The health benefits of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) are vast. We don’t know of many other foods that can match the potential of olive oil to keep you healthy. And it’s especially healthy for your brain.
We all hear, for example, about the wonderful power of the Mediterranean diet and how it reduces your risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and even some types of cancer. And one of the cornerstones of the Mediterranean Diet is olive oil.
Remember that EVOO is a healthy fat, which is good for you. Healthy fats are especially good for your brain which is mostly made of fat. According to the National Library of Medicine, the human brain is nearly 60 percent fat and fatty acids are among the most crucial molecules that determine your brain's integrity and ability to perform.
Indeed, as reported in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, one study has found that individuals who added a full liter of EVOO to their diets every week experienced more than a 40% reduction in risk for dementia, as well as a more than 60% risk reduction in the development of breast cancer in women.
For these reasons, we recommend using extra virgin olive oil liberally, pouring it on as many foods as you wish. We love it on scrambled eggs in the morning and with other meals as well.
How to Shop for Olive Oil
When you shop for olive oil, be sure to buy extra virgin. It’s the only grade that retains its natural phenols (antioxidants) and other health-promoting compounds. Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) is cold-pressed, meaning it’s not extracted using high heat or harsh chemicals. It’s minimally processed, which leaves in all the wholesome nutrients that Mother Nature meant it to have. All other olive oil grades, such as “virgin,” “pure,” or “light,” have been chemically refined to mask defects, and this process destroys the healthful phenols.
Beware of Supermarket Olive Oils
However, even if the label says “extra virgin,” you’ve got to be careful, because many supermarket olive oils are rancid, adulterated, or even counterfeit. Here’s what’s wrong with supermarket olive oils and why we recommend buying online, direct from high-quality, award-winning farms that deliver right to your door.
Reason #1 to Avoid Supermarket Olive Oils: They’re Not Fresh!
Olive oil, unlike wine, does not get better with age. Olives, after all, are a fruit. Just like orange juice, olive oil tastes so much better fresh-squeezed. Olive oil remains at its zenith of glorious flavor and nutritional content for about six months after the harvest. The problem is, harvest-fresh olive oil is almost impossible to find in supermarkets.
Here’s why. Most olive oil is shipped to the US on slow-moving cargo ships. Then it languishes in warehouses and on store shelves for many months. As a result, olive oils in stores are often technically within their “best if used by” date but months beyond their window of peak freshness, flavor and nutritional potency.
Because of these and other factors that cause staleness and rancidity, a study from the University of California, Davis, found that 69% of imported olive oils labeled “extra virgin” sold in stores were so substandard, in no way could they qualify to be classified as “extra virgin olive oil,” the highest grade.
The Six-Month Rule
When you shop for olive oil, forget the “best used by” date on the label. It tells you nothing about how recently the olive oil was pressed. You need to find EVOO with a pressing date (also known as the “harvest date”) on the label, preferably a date no more than six months before your date of purchase.
Unfortunately, the producers of mediocre, mass-market olive oils sold in stores do not put pressing dates on the label because they don’t want you to know how old, stale, or rancid their oils may be. If fact, you can verify this by checking the bottle in your own pantry right now. If you bought it in a store, the odds are overwhelming that the pressing date was intentionally omitted from the label. This is no coincidence, and it’s no way to buy your EVOO, not when freshness is the most critical factor in olive oil flavor and nutritional goodness.
Our Recommendation: Remember these four most important words whenever you shop for olive oil: the fresher, the better. And that means avoiding olive oil sold in supermarkets, where the oils sit on the shelf for months or even years, growing stale, musty, and rancid. That’s definitely not healthy.
We recommend buying online, directly from award-winning farms, where you can secure outrageously delicious olive oils fresh from the latest harvest. That’s when olive oil is bursting with just-plucked-from-the-tree flavor and goodness. Try just one bottle of fresh-pressed olive oil from a good online company, and you’ll likely never go back to store-bought oils. Your first taste will be a revelation of how delicious EVOO is when it’s fresh from the harvest.
Below, we’ll tell you how you can try one of the world’s finest harvest-fresh EVOOs for free as part of a special marketing promotion (all you have to pay is $1 to help cover shipping, and there’s no obligation to buy anything now or ever). It’s an excellent opportunity to discover how EVOO is meant to taste at its peak of freshness and flavor.
Reason #2 to Avoid Supermarket Olive Oils: Beware of Fake, Mafia–Made Olive Oils
As you’ve probably heard, fake Mafia-made olive oils have been flooding U.S. supermarkets. If you’ve missed this frightening story, here are just a few quotes from articles you can read online.
NBC News has reported that “fake olive oil is rampant.” The Wall Street Journal adds, “American grocery stores are awash in cheap, fake ‘extra virgins.’” In an explosive exposé, 60 Minutes has cautioned that you face a “sea of fakes” when you shop for olive oil in stores.
Why Is This Happening?
Thanks to the many health benefits of authentic olive oil, demand is soaring worldwide. But pure extra virgin olive oil is quite expensive. Just as criminals pocket fortunes by creating cheap knockoffs of designer clothing and handbags, they palm off fake olive oil as extra virgin, the highest grade. The New Yorker magazine has reported that the profits in counterfeiting olive oil are “comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks.”
Because America is the world’s largest consumer market, the crooks have successfully targeted U.S. supermarkets as their favorite dumping ground.
Cancer-Causing Agents in Fake Olive Oils?
In his New York Times best-selling book, Extra Virginity, olive oil expert Tom Mueller warns of contaminants and even cancer-causing agents in fake olive oils. He writes:
“Italian investigators have found hydrocarbon residues, pesticides, and other contaminants in fake oils, and pomace oil, a common adulterant, sometimes contains mineral oil as well as PAHs, proven carcinogens that can also damage DNA and the immune system. Then there’s the 1981 case of toxic oil syndrome in Spain, when rapeseed oil adulterated with an industrial additive, sold as olive oil, killed eight hundred people and seriously injured thousands more.”
Our Recommendation: Buy from a supplier whose oils are independently lab certified to be 100% pure extra virgin. This gives you protection against all the fakes. More on how to do this in a moment.
A Convenient Online Source for the World’s Freshest, Most Flavorful, Most Nutritious Olive Oils
You can find superb, award-winning olive oils by doing your homework online. Located around the world are quite a few dedicated artisanal producers who bypass the Mafia’s counterfeiting factories and instead offer their award-winning harvest-fresh olive oils directly to consumers.
However, if you’d just as soon save yourself the time and hassle of researching dozens of online olive oil producers, sometimes having to decipher websites in foreign languages and arranging your own international shipping, there’s a convenient service that brings the world’s finest harvest-fresh olive oils right to your door.
Meet T.J. Robinson, the Olive Oil Hunter
A onetime chef and gourmet food writer/editor, T.J. came up with the idea of hunting for the world’s best, freshest artisanal extra virgin olive oils—and flying them straight from the new harvest at their peak of flavor and nutritional potency directly to the kitchens of America’s top gourmet chefs, passionate foodies, and lovers of natural, healthy foods. He does this through his exclusive, fast-growing Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club.
Joining the club gives you direct access to the purest, freshest, most flavorful, most nutritious olive oils from a wide array of gold-medal-winning olive oil producers. These olive oils are personally hand-selected by T.J. Robinson exclusively for his club members, and are available nowhere else in America. As we've tasted for ourselves, they are out-of-this-world delicious. And when you join, there’s no commitment to buy anything, ever.
Once our team members tried T.J.’s olive oils, they fell madly in love with them. We recommend them to anyone who wants to enjoy olive oil the way it’s meant to be enjoyed—direct from the harvest in its purest, freshest state and at its zenith of nutritional potency.
Because these harvest-fresh olive oils are artisanal, they are more expensive than ordinary store-bought olive oils. Are they worth it? We certainly think so, but you can judge for yourself for just $1. That’s because T.J. is inviting you and our other readers to try your own home taste test for just $1 to help him cover shipping.
Try a $39 Bottle for a Buck
T.J.’s unique Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club is one of the most customer-friendly companies our team has ever come across. Unlike some other clubs, there’s never a minimum commitment or obligation to buy anything. Every olive oil is independently lab-certified to be 100% pure extra virgin. Moreover, every olive oil comes with a no-questions-asked, 100% money-back guarantee. If you ever decide to ask for your money back on a given shipment, you don’t even have to return the oil. And his outstanding customer service team graciously takes care of your refund request immediately.
$39-Bottle-for-a-Buck Promotion Ends Sunday, November 8
If you’d like to try this unique club and receive one of T.J.’s $39 bottles for just $1 to help cover shipping, then act now, for two reasons: First, T.J. and his Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club have reserved a strictly limited number—240 bottles (20 cases)—to share with our readers. Problem is, we’ve got many thousands of readers, so these 240 bottles should go very fast, and it’s first come, first served.
Second, his $39-Bottle-for-a-Buck offer expires Sunday, November 8, which will be here before we know it. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait until the next harvest season and hope he repeats the offer.
This is the kind of generous, fair-minded offer we like to present our valued readers, for a product we truly love. And it’s an excellent opportunity, perhaps the first in your life, to experience the exceptionally vibrant and delicious taste of extra virgin olive oil when it’s fresh from the new harvest. As we've experienced in our own homes, it adds new layers of flavor and deep-down satisfaction to your crisp salads and veggies, delicate fish, and your other favorite foods.
The publicity this oil is getting is quite something. Foodies, celebrity chefs, and food writers are raving about it. For example, Larry Olmsted, the award-winning food and travel journalist, recently wrote in his New York Times best-selling book, Real Food/Fake Food:
“I now get most of my oil from T.J. Robinson’s Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club, and every time I open a bottle, my kitchen literally fills up with the smell of fresh crushed olives—the scent explodes out of the bottle. Just breaking the seal transports me to Italy or Spain or Chile.”
When you click on the link below, you’ll see similar comments from many other olive oil lovers as well. If you’re interested, try a bottle for just $1, taste for yourself, and discover how EVOO is really meant to taste.
Yours in health,
-The Science of Prevention Team
P.S. - At this link, T.J. Robinson, the Olive Oil Hunter, also provides a short article, “The Best Ways to Store Your Olive Oil.” It’s a must-read for anyone who uses olive oil.
P.P.S. - You need have no worries about this offer. It is totally bona fide. If you want to continue in the club, you can. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. Just cancel and that’s it. And just for giving the club a try and paying $1 to help cover shipping, you get to keep the free $39 bottle of premium harvest-fresh olive oil. You don’t even have to return the oil—it’s yours to keep no matter what you decide. These are good folks who honor their word and offer a truly outstanding product.
