oil – Page 6 – SMAF Ltd

22.6.2019

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE

The purchase of olive oil is often among the most difficult quotidian activities of housewifes and of everyone who loves the good cuisine.

We do not always have the opportunity to meet and know personally a producer or have an olive oil mill in our neighborhood. This explains why many of us are forced to turn to the large-scale retail trade, with all the pitfalls and possible frauds that involve this product in particular.

Let’s try then to understand how to defend ourselves from fraud or counterfeiting and above all to add some tools that allow us to choose a good oil, clean, fair and above all healthy.

Meanwhile, we refer you to the following technical notes that help us understand what we mean, in Calabria, with the expression “first cold pressed”.

“First pressed” – means the olives were crushed and pressed only one time. The olive oil extracted from the first pressing is of the highest quality and purity.
“Cold pressed” – means that the olives never exceed a certain temperature during the entire pressing process– around 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Only a first cold pressed olive oil can meet high standards of quality, because purity of oil increases only following such process.

PRICE

This year (2019), a real 1 Lt bottle of 100%-Italian extra virgin olive oil should not cost less than 8 euros. Below this figure it is legitimate to doubt about origin and quality.

If you follow such guidance and instructions, then there are no offers, promotions and below costs, which can be included in the definition of EVO.

Therefore, watch out for the harvest year which, if present, reveals that all the olives with which the oil was made were harvested in the same year.

HOW TO DETERMINE THE PRICE:

Olive grower receives 4.7 euros for a kilo of oil.

The wholesale price then rises to 5.5 euros.

Once worked by the olive oil industry the cost rises to 6.67 euros which includes: VAT, salaries of those who work there, marketing and bottle.

Please, add also the profit of the industry which is around 4% and the GDO margin, on average 15%

The final price therefore comes to around 8 euros. Lower prices are, sadly, only Community blends, potentially frauding!!

FRAUDS

According to a well known research of Mr. Gennaro Sicolo, president of Italia Ovicola (an organization that involves 50% of olive growers in Italy), about one bottle out of two of extra virgin olive oil contains deodorized oils that are then mixed with Italian oils to give it a bit of flavor and reach the basic chemical and organoleptic parameters to be labeled as extra virgin.

“After two months on the shelf these oils in the panel test can be considered as adulterated,” explains Gennaro Sicolo.

But how is this scam happens?

In Italy the olives are harvested between September and October at the right point of ripeness, with a yield of 10 – 13 kg of oil per quintal of olives.

In Spain and Tunisia the harvest begins in January, when the raw material is very mature, in order to have a greater yield. But from a very ripe olive an acid oil is born, so that to remedy it is mixed with a bit of 100% Italian so as to obtain a light fruity that recalls the normal smell and taste of extra Virgin olive oil.

The price of such blend?

Wholesale these deodorized oil lots cost around 2.2-2.4 euros per liter, but to the consumer a mixture of such European community oils costs at least 5 euros … And here this lower price reveal itself as an indicator (certainly not the only one) if not of quality, of the absence of quality!!

9.5.2019

There is a handmade olive oil soap conjures up the salty air, sweet smell from the nearby olive groves, and the evening’s scents on a summer’s eve in a beach town on the Mediterranean, in Calabria.

Calabrian women have used for centuries olive oil soap as skin care, the handmade soap, particularly, contains a substance, oleocanthal, which has anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties.

Indeed, Olive oil cleans gently and kindly while helping your skin retain moisture. With regular use of this soap, everyone will feel the skin becoming suppler, softer and silky smooth.

Further, this versatile soap is wonderful for the body and the face, or melted in the bath.

ORIGINS OF CALABRIAN OLIVE OIL SOAP

There is a beautiful story about olive oil versatility and its profound utility, with regard to the soap made with olive!

The tradition of making soap with olive oil is very ancient. Some people say that it dates back to the ancient Egyptians, then the Romans, whose olive oil soaps have been used even for hair care.

Particularly, since the times of Roman empire until the Middle age the Silk Road was used for the export of so called “Aleppo’s” olive oil soaps, highly appreciate and famous.

SUMERIAN OLIVE OIL SOAP IS THE FIRST SOAP OF HISTORY!

Indeed, not many could imagine that the use of olive oil for the creation of soap is the result of the rich culture having lived in Mesopotamia, hence in very ancient times!

Namely, not many know that in the year 2,800 BC, when the Sumerians ruled Mesopotamia, there was the first evidence of a “soap-like substance”!!

At that time, the precursor of soap was the mixing of animal fats and olive oil with wood ash and water. The main use of this product was for the cleaning of wool, but secondary use was the sacred rituals of purification.

During Sumerian era, instead, only olive oil was used, eliminating animal fats. It was then that health benefits began to be discovered, such as the treatment of skin diseases.

Afterwards, the Syrian city of Aleppo, thanks to its tradition of producing high quality olive oil soaps since ancient times, as a legacy of the Mesopotamian culture, has helped to create a thriving industry, which the well known Silky Road has favored and helped to consolidate, by marketing such soaps till the modern age.

NOWADAYS: A WONDERFUL PRODUCT

Even today, sometimes, olive oil soap is called Aleppo soap by virtue of this centuries-old tradition. This magnificent soap is well smelling, fragrant and pure.

Indeed, the Olive oil soap is a product with many applications, unchanged since that era when it is described in some Mesopotamian tablets, whose pictorial cuneiform writing shows the different production methods.

Further, these techniques were perfected by the Egyptians, who added alkaline salts and made new uses for them.

Later, even Roman culture produced this soap and applied new uses to it. It has mainly been used as a waxy substance for hair. It has also been used by doctors and surgeons to clean body impurities.

From the 11th century AD, Spain became one of the main producers of olive oil soap under the Muslim government. The most famous of his time is the one produced in Castile.

However, the main important thing is that…this kind of Sumerian soap is the real precursor of the soap that we use all days!

Tag: oil

Extra virgin olive oil, how to buy it

Olive Oil Soap: a Sumerian invention in Calabria