From sautéing to salad dressings, olive oil is one of the major ingredients that are used in the kitchen. But do you know that there are a few different types of olive oil that has virilities of features and benefits? Olive oil is basically cooking oil made by pressing fresh olives. Also, it is one of the healthiest cooking oil that you can get. It has a high amount of monounsaturated fats that help lower the bad cholesterol and omega-9 fatty acids that help reduce blood pressure and improve heart health.
The olive oil Jukas’s Organic provides is organic, extra virgin, unprocessed, and obtained from the indigenous land of North Africa. It is naturally high in polyphenols, loaded with vitamins E and K, and antioxidants that provide an array of health benefits.
Types of Olive Oil:
Most olive oil that you find in the supermarkets is labeled as “extra virgin”, but it is only one of the several types of olive oil.
- Extra Virgin:
Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is the highest quality olive and provides the most health benefits among other types. This oil is derived by grinding and pressing olives, without any use of chemicals, heat, or processes. The extra virgin olive oil has a very low content of oleic acid, which is linked to good health. It tends to be darker in color than other lower-quality oils, somewhere between dark green and golden yellow.
- Virgin:
The second highest quality of olive oil. It is obtained in the same way as EVOO but a slight step down from its extra virgin version. The only major difference between the two is the acidity level. While EVOO has a maximum acidity of 0.8% with no defects, virgin olive oil can have acidity up to 2% and a median of defects.
- Light/Regular Olive Oil:
Despite its name, light or regular olive oil is the least healthy among all the three types of olive oil. It is refined oil, produced using heat after the first pressing of virgin olive oil. Though it has a larger shelf life and a higher smoke point, it offers fewer nutrient and health benefits due to its heat processing.
Types of Olive Oil Processing:
There are a few key terms that you may see on the bottle of olive oils, which will help you choose the one you want.
- Refined:
Refined olive oils undergo a step further after pressing of olives. The refining process often includes the presence of heat or chemicals. Some refining process also introduces other types of vegetable oils into the mix as well, making it overall a lower quality olive oil.
- Unrefined:
Unrefined olive oils are made without any heat or chemical extraction and are thus higher in quality. The olives may be washed and filtered, but that’s it.
- Cold-Pressed:
The cold-pressed method is the least refined and most natural process of deriving olive oil. Due to minimum processing, the oil retains most of its nutrients and thus provides the highest quality of olive oil.
Juka’s Organic has partnered up with women farmer from the villages of Africa who use traditional methods to derive the best quality olive oil. If you want to buy our olive oil, please follow this link: https://jukasorganic.com/products/buy-extra-virgin-olive-oil-16oz