nifty pouring tube that allows precision delivery and prevents drippage and mess. I think the Romans would have approved.

I've always wished they'd called rapeseed oil something else. Canola's etymology seems like a bit of a stretch, but I can see why it works as an alternative. From Wikipedia:

Canola was originally a trademark name of the Rapeseed Association of Canada; the name is a portmanteau of "can" from Canada and "ola" from "oil, low acid".

Not a lot of people know that.

BJ

[Dod101]

I've always tended to use olive oil or rape seed oil. Both good options with slight differences in their relative health benefits.

After my last set of blood tests showed both my cholesterol and diabetes markers a little above the normal range my GP referred me to the nutritionist nurse at the practice and her very first bit of advice was to avoid seed oils. Do a simple google for seed oils and the consensus seems to be somewhere between they're not as bad as some claim to they're nasty and really bad for you.

I actually don't use much in the way of seed oils, just toasted sesame seed for some stir fries or occasionally a flavoured sunflower. I mostly use non-virgin olive oil for cooking and the good stuff for salads and the like. The nurse confirmed that olive oil is good for you but did point out that all oils are pretty loaded in calories, so one should go as light as is reasonably possible on them.

Nothing much is actually good for you. Everything in moderation is the only way to approach things.

Dod

[Dod101]

Later I spotted a litre bottle of oil in the world foods section. At £2.50 I assumed it was cheap vegetable oil because it wasn't identifiable from the foreign label but the small print ingredients on the back label included English and revealed that it was first pressing rape seed oil. It's called Kujawski and seems to sell elsewhere at north of £4.00

+1 for Kujawski. A Polish brand, and our bottle doesn't mention any English ingredients, but we've had it for a while because we don't fry much, so maybe we're out of date? Might as well mention that the horrible plastic bottle lacks some of the kitchen cachet of glass, if that sort of thing matters to you.

I normally like olive oil to be a bit peppery, but I'm pretty happy with the bottle of extra virgin La Espanola that I bought for a bargain £5 last year. (Normally nine or ten quid!) https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p ... /306817499. It's marketed for skincare as well as cooking,which might be why it has a rather nifty pouring tube that allows precision delivery and prevents drippage and mess. I think the Romans would have approved.

I've always wished they'd called rapeseed oil something else. Canola's etymology seems like a bit of a stretch, but I can see why it works as an alternative. From Wikipedia:

Canola was originally a trademark name of the Rapeseed Association of Canada; the name is a portmanteau of "can" from Canada and "ola" from "oil, low acid".

Not a lot of people know that.

BJ

Well you can use mustard seed as per Lootman above. I have a feeling that that is what it used to be called in my part of the world.

Dod

[Mike4]

The oil labelled "Tesco Vegetable Oil" at £1.85 per litre is 100% rapeseed oil.

There are a few different names for rapeseed oil. My father, who grew up on a farm, called it mustard seed oil. It is also called canola oil.

Cook with it; olive oil should never be used for frying IMO.

Why not?

ISTR there being a load of scare stories about 'free radicals' being released by using the wrong oil for stir fries etc, but I never hear free radicals mentioned nowadays.

I notice La Espanola market one olive oil specifically for high heat frying, with a 'smoking point' of 215C.

https://laespanolaoliveoil.co.uk/produc ... -olive-oil

[servodude]

+1 for Kujawski. A Polish brand, and our bottle doesn't mention any English ingredients, but we've had it for a while because we don't fry much, so maybe we're out of date? Might as well mention that the horrible plastic bottle lacks some of the kitchen cachet of glass, if that sort of thing matters to you.

I normally like olive oil to be a bit peppery, but I'm pretty happy with the bottle of extra virgin La Espanola that I bought for a bargain £5 last year. (Normally nine or ten quid!) https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p ... /306817499. It's marketed for skincare as well as cooking,which might be why it has a rather nifty pouring tube that allows precision delivery and prevents drippage and mess. I think the Romans would have approved.

I've always wished they'd called rapeseed oil something else. Canola's etymology seems like a bit of a stretch, but I can see why it works as an alternative. From Wikipedia:

Not a lot of people know that.

BJ

Well you can use mustard seed as per Lootman above. I have a feeling that that is what it used to be called in my part of the world.

Dod

I doubt it - they are from different but related plants.

[redsturgeon]

Has the difference between cold pressed and refined oil been discussed/ This is an important consideration.

[MuddyBoots]

Has the difference between cold pressed and refined oil been discussed/ This is an important consideration.

No I don't think it has, can you help out?