San Diego Nutrition and Health

Since I talked about Popeye yesterday, I should be fair and include a little piece on Olive Oil…ha! ha! 

While the coincidence was not really planned, it did work out pretty well.  But no, we’re not going to talk about Popeye’s girlfriend.  Rather, we’ll take a look at the different varieties of olive oil or ”liquid gold” as Homer called it. 

You may have heard about the various health benefits of olive oil and yet it can be rather confusing to know which kind to get when some bottles say “extra virgin olive oil” and others say “light olive oil.”  So, how does olive oil stack up?  Let’s take a look.

Following is a list of the varieties of olive oil from the least processed to the most processed:

Extra virgin- this oil comes from the first pressing of the olives and is the least processed. 

Virgin- this comes from the second pressing

Pure- this oil undergoes some filtering and refining; it’s processed oil in which some extra virgin oil has been added

Extra light- this oil undergoes considerable processing

Thus, to clear up any possible confusion, to get the best, least processed olive oil, you’ll want to look for a good quality extra virgin oil that was extracted with a cold press, meaning the olives weren’t subjected to heat.  Hope this helps next time you’re standing in front of rows of olive oil bottles and wondering which one to buy.