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Greek olive oil is considered the best in the world and doesn't suffer from Mafia infiltration which is a huge problem in Italy [1] [2] [3]. Here is some good
by metroholografix 4y ago
Greek olive oil is considered the best in the world and doesn't suffer from Mafia infiltration which is a huge problem in Italy [1] [2] [3].
Here is some good quality Greek olive oil available in US, reasonably priced, that you can buy without fear of adulteration or other shadiness:
https://www.amazon.com/Terra-Creta-Kolymvari-Protective-Designation/dp/B00KROTNAW/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1549294575 https://www.amazon.com/Terra-Creta-Kolymvari-Protective-Desi...
https://www.amazon.com/Iliada-Extra-Virgin-Olive-Liter/dp/B003TO9SJS/ref=sr_1_2_mod_primary_new?crid=1BKWNC16YQO5W https://www.amazon.com/Iliada-Extra-Virgin-Olive-Liter/dp/B0...
The Greek extra virgin olive oil sold at Trader Joe's is also very good.
Avoid the - Whole Foods & 365 branded - Greek EVOO at Whole Foods: it was rancid every single time I've tried it.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-crime-food/italian-police-break-mafia-ring-exporting-fake-olive-oil-to-u-s-idUSKBN1602BD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-crime-food/italian-...
[2] https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/mafia-olive-oil-on-60-minutes/50203 https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/mafia-olive-o...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the-olive-oil-scam-if-80-is-fake-why-do-you-keep-buying-it/#a2a6e4c639d7 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the...
- surfsvammel 4y agoNice. How would one go about finding such suggestion for consumption in Europe?
- brnt 4y agoVisit tour local Greek deli? They're not very numerous, but they're out there.
- metroholografix 4y agoMost EU supermarkets should have some Greek EVOO (Tesco in UK and Jumbo in Netherlands have Iliada, Sainsbury's has a selection of Greek olive oils). Alternatively, find a Greek deli/market/imports place, they are in every country I've been to in northern Europe. They typically supply restaurants and should have a good selection of foods. Look for PDO / Agrocert stamps.
- baxtr 4y agoCheck this: https://shop.merum.info/de/taschenf%C3%BChrer/taschenf%C3%BChrer-oliven%C3%B6l-2022-print-402.html https://shop.merum.info/de/taschenf%C3%BChrer/taschenf%C3%BC...
- amluto 4y agoI wasn’t aware you could buy anything from Amazon at all without fear of adulteration.
- jmainguy 4y agoYeah I would never buy anything electronic, or anything to consume or put on my body from amazon.
- Eisenstein 4y agoIf you actually want cheap highly reproducable electronics amazon is fine. It is alibaba but twice as expensive for an order of magnitude reduction in shipping speed.
- verall 4y agoWith a functional return policy!
- theonething 4y agoEven if you buy it from the manufacture's official Amazon store?
- eloff 4y agoThanks to Amazon comingling inventory, you can buy something from one seller and have it fulfilled from the inventory of another. There's no protection from fakes and counterfeits. Even the reviews aren't enough to be sure.
- 411111111111111 4y agoThat's not necessarily true in the context of the parent comment. It only applies to deliveries directly from Amazon and drop shipping sellers, but Amazon is essentially a marketplace and the original sellers don't have to co-mingle. You're completely safe from co-mingleing if you're actually buying through Amazon from the original manufacturer and the article information says something like "sold and delivered by TheOriginalManufacturer"
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoThank you! The prices aren't even that bad.
- stavros 4y agoGreek here, never heard of Terra Creta or Iliada, but the PDO stamps look legit (they are from famous oil-producing areas).
- ultrasandwich 4y agoTerra Creta was everywhere in Crete when I was visiting there. Maybe it doesn't ship to the mainland very much?
- stavros 4y agoHm yeah, probably. I also don't notice oil brands very much, but these aren't some of the big ones (Altis, Elais, etc).
- axilmar 4y agoHoly moly, another Greek on ycombinator!!!! I am greek as well.
- gubernation 4y ago
- baxtr 4y agoThere is very good olive oil in Italy available. You just need to know where to look. I can highly recommend this very good Swiss magazine testing many oils throughout Italy: https://shop.merum.info/de/taschenf%C3%BChrer/taschenf%C3%BChrer-oliven%C3%B6l-2022-print-402.html https://shop.merum.info/de/taschenf%C3%BChrer/taschenf%C3%BC...
- cassepipe 4y agoI am only speaking about taste but various italian olive oils I have tested are too... acrid in my opinion. In comparison, all greek olive oils I have had access to ranged from good to amazingly good. Speaking from the pov of someone whose main fodder is bread, olive oil and lettuce.
- optymizer 4y agoI am a big fan of the Spanish virgin olive oil at Costco (the one in the tall green bottle), so I got excited when I saw their olive oil from Italy. I thought it would also be great, but it tasted very very strange. I don't know what 'acrid' is, but the word sounds like what that oil tasted like.
- Stratoscope 4y agoCostco sells a few different Italian olive oils. The best flavor is the Toscano or Val di Mazara. (Which one they have varies from year to year.) They only have these for a while from late spring until they runs out, and it is the most recent October/November harvest. They are in tall square green bottles, perhaps similar to the Spanish you mention.
- optymizer 4y agoYes, I should have been more specific. Out of the two italian olive oils in tall bottles, the one with the purple colors tasted bad to me. I think it says Italy on it in big letters. The green label bottle, also from Italy but which says Toscano, tasted just fine (though I still prefer the Spanish bottle).
- spookybones 4y agoDo you make sandwiches with olive oil and lettuce? Genuinely curious.
- mathieuh 4y agoI'm not that commenter, but dipping toasted bread in olive oil is delicious. And with the lettuce, you can mix olive oil and balsamic with a bit of seasoning to make a simple vinaigrette for a dressing.
- fortran77 4y agoI like Grecian olive oils, but I also like Israeli olive oil. Very high quality. If you live in an area in the US where it's available (NY, and LA mostly) it's worth trying: https://www.touristisrael.com/israel-olive-oil-industry/28198/ https://www.touristisrael.com/israel-olive-oil-industry/2819...
- BerislavLopac 4y agoI would also recommend Croatian oil.
- fsckboy 4y agoGreek olive oil is considered the best in the world[0] and doesn't suffer from Mafia infiltration which is a huge problem in Italy [1] [2] [3] [0] Mediterranean fighting words, with no footnote for comment's boldest claim
- L3viathan 4y agoRecent studies show[1] that adding a bracketed number after a claim increases credibility, as most people don't actually check the claim[2] anyways.
- Maursault 4y agoPerhaps, but consuming Greek olive oil comes at a grave price. The current life expectancy for Greece in 2022 is 82.64 years. The current life expectancy for Italy in 2022 is 83.86 years. Consuming Greek as opposed to Italian olive oil will reduce your life expectancy by nearly a year and 4 months. Thanks, but no thanks.
- iancmceachern 4y agoCalifornia olive oil is pretty good too.
- esotericsean 4y agoIt depends on where you live. If you live in California, you should not be purchasing Greek olive oil as it will oxidize by the time it gets to you. 100% Californian olive oil is the way to go for health. Or better yet just use coconut oil and butter/ghee.
- froh 4y agoolive oil has plenty of unsaturated fatty acids, butter/ghee less so, coconut oil is outright advised against. use ghee for high temperature (pan frying), olive oil for salads and normal cooking (like tomato sauce) and leave coconuts on the trees.
- tarsinge 4y agoCoconut oil and butter are saturated fats, whereas olive oil is monounsaturated fat. While saturated fats might not be as bad as we thought, they are still still strongly associated with cardiovascular diseases. Not really in the same league as olive oil.
- eutectic 4y agoI believe that the question of whether saturated fat is unhealthy is still an open question.
- yabatopia 4y agoWhat about Spanish olive oil?
- fithisux 4y agoOlive oil is very good whether Spanish/Greek/Californian. The processing is the problem and the cultivation. In my religious/fasting cakes I use olive oil and in my non-religious cold pressed sunflower oil instead of butter/margarine.
- samoit 4y agoSpanish person here. Spain is the biggest olive oil producer in the world. So big that Italia, and others buys the oil and pack it with its own label. There, is where some adulteration may come from. In Spain you can buy directly from the producers called "Cooperativas agricolas".
- elevaet 4y agoI recently had some very good Australian olive oil, Colbram brand. I expect there's less problems with fakery in Aussie EVOO, but not certain.
- dagw 4y agoGreek olive oil is considered the best in the world This is a pretty meaningless statement. It's like saying French wine is considered the best in the world. Perhaps true in some narrow sense, but the variations within a country are every bit as large as the variations between countries. Every country that produces olive oil produces some really top quality oil and some garbage oil Personally I mostly buy Spanish olive oil these days. Not because Spanish olive oil is 'the best', but because the best oil I've found for the price I'm most often willing to pay at the store I normally shop at happens to be from Spain.
- AdrianB1 4y agoMaybe greek olive oil is the most famous, but not the best; I don't think there is an official competition or comparison. A decade ago a friend of my mother that had a small olive farm in Jordan used to send us a couple of 5 liter cans of oil and olives every year. I can say that was the best olive oil and the best olives in my life, but there is no way to prove it.
- lakomen 4y agoI will top that with Croatian olive oil is the best in the world, earned many prices, but is not available to buy internationally. I personally like to buy Sicilian olive oil, from a local seller for only 7€ per Liter. It's so virgin that a bottle exploded that I had put a cap on. Quite the mess, but the quality speaks for itself.
- besnn00 4y agoWhat do you mean it exploded?
- Maursault 4y ago> Greek olive oil is considered the best in the world and doesn't suffer from Mafia infiltration which is a huge problem in Italy The current life expectancy for Greece in 2022 is 82.64 years. The current life expectancy for Italy in 2022 is 83.86 years. Clearly, Italian olive oil reduces mortality for 1 year, 3 months, 25 days, 4 hours and 48 minutes longer than Greek olive oil. And since Greek civilization had at least a few hundred years longer than Italian civilization at perfecting olive oil's mortality reduction, we can assume that given the same amount of time, Italian olive oil will always reduce mortality more than Greek olive oil.