Olive Oil Types Taste Uses and Differences. How to select best Olive Oil for all your needs.

Olive oil is oil is usually produced by grinding olives in large mills and extracting the oil. For lower grade Olive Oil, chemical process is also used. Properly ripe Olive is used to produce olive oil. Unripe and Green olives produce oil that is more bitter and overripe olives produce rancid oil.

Depending on means of production, processing and quality there are a few grades of olive oil or different names for olive oil. 

When only mechanical process is used without any chemical treatment and heat treatment to produce Olive Oil. Such Kind of Oil is Called Virgin Olive oil. Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil has lowest free acidity levels, while Pomance Olive Oil has highest free acidity levels. Lower the free acidity value better and least degraded Olive Oil will be.

Depending on quality there are a few grades of virgin olive oil.

Extra-virgin olive oil is the highest grade of Olive Oil, followed by virgin olive oil. The oil is pure and unrefined. Virgin olive oils contain the highest levels of aroma, bitterness, lowest amount of free acidity and antioxidants.It has superior taste and is without any defects. This oil is not refined.

Virgin olive oil is inferior grade Oil from virgin oil production and has slightly lower quality, still it has is a good taste but it coupled with some defects in aroma and in test. This oil is not refined.

Cold pressed or Cold extraction is process of extracting the oil from Olive, while maintain the temperature below 27c in order to insure oil quality, taste, texture and aroma. Cold pressing ensures that Oil will not go under degradation.

How to test Virgin Olive Oil, what are its Characteristics ?
Good Virgin olive oils will have fruity smell and when you will taste it; you will feel buttery or silky in the mouth besides that there will be bitter and pungent taste along with warm or hot sensation in the mouth. Virgin olive oils, are dark in color and they can be greenish or brownish yellow, while processed olive oils are very light in color and are usually light yellow in color.

Refined olive oil, light olive oil is obtained by treating the oil through various treating such as treating, filtering and other procedure to remove the defects present in the oil. Refining removes color, odor and flavor from the olive oil leaving behind mostly neutral olive oil that is tasteless, colorless and odorless. It is more or less neutral olive oil.

Olive Oil, or Pure Olive Oil without any other description is usually a 100% blend of Olive oil. The blend usually consists of Virgin Olive oil and Refine Olive Oil. The ratio can be 5% virgin olive oil and 95% processed olive oil.

Pomace Olive Oil or Olive Pomace Oil is most inferior grade of Olive oil. Extracted from left over paste of crushed olives. Oil is produced by solvent extraction and other refinement methods. The oil itself is very neutral and light. Consumer Grade Olive Pomace Oil is Usually a blend of Pomace oil with other oils or with virgin olive oil.

Each kind of Oil has different use! What are the uses ?
Virgin Olive Oil, which is good for dressing and anything that does not involve heat. Virgin Olive Oil is not the best candied when it comes to frying. First it is aromatic and it is not neutral and frying demands neutrality in most cases. Secondly it has lower smoke point means it will start to burn and give out smoke at lower temperature and will degraded very fast if used in frying. This is the oil one should use for massage.

Pure olive oil or light olive oil or olive oil, are usually processed olive oil, they are neutral in taste and has high smoke point. They can be used for anything such as  frying or can be used in daily cooking.
Except  for Pomace Olive Oil, no olive oil is suited for deep frying.

Pomace Olive Oil, oils highly processed olive oil. It will be wrong to say that it is really Olive Oil. Indeed it does come from Olive, but it is highly processed Oil and is manufactured from left over. It is most neutral Olive Oil, Just like non virgin olive oil it is refined olive oil. It has very high smoke point, it taste most neutral. It is best for deep frying.
Depending on production method, Pomance Olive oil can be worse than Sun Flower Oil or Canola Oil. If possible it should be avoided.

Do you know packing affects Olive Oil !
Premium and best quality Olive Oil Comes In Dark Glass bottle. The ones in plastic bottle or pet bottle can be considered inferior. Olive Oil has tendency to degraded when exposed to Sun Light or heat. So if producer is touting that its oil is best, keep in mind that such producer will not cut cost on packing and will sell the Oil In Pet bottles.

So by now you must have realized that, Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil is better than regular olive oil and now you know the difference between Extra Virgin Olive Oil and other Kind Of olive oils.

Olive oil has culinary value, besides it have some cultural values too. Olive oil is used in cooking and olive oil is really good for health. Besides olive oil can also be used for messaging. Furthermore, olive oil is also used in religious sacraments.

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