Which Brand of Olive Oil is Best

Nutritionists usually stress three important considerations when choosing the best olive oil: quality, purity, and health benefits. Following the advice of nutritionists, the following is a guide to selecting the best brand of olive oil

Whether the olive oil is from Greece, Italy, Spain, Morrocco, Tunisia, or any other country doesn’t guarantee quality. There is not one country that has an overall lock on quality.

Why? Because there are many  producers of olive oil in each country that can be offering great, good, and not so good olive oil.

Some producers are industrial mass-producing olive oil companies focused on quantity, not quality selling to the low-cost consumer but are creatively labeled as extra virgin or virgin olive oil.

Others might produce great olive oil in one harvest with no guarantee of quality the next year.

Some are small growers with high quality, but their label is unknown, the cost is higher, and they are overlooked.

Grocery stores buy in bulk and olive oil from any country can sit on shelves for extended periods of time and be close to expiration date or stored in undesirable conditions to maintain any percentage of quality.

What you really want to look for is:

Harvest date on the label no matter where the oil is from, so you know how fresh the olive oil is – an outdate doesn’t help because it doesn’t tell you how fresh it is. Good olive oil will last two years unopened.

Dark glass bottle that doesn’t allow light that destroys nutrients. Never buy olive oil in plastic or clear bottles no matter what country it comes from.

Extra virgin on the label but confirmed with the percentage of acidity of 0.8% and never over 2.0%. Contrary to popular belief, acidity is a measure of damage to the olives during growing or processing and not a measure of quality.

Just knowing these few things will help you. If you want a complete checklist to take to the store here’s a link to download it.