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<pre>For modem write modern. Of course only in conntext.
Regards
Regards
syrien_paris wrote:
> From: "syrien_paris" <
syrie@multimania.com>
>
> Found at
http://www.living-foods.com/index.shtml , the following
> article .
> I didn't post it until somebody else opened the subject and I suspect
> that Turkish suppliers were also abused by some dishonest Italian
> producers.
> I continue to trust traditional small producers (specially in Syria).
> Best regards
> Souhair
>
http://www.multimania.com/syrie
> PS Sorry for the length of this post but I don't like to quote excerpts
> and I feel some people don't access Internet sites.
>
> The Olive Oil Scandal
> By Raymond Francis
>
> Reprinted from Beyond Health Copyright 1998
>
> For more than a decade I have advised people to substitute olive oil
> for the regular oils available in the supermarket. Good advice. But
> here's the problem: trying to find real olive oil is like looking for a
> needle in a haystack. Olive oil has been part of the human diet for
> more than 5000 years. These millennia of human experience plus modem
> research indicate that olive oil is beneficial to health and that we
> can safely include it in our diet. In fact, olive oil has been singled
> out as contributing to the health of Greek centenarians. But, to get
> the same health effects as the Greek centenarians, the oil has to be
> made the way they made it. The problem is most of the olive oil on the
> market does not duplicate what our ancestors were eating, and people
> are not getting what they think they are buying. Almost all olive oil
> is processed in ways that result in the loss of nutrients which are
> essential to health.
>
> Olive oil is almost unique among oils in that it can be consumed in the
> crude form without refining. This has the effect of conserving all its
> vitamins, essential fatty acids, and other nutrients. Because it
> contains all these nutrients, including powerful antioxidants, real
> extra virgin olive oil is beneficial to health and protects us from
> damage by free radical oxidation. Cell membranes contain fatty acids
> that are highly susceptible to free radical damage. This damage
> produces lipid peroxides that can kill the cell. Real olive oil
> contains polyphenols, vitamin E, and other natural antioxidants that
> prevent this damage.
>
> Numerous studies show that olive oil reduces cholesterol, lowers blood
> pressure, inhibits platelet aggregation, and lowers the incidence of
> breast cancer. Because it is so rich in antioxidants, olive oil appears
> to dramatically reduce the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, thereby
> preventing heart disease. These same antioxidants also add to the
> stability, shelf life, and flavor of the oil.
>
> Historically, high quality olive oil, rich in antioxidants, was easy to
> obtain, but not any more. Today, high quality oil is available only in
> relatively small quantities, usually from family owned farms, where the
> oils are produced in ways similar to how the Greeks and Romans made
> theirs. On these farms, olives are picked by hand so as not to damage
> the skin or pulp. They are transported in well aerated containers and
> milled within 48 hours of harvesting. Before milling, leaves and twigs
> are removed, the olives washed and dried, and then stone pressed the
> same way as it was done in antiquity. The resulting olive paste was
> then pressed in a hydraulic press without the use of heat, hot water,
> or solvents. The oil is left unfiltered as filtering removes many
> nutrients. The first pressing produces the best "extra virgin" oil.
>
> The problem with most of today's olive oil is that it is rarely
> produced in the old way, which is more time consuming and expensive.
> Due to the increasing demand for olive oil, the trend has been to
> reduce production costs by moving toward more automation and
> concentration of production in ever larger installations. These modem
> factories extract more oil more cheaply, but their processing methods
> substantially reduce the nutritional quality of the oil.
>
> To reduce costs, olives are machine harvested along with leaves and
> twigs. Olives that have dropped on the ground, which can be said to
> contain bad oil, are often mixed with the good ones. They are shipped
> in all kinds of containers, many of which are poorly ventilated, and
> heaped in large piles where the olives are stored for too long and
> often become moldy. The oil is then extracted in a continuous
> centrifuge where hot water is used to help separate out the oil.
>
> Antioxidant polyphenols are soluble in water and are washed away in
> this process, thereby lowering the shelf life and the nutritional
> quality of the oil. Italy alone produces 800,000 cubic meters of waste
> water per year from this process. Because substantial amounts of
> antioxidants are washed away, factory produced olive oils have a short
> shelf life of only months, whereas real olive oil lasts for two to
> three years. Factory produced olive oil is filtered and looks clear.
> Real olive oil is not filtered and looks cloudy.
>
> Most people think that by purchasing "extra virgin" olive oil they are
> getting a high quality oil.
>
> Unfortunately, in most cases, this is not true. It's more complex than
> that. A label reading extra virgin is no guarantee of quality. For one
> thing, nowhere does it say that extra virgin olive oil has to be made
> 100% from olives. An major criterion for grading olive oil is its level
> of acidity. Extra virgin oil should have a free oleic acid acidity of
> no more than one percent, whereas ordinary virgin olive oil can have an
> acidity of up to 3.3 percent.
>
> Lower quality oils can be refined to bring the acidity down so they can
> be labeled as extra virgin. But now the oil has been refined, and
> that's not what you want. That's why being labeled extra virgin is no
> guarantee of getting high quality oil, which has not been processed in
> ways that reduce its nutritional value. To complicate matters even
> more, the term "extra virgin" has no official meaning in the United
> States. The U.S. is not a member of the International Olive Oil
> Council. So, olive oil sold here can be labeled extra virgin without
> meeting the accepted international standards.
>
> Another reason why you can't trust extra virgin olive oil is
> exemplified by a problem that manifested last year, and may turn out to
> be the biggest food fraud of the 20th Century. Despite the fact that
> details of this scandal have been published in Merum, a Swiss-German
> magazine, and in Italian journals such as Agra Trade, and the newspaper
> Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, this information has been successfully
> suppressed and is known to only a handful. Investigators are gathering
> evidence indicating that the biggest olive oil brands in Italy,
> Bertolli, Sasso, and Cirio, have for years beer systematically diluting
> their extra virgin olive oil with cheap, highly-refined hazelnut oil
> imported from Turkey. International arrest warrants have been issued
> and so far documents indicate that at least ten thousand tons of
> hazelnut oil are involved. As much as 20% hazelnut oil can be added to
> olive oil and still be undetectable to the consumer. In fact olive oil
> labeled "Italian" often comes from Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Spain, and
> Greece. Considering what has happened in Europe, where there are strict
> regulations, imagine what can happen in California where there are no
> regulations. Apparently, more oil is "produced" in California than
> there are olives available. The truth is, most of the extra virgin
> olive oil on the market does not supply all the nutritional value and
> health giving properties that we have a right to expect from olive oil.
>
> This is scary stuff when you consider how extremely important oil is to
> human health. Our modem chronic disease problems are the result of
> radically changing, in a short period of time, the fundamental
> parameters of human existence, namely: diet, environment, and behavior.
> One of the most fundamental changes in our diet has been the kind and
> the amount of fats and oils that we consume. For example, the
> consumption of hydrogenated oils has proved to be a disaster for human
> health. Hydrogenated oils have been implicated in both our cancer and
> heart disease epidemics. In fact, all modem processed oils are
> injurious to human health. To reverse our pandemic of chronic disease,
> we have to return to eating a more traditional diet, and high quality
> olive oil can safely be included in that diet. It's not so much that
> olive oil should be added to the diet as much as healthy, real olive
> oil should be used to replace the unhealthy, processed oils now being
> consumed.
>
> How does one ensure that they are eating the most healthful oil? Find
> an extra virgin olive oil that is cold pressed, unfiltered, and looks
> cloudy. The oil should be packaged in dark glass bottles to protect it
> from the damaging effects of light. Real olive oil is still made in
> small estate bottled settings. The challenge is to find one that does
> it! all right.
>
> After selecting the oil, it has to be stored properly. When properly
> stored, real extra virgin olive oil can last two to three years.
> Because of processing, most of the extra virgin oil on the market has a
> shelf life of only a few months. A good rule of thumb is to purchase
> oil in small bottles and consume it within a year of purchase; this
> will also ensure getting the best flavor. Store the oil away from both
> heat and light.
>
> Storing in a dark place is important because exposure to light will
> start a chain reaction that will destroy the oil a thousand times
> faster than oxygen. During storage, olive oil oxidizes and undergoes a
> slow, continuous, and irreversible deterioration until it becomes
> inedible.
>
> The bottom line is that modem, factory- produced olive oil has been
> stripped of its health enhancing nutrients, and the task of selecting a
> high quality oil has been made very difficult. That's why Beyond Health
> has made the selection process easier for you. We have searched for a
> high quality, estate bottled oil that meets our standards and we have
> found one. The brand name is Bariani. It's produced by the Bariani
> family on a small farm in the central valley of California. Their
> olives are grown without pesticides.
>
> They are hand picked from the trees, carefully washed and dried, and
> milled with a stone wheel within 48 hours of harvesting. It is pressed
> in a hydraulic press, collected in stainless steel vats, decanted, and
> bottled.
>
> This first cold pressed oil is the real stuff and retains all the
> natural flavor and goodness. Bariani is used by chefs in a number of
> fine restaurants. It is available at selected specialty food stores in
> California, and from Beyond Health.
>
> Raymond Francis is an M. L T.-trained scientist and an internationally
> recognized leader in the emerging field of optimal health maintenance.
>
> Read related messages from the original newsgroup:
>
http://decaf.talkway.com/cgi-bin/cgi....culture.syria
> --
> Original message found at Talkway --
http://www.talkway.com
> Exchange ideas on practically anything (tm).
>
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</pre>
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