Fats & oils
There are plenty of options for seed oils to pick between – from peanut to rapeseed, corn to avocado.
olive oil is very unlikely to have pesticide residues as the application of these is very carefully monitored and any application is timed to ensure the contact is minimised and has sufficient time to be naturally eliminated,” Zanre further notes.
Wanting absolute certainty However, Zanre qualifies this by saying that for those consumers who want absolute certainty, organic certification ensures the olive oil has been produced from olives without chemical intervention. In short, regardless of whether they’re organic or not, “all olive oils improve heart health, all olive oils are lower in saturated fat than other oils and in particular extra virgin olive oils contain high levels of polyphenols, which have proven health benefits,” says Zanre. Giuseppe Trapani, managing director at
OGGLIO.org, meanwhile stresses that it is important to understand that the quality of an extra virgin olive oil depends on many factors. “To be honest, organic extra virgin olive oils are not necessarily better than non-organic,” he argues. “Growing olives without the use of pesticides and chemicals is fine, but you need to replace them with natural remedies such as bio-fertilisers for the trees to thrive and produce healthy olives that will in turn deliver superior quality extra virgin olive oil.” Trapani further notes that you can’t simply leave them to themselves. He gives the example of olives that have been attacked by the olive fly, which would not deliver a good quality or healthy extra virgin olive oil even though they might be organic. Moreover, a virgin organic olive oil would hardly be as good as a non-organic extra virgin olive oil, as in this case the extraction process would make a lot of difference. Trapani notes that the organic logo on a bottle of extra virgin olive oil may be more meaningful for big corporations selling a lot of stock in supermarkets to unaware customers who are in a rush, and therefore will quickly pick a bottle lured by the organic promise.
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As he is quick to stress: “We tend our olive trees in the Belice Valley in Sicily in an organic way, taking great care and attention, but we don’t use the organic logo. The reason? It costs a lot of money to apply for it and quite frankly we don’t need it, as our extra virgin olive oils have been judged to be the best Nocellara del Belice in the world two years running.” He adds: “It also presents the low acidity percentage and high polyphenolic charge of a very healthy extra virgin olive oil.”
Not everyone is in a mad rush Not all consumers will necessarily be in a shopping rush; indeed, many customers know full well what a good extra virgin olive oil is, according to Trapani, noting: “A small-batch, high-quality, organically tended extra virgin olive oil will always be better than a mass-produced one from a big company sporting the organic logo.” Yet, from a consumer standpoint, the oil market remains a minefield, given the often-contradictory scientific evidence coming out of academia, including nutrition and heart health conclusions, for example.
The key consideration is being able to distinguish which essential oils are suitable when purchasing in-store or when buying organic oils online. Examining a product’s fat content is an obvious first port of call but especially those with little or no harmful trans fat and a lower proportion of saturated fats, since the latter will raise both your bad LDL cholesterol while lowering your good HDL cholesterol.
Cynics will charge however that the overall organic versus non-organic debate – given the seeming lack of supremacy of one over the other – is a faux one based on little more than companies attempting to gain commercial advantage via their product marketing strategies. There may be more than an element of truth in that. ●
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
Prostock-studio/
Shutterstock.com
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