EVOOcation

Olive Oil Defects: The Official Taxonomy of Failure

A “fusty” call in Jaén means exactly the same thing as a “fusty” call in Crete. Panel testers re-qualify periodically, the same way a lab instrument gets recalibrated. Taste, treated as an instrume...

Rancidity: The Fight Every Oil Eventually Loses

Oxygen finds an unsaturated fat and forms a hydroperoxide. Chemists call this primary oxidation, and it's exactly what peroxide value measures. From there it's a slow, patient unraveling toward fla...

PUFA: The One With More to Lose

Olive oil mainly consists of two PUFAs: linoleic acid (C18:2) and linolenic acid (C18:3). These two are omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, respectively. They are healthy fats when eaten raw, but when...

MUFA: Hero With Just One Weak Point

The Mediterranean-diet research that made “oleic acid” a term people recognize traces back to Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study in the 1950s and 60s. One of the first large studies to notice that p...

Hydroxytyrosol: The One With a Law Behind It

Hydroxytyrosol is what's left after oleuropein breaks down: a smaller, gentler, and weight for weight one of the most potent antioxidants ever measured in food. It is an ortho diphenol and has unpa...

Oleuropein: The Bodyguard That Tastes Terrible on Purpose

Bite an unripe olive and you'll understand betrayal. That bitterness is oleuropein, one of the main phenolic compounds in olive oil. It is the precursor to one of the most potent antioxidants ever ...

Oleocanthal: The Burn That Isn't Lying

Oleocanthal blocks inflammation causing enzymes COX-1 and COX-2. It is an important polyphenol compound in olive oil. Gary Beauchamp found out that it has anti-inflammatory action similar to that o...