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The Neuro Experience
Why Most Olive Oil Isn’t What You Think (and How to Find the Real Thing)
00:56:35
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- [00:00]
A
Rod, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:02]
B
Thank you.
- [00:02]
A
I'm so excited to talk to you and I want to get right into it. Let's first talk about the harmful effects of seed oils, if any.
- [00:12]
B
Well, I hear a lot about the problems that might occur with seed oils, but I've worked with seed oils for many years. In fact, our research institute was one of the first to work on canola oil when it was introduced into Australia from Canada. The first varieties that came over here didn't succeed very well. They weren't adapted to our conditions and we had to develop new varieties. And they also had some toxic compounds in the plants that certainly something called glucosinolates in the meal part of it after the oil's extracted. And in the oil there was something called ericic acid, which is a long chain fatty acid, which is been related to cardiac lesions and things in mice experiments. Now we produce varieties that remove those things from canola. And canola is a very well studied crop these days. The effects of the oil, the polyunsaturated fatty acids, everything to do with canola has been studied over and over again. There's thousands of papers to show what the health benefits are. And there's still some things that say there's problems with canola oil, but there's nothing that's, that's genuine as far as I can see.
- [01:32]
A
Okay, so why don't we map everything out and get some understandings and definitions? Because what we're seeing now in terms of social media. Right. The current state of health on social media is quite scary. It's full of misinformation. And what we're seeing, I'll just give you a broad overview which I'm sure you're familiar with. What we're seeing is a high propensity to adopt olive oil. Okay. Which is partly why I wanted to bring you on this podcast. Olive oil is a so called longevity superfood. But then we're seeing the complete opposite end of the spectrum with this whole seed oil debacle. Seed oils are inflammatory, they are causing cardiovascular disease, they've been linked to cancer. Seed oils are bad. People are trying to get them banned at local restaurants and fast food chains. I obviously live in America, so I'm privileged to that information. And it's just what? I just, I don't understand. I am a, I, I grew up on olive oil. I'm Greek. And so olive oil has always been a staple. But I've also seen my mother cook with canola oil and I saw her cooking with it probably like three weeks ago. And even I said, mom, don't use that. We need to use ghee instead. She said, ghee? I've never used ghee. I don't want to use ghee. And so I think we need to just understand what are seed oils and how are they manufactured and why are they so called rancid and why are they killing us?
- [03:02]
B
I love the conversation because it's something I've talked about for many, many years. If you look at oils, oils and fats are all the same thing. Fats are only fats because they're solid at room temperature, and oils are liquid. All of those products. Let's talk about peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil. They're all made up of fatty acids. Almost the entire mixture is fatty acids. Probably 97% of any oil would be fatty acids. There's a little portion which is some other things we can talk about later. But those fatty acids are what we call long chain fatty acids. And the long chain fatty acids in soybean are the same as they are in sunflower, the same as they are in olive oil. So really, the only difference is the proportions of those fatty acids. The fatty acids in olive oil are basically the major one is oleic acid. Oleic acid is named after olive oil. It a layer and oleic acid. But it also contains other fatty acids like palmitic acid. Now, palmitic acid is in palm oil, hence the name palmitic. But palm oil's never been considered a very healthy thing to eat. And olive oil contains about 20% of palmitic acid. Palm oil solidifies at about 63 degrees. So at room temperature, it's a solid lump of fat. When you blend it with the olive, the oleic acid and the other fatty acids, then it becomes soluble. But the other fatty acids that are there too. Palmitic is a saturated fat, which means, you know, obviously fatty acids are. They're long chains of carbon atoms. They're all joined with a bond. And Palmitic acid is 16 carbons long, and it has a single bond between each carbon. Now it gets a bit more complex because you can get double bonds between some of those carbons, which actually cause the long chain to bend. And we get something called polyunsaturation. So if you've got palmitic acid, which no double bonds, we call it saturated fat. We get oleic acid, and it's got one double bond in it and it kinks in the middle, so it's bent. And that's called a monounsaturated fatty acid. And there is A few of those, and they're considered to be very healthy. And there's a lot of background about it. Reducing LDLs and the benefits of oleic acid. And that goes with olive oil. But there are other crops that have even more oleic acid than olive oil. We now have crops like sunflower and soybean and safflower, where oleic acid has been bred to become up to 90, 95% oleic acid. So these are even stronger in that particular component. But the other fatty acids, Linoleic. Linolenic.
- [06:28]
A
That's actually linoleic acid is the one that's getting demonized the most.
- [06:32]
B
It is. It's an omega 6 fatty acid.
- [06:34]
A
Yes.
- [06:35]
B
And what they're saying about omega 6, we've got omega 3, which is linolenic. It's got three double bonds in this.
- [06:41]
A
Which comes from fatty fish. We've got.
- [06:43]
B
Yeah, well, it does. But you get a lot of linolenic acid from particular crops. Linseed, for instance, and canola oil also has about 10% linolenic acid. The interesting thing is the melting point of these different fatty acids. If you look at palmitic acid, it melts at about 63 degrees. If you look at oleic acid, it melts at about 16 degrees. So room temperature, it's liquid. Put it in the fridge and it goes solid. And that's what people used to say was a good indicator of whether it's genuine olive oil or not. But there's reasons why that doesn't work. But then you get linolenic acid with three double bonds and it melts at about minus 10 degrees. And these double bonds cause it to bend. As I said, it doesn't pack in so closely with the other fatty acids, and therefore it's more reactive. And it's also more reactive in our systems when we digest it. So the melting points are incredibly important part of the fatty acids.
- [07:48]
A
Oh, that's so interesting. Okay, so it's about the melting point. It's not about the actual oil or the seed itself and what it's made up of that makes it harmful in any way.
- [07:59]
B
No, I think that's true. I think that if you get saturated fats and fats make up a large part of our cellular membranes. If they pack in really tightly the way these straight, long chain, like palmitic acid, they can pack very closely. But if you get a double bond and it starts to kink, then the. These cell walls become more porous and they're not the same as they would be with saturated fats. Linolenic linoleic with two double bonds or oleic acid with one double bond, all contribute to this irregularity of the shape of the fatty acids.
- [08:40]
A
And you think this is what's causing the uproar in this whole seed oil landscape? Look at.
- [08:48]
B
I really think that palmitic acid was the thing that was being well put down for being a really bad thing. Now recent research has shown palmitic acid is really essential. In fact, mother's milk for infants is very important with the level of palmitic acid and sustaining growth and whatever in infants. So it's difficult to put any problems with any of those fatty acids. I think the important thing and why some oils are better than others is because of the proportions. I said olive oil has about 10%, 10 to 20% of this Palmitic. It also has about 60% oleic. So the blend of these things make it a more appropriate oil for the diet. So yeah, there are other oils. The tropical oils are very high in saturated fats, the shorter chain fatty acids. So they're very high melting points.
- [09:52]
A
Why is it that we then chose to fry and cook more so in these seed oils rather than olive oil? Olive oil is, you know, you dress it on salads. And I know that it has a heat point where if it's. It can become also toxic if you are to heat olive oil.
- [10:12]
B
Right, yeah, let's talk about that. If you heat an oil up and it's got all these double bonds, the double bonds are the most reactive part of the fatty acid. So the first thing that will happen as it starts to oxidize will form peroxides on these double bonds and they become the toxic compounds that you refer to. If you go past a fish and chip shop, you can sometimes smell a really acrid, smelly, rancid fat. It hasn't been changed. And they're supposed to test it every now and then for these peroxides and it should be thrown out on a regular basis. And there's tankers come around and pick up all this oil and take it away. So cooking for a long time in any of these oils will cause it to go off olive oil the same as any of the others. So fast food people use oils that are more stable things like palm oil, for instance. It's saturated fat, but it can get very hot and it'll last a long time. Cause there's no double bonds. So you can cook with that for a week. And yeah, it doesn't have the same issues.
- [11:24]
A
Every time you talk about palm oil, I think about Nutella and then I think about gorillas. I don't know whether there was this campaign that went around quite a few years ago saying every time you eat Nutella, you're killing a gorilla. It's like, oh my gosh, let's save the gorillas and let's stop eating Nutella.
- [11:41]
B
Okay, so palm oil's still probably the major oil crop in the world. And it's growing in not only Malaysia, but in Indonesia and places where there's huge areas. And they're doing a lot to publicize their protection of the environment these days. If you cook with canola. Canola's a fairly fragile oil because it has a lot of this omega 3 linolenic acid.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah.
- [12:06]
B
If you cook with fish oil, it would go off even quicker because fish oil's got 10 or, sorry, five or six double bonds. EPA and DHA we talk about. So the more double bonds, the more reactive. Canola oil has three double bonds in linolenic. Cook with it once, cook with it twice, and then throw it out. If you cook with tallow or lard or the animal fats, they're mostly saturated fats, so you can cook with them more and more. But it's more stable. Yes, yeah. So you have to think about what you're cooking with. If it's olive oil, it's quite stable. It has a lot of this palmitic acid, it has simoleic acid, and it doesn't have any linolenic acid. Now that's an important issue because olive oil's a really good oil and we all know it's really good, but it doesn't have any Omega 3. So if you want Omega 3 and you're living on olive oil, you've got to have a supplement of linolenic acid by mixing your oils and having a bit of canola oil on your salads or a bit of soybean oil. Even a mixture in all foods is an important thing, isn't it? You get vitamins and minerals from all the different sorts of things. But these fats are very important. They carry vitamins A, D, E and K are important fat soluble vitamins that you get from fats. But just eating olive oil all the time is not enough.
- [13:35]
A
Well, let's talk about that. So you've spent the majority of your career. What was your PhD in?
- [13:40]
B
Plant breeding?
- [13:41]
A
Plant breeding. What are you down there?
- [13:43]
B
We were actually developing varieties of oilseeds. And one of the things I wanted to know was could we detect within varieties different quality characteristics before we actually planted the plants? So I did a Lot of DNA analysis on fingerprinting of varieties to try and identify quality traits and also to identify one variety from another. At that time, there was a lot of money paid to farmers when they brought their crop in on plant variety rights. If you bring in a truckload of canola, it's little black seeds. Nobody knows what it is. But using the tests that we developed in during my PhD, we could take some of that seed and we could say this is this variety, this is this variety, and do that within a few minutes.
- [14:34]
A
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- [18:02]
B
Yeah, good point. Because olives are fruit, and olives are very sensitive to damage and breakdown. After you harvest them, you can harvest canola and sunflower seeds and you can leave them in a bin for two years and they're fine.
- [18:18]
A
Oh, wow.
- [18:19]
B
If they get wet or they get hot or something, they're going to break down. But seeds are stable. They're wrapped up in their little jacket and they're not going anywhere. If you pick olives, you've got to treat them pretty quickly and pretty gently to get good quality olive oil. Now, the traditional way in Greece or Spain or Italy is to pull them out of the trees with rakes and they fall on the ground onto big sheets. Then they'll rake them up and put them into bins. And often those bins will be carried away and put in the shed for a week or two until they've got enough to start pressing. By that time, the olives are rotten, they've gone moldy, fermenting, and they're already lost that extra virgin quality.
- [19:05]
A
Oh, wow.
- [19:07]
B
So the good olive producers and people that are doing it these days, and there's some excellent olive oil coming out of Greece and Italy and Spain and whatever, and they're winning all the world awards for what they do, but they're not doing it in the old traditional methods. They're getting the olives off the tree, they're putting them into bins, getting to the press, pressing them, and getting them to stainless steel tanks within hours, Within a very short period of time.
- [19:35]
A
There's all different types of olives as well. There are, okay, so I know there's black olives, there's green olives, there's Spanish. So what's the oil? What are the olives that are actually getting harvested? Are they all different kinds?
- [19:47]
B
A black olive is a green olive that's been on the tree a bit longer.
- [19:50]
A
Really?
- [19:51]
B
Yeah. So they'll all go black after a while. There's some that maintain a green color, but basically black is just more mature. So when olives are green and they reach their full size, that's the time that most people will harvest. The oil quality is at its peak at that stage. The polyphenol levels are very high. The fruit's quite firm, so it doesn't get damaged when you harvest it. And if you can get those olives off the tree and into the press, that oil is going to be really pungent. It's going to have a very high level of antioxidants, and it's going to be stable in the bottle for a long time.
- [20:32]
A
Is that the ones that have that peppery taste?
- [20:35]
B
Yeah, well, that peppery taste is those polyphenols. And the polyphenols are very high in green olives. If you took a green olive off the tree and tried to bite it, it'll burn your mouth.
- [20:46]
A
Yeah. And they're often hard, too. Every Greek has had an olive oil tree growing up, Right.
- [20:52]
B
So if you pick a black one, it's nowhere near as better, but you still wouldn't eat it at that stage. But the idea is to try and maintain those polyphenols. Squash the olives, separate them, get the oil out, and get as much of that polyphenol into the oil as you can. And then that oil, if the oil comes from a green, immature olive or a young olive, the oil's probably good for two years in a bottle stored in the best conditions. But if you get black olives, where there's virtually no pungency, and put it in a bottle, you've probably got three to six months before the oil goes off.
- [21:31]
A
So why doesn't every manufacturer just cut them at their prime?
- [21:36]
B
Well, it depends. The traditional growers in Southern Europe still rake the olives, and they can't. It's much harder to get green olives off the tree. Processing is a lot harder. And by the time they get through their olive grove. If they've got hundreds of trees, it's a big job. So it may be that they just don't get them off in time. It's interesting to have a look at how it's being done in southern Australia. The people like Cobram Estate have got olive harvesters which are big U shaped machines that go across the top of the trees and they have little fingers that come in and vibrate very hard. And all the olives drop onto a conveyor belt from these machines. So as the tree's going across it probably harvest the tree in about three or four minutes rather than four blokes with a rake trying to get them off in an hour or two. So the olives drop in up into a conveyor belt, off into a truck on the side, and as soon as that truck's full, it's off into the factory. The olives are put through a hammer mill, broken up into a molexer. So it's all mixed nicely into a centrifuge and into a stainless steel tank where the nitrogen blanket over the top within three to six hours.
- [23:03]
A
I've been to Italy and I went to an olive oil farm and what we got to do was actually get a wine glass and put it up to where the oil was coming from. It looked like a green. It kind of looked like this apple juice, if you will. Like dark colored. Yeah. And it was absolutely phenomenal. And I'm like, am I drinking olive oil right now? Like. And that's how it's it. It just looked like juice though.
- [23:26]
B
Yeah, it does. And it tastes nice. When you open a bottle of olive oil, you should smell it first. When you first had a cork out. Smell it. It smells like cut grass is the first thing that I get. If you're mowing the lawn, the smell of mowing lawns is the first thing that comes out of the bottle. Have you ever been on a tasting panel? Have you ever tried tasting?
- [23:48]
A
You know what I have, I've gone to in America. I was trying to source out the best olive oil and they gave me a whole selection of them. And I always remember the one that I picked. He said, well, that's the most expensive one and the most purest one. And it was the most peppery one as well.
- [24:05]
B
Yeah, yeah. So we used to call them one cough or two cough oils. Because when you're sitting on a tasting panel and you have a sip, you get the bitterness on your tongue. If it's bitter, you get the fruitiness, the flavor. But Then as it runs down the back of your throat, it'll make you cough.
- [24:22]
A
Yes.
- [24:23]
B
And when you're standing outside the tasting room, you'll hear them going like that. That's a two cough oil. Somebody's just taken it down. But it burns the back of your throat. And that's the polyphenols.
- [24:37]
A
So the more that it burns, it's considered the most purest.
- [24:42]
B
It's not the purest. It's probably, it could be green olives that have been picked early. So it's got a lot of that. Yeah, it's been processed in a way that maintained that quality. And it's also got those polyphenols that are going to be useful in your diet and also for storage. But you get to a stage where it's too strong, you can't use some of that olive oil. When we test polyphenols in olives, it comes in around 100 or 200 or 300 parts per million of these polyphenols. Sometimes that could be a thousand. And if you try and drink olive oil, it's a thousand plus million polyphenols, then it's just not nice.
- [25:26]
A
So what you're describing is a really, to me, it's like a really logical process. Right. But why is there so much controversy in this industry? I find that there's a lot of controversy because I didn't realize this until a couple of years ago, that sometimes if you go to the supermarket and you buy an olive oil, maybe it's cut with different other oils. And that's where the controversy is. And why is it that one is more expensive than the other? And why is it one more deemed more pure and better for you than another olive oil? Have you noticed that this industry has a lot of controversy?
- [26:01]
B
We spent a lot of our time looking at fraud in the industry.
- [26:05]
A
Wow. Tell me about that.
- [26:06]
B
This is. It was an incredible thing. When we started working on olives, probably back in early 1990s, we started testing olive oil. We got accredited with the International Olive Council for our laboratory's ability to test olive oil. And then I thought it would be interesting to see how Australian olive oils compare with big international brands. And we did. And we did those tests and I thought, this is funny, ours are quite different and the international ones don't seem to meet the standards. So we sent some of it overseas and we had it tested by the international laboratories. And it came back that it was just not extra virgin olive oil. And there's a few reasons for that. One of the reasons and probably the main reason is when you put olive oil into a container and you put it on a ship, on the top of a ship in the hot sun and six weeks later it arrives at Sydney, we unpack it and it's putrid. I mean, it's not extra virgin olive oil anymore. That doesn't mean it wasn't when it went in the container in the first place.
- [27:14]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [27:16]
B
So, and it happens in your kitchen cupboard. I mean, when you get a bottle of olive oil, eat the expensive one first because there's no point in trying to keep it. It won't.
- [27:25]
A
Keep what is extra virgin?
- [27:28]
B
Okay. Virgin means that it hasn't been refined, it hasn't been mechanically or chemically. Well, it's been mechanically treated, it hasn't been chemically treated. So virgin just means it's been crushed and put into a bottle. Extra virgin is extra virgin means it's been crushed under particular conditions to give you the best quality olive oil. Don't ever buy virgin olive oil. It means that it's been crushed and put in a bottle. But it could have come from mouldy olives or it could have come from anything. Extra virgin means it meets the international criteria for free fatty acids, peroxide and all of the things that we measure to make sure that it's high quality.
- [28:12]
A
Now I also know there's a difference between cold pressed, right?
- [28:16]
B
Yeah.
- [28:17]
A
I love this question because that's what I've been buying. I'm like cold pressed extra virgin olive oil in a dark glass bottle.
- [28:24]
B
So think about in the old days when they had a. A donkey would bring in a couple of hessian bags on its back and they'd tip it into a big stone mill and there'd be a big stone going round and round and round and it would crush the oil out. And the first oil came out of that was first pressed or cold pressed. It wasn't heated. The other way they pressed it was. They had big hessian mats about the size of this table. And they'd grind the olives up and spread it over like Nutella you were talking about. And they'd pile the nets on top of each other and then a hydraulic press would squeeze them and the oil would pour out. And the first oil they collected was the first press. We don't do that anymore. There is no first press.
- [29:07]
A
Oh, why?
- [29:08]
B
And there is no cold press because we don't go to trouble to keep it cold or press it. When olives come in now, they come in in a truck, like I told you. They immediately go into a hammer mill. Well, they're washed first to get rid of all the twigs and leaves and things off the olives. They go into a hammer mill and they're all ground up into a paste, just like peanut butter. It then goes into a malaxa with a big turning blade and it just turns there for several hours while all the oil molecules come together and they'll float to the top and the water and the solids will go to the bottom. And then they go into a centrifuge and it's spun down until all the solids and the water are out. The oil will run out of a separate spout into the tank. And that's extra virgin olive oil. It's not cold pressed. It's not first pressed. It's just extracted.
- [30:05]
A
So you're telling me that the olive oil that I'm buying, that claims on the label is cold pressed, is a lie?
- [30:10]
B
It's either coming from a little Tunisian mill in the back of the mountains, or it's a lie. I don't think you see cold press very often, but I've heard some of the presses, local people, they'll still refer to it as. This is first press. It's not first press. Everything goes in together and it all comes out together.
- [30:34]
A
And it's funny because I don't think many people would really know what first press is.
- [30:38]
B
I don't think so either. But it sounds nice, doesn't it?
- [30:40]
A
It does sound nice. It sounds so much better than, you know.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah. This is cold last press.
- [30:45]
A
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- [33:24]
B
So the reason that there was a lot of controversy is firstly the oils might have gone off. And that's quite likely when you get imported oils. And I always say at this stage, Greek, Italian, Tunisian, Spanish olive oils are winning lots of medals. They're very, very good oils. When you're buying oil in Australia, I always recommend people buy Australian olive oil. It hasn't traveled far. It's probably this is a really good time to buy it because it's just been crushed. Fresh olive oil is in supermarkets right now.
- [33:58]
A
What are you saying? Because the olives, the fruit itself grows.
- [34:00]
B
In winter and it's harvested in the early part of the year. So it's being processed now and put into bottles. So the best olive oil, the freshest olive oil would now be starting to arrive on supermarket shelves.
- [34:14]
A
But isn't that dependent on when it was bottled? So if I go to Coles today and I go into the olive oil section, does it actually have on the label this was bottled?
- [34:23]
B
It should have when it was pressed or bottled or even harvested. But it'll have. And it'll have a best before date?
- [34:29]
A
Yes.
- [34:29]
B
And the Australian rules, we have an Australian Olive association which sets rules which are not, they're not something you have to do, but a lot of people do and they put the label of the AOA on their bottles. But we have a use by date of two years maximum. And most people will recommend you use it within 12 months, but if you work it properly, you can get it within six months. And they're the best, the peppery, the freshest oils.
- [35:03]
A
So which oil do you buy in Australia?
- [35:06]
B
Yeah, I was asked that by somebody else, which you probably saw. Look, we have some really good oils. And in the international, the New York Olive Oil competition, it's a huge competition, the biggest in the world. Australians won six or eight gold medals for our oils against all the rest of the world. Now, there's thousands of medals given out of all different categories. But for Australia, such a young industry, to be winning that many awards is great. And we have people here in the Hunter Valley who are winning awards. We have people in Tasmania, New Zealand, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia that are all producing really good olive oil. Now, when I was asked last time, I said, I buy my olive oil in collapsible bags. I don't know if you remember, we used to have cellar packs of wine, boxed wine. Boxed wine, yeah.
- [36:03]
A
That was like the cheapest wine to buy, Right? I remember that from university days.
- [36:07]
B
Yeah, you say. So the point is, as you take the wine or the oil out of the bottle, the box collapses, no oxygen gets back in. And if you keep it in a cool place, that box is the best possible way to store olive oil. So I buy my oil from a place down on the Murray River. They have a beautiful olive grove down there and where you did a lot of our research on their farm, and they're now packing their oil in these boxes. So I go to the trouble of buying oil from there.
- [36:43]
A
Do you drive out there or do you. Do they sell this?
- [36:45]
B
Oh, no, you can buy it online.
- [36:47]
A
Okay, that brings up a really good point. So my parents get Crete's best olive oil. They always have. It comes in tins. Obviously it comes from Greece, comes from Crete.
- [36:58]
B
They live here in Australia.
- [36:59]
A
They live here in Australia. So I'm going to tell them that it might not be in their best interest to be buying Crete's best if.
- [37:05]
B
It'S coming by air and it's been looked after and it's in tins and it's all, all those things indicates that it could be very good oil. My worry is when it comes over in plastic bags sitting on the top of a ship for six weeks, but.
- [37:19]
A
You would never know that.
- [37:21]
B
You wouldn't know that. And when we first. I did a lot of legal cases in the States. I used to go over and do litigations with people who were claiming that the oil that they bought at Safeway or whatever was not what it should be. I did cases in New York and in San Francisco and other places. And it's a terrible thing. I hate doing these depositions, but I felt strongly enough about it that it was worthwhile. And we tested the oil here in Australia and it was not extra virgin olive oil. And it was being sold in some of the biggest supermarkets in the US and the reason was because the US Weren't doing any testing. And we don't do very much testing either. That oil comes in in drums or whatever, it's bottled, it's put on supermarket shelves, it's labeled extra virgin. Who knows?
- [38:14]
A
So does the US have any testing now?
- [38:18]
B
There are a couple of laboratories. Davis University have a lab that do a lot of testing for commercial purposes. There's a couple of other labs that do commercial testing. But on the whole, a lot of the oil coming in relies on the supplier to guarantee to you that that oil is going to be extra virgin.
- [38:39]
A
Yeah. That's interesting because I think a lot of people just go in and just hope for the best at the supermarket. You know, even, you know, I do, I shop at a place called Whole Foods and just getting any. I live in New York. Right. So going and getting anything is already a struggle.
- [38:54]
B
Right.
- [38:55]
A
Because you walk everywhere, it's right now it's really hot. Like, you think about, oh my God, I have to carry this oil back home, which may be three or four or 10 blocks, depending on where you live. So you just hope for the best. So you just know what, you know, you go there, it's like, okay, this says extra virgin olive oil. It's in a glass bottle and it's dark. And I'm just going to get this. I, I don't know. Now you've told me that the criteria should be look at the, when it was sourced. And you should really. So then the US I wonder if there's olive groves that you could pick from. They'd probably be looking at California.
- [39:28]
B
They produce some beautiful olive oil in California. I've actually done some work over there. I used to be a supervisor on some of their PhD projects at university of Davis, University of California in Davis. And I visit a lot of those olive oil groves over there. So there's some excellent olive oil coming out of California. Yeah.
- [39:54]
A
What means, what's the difference in prices? Why are some really expensive and others are not?
- [40:00]
B
Well, I think you find in Australia Australian olive oil is expensive because of our cost of manufacture. I suppose you can buy cheap olive oil from overseas. I think what you pay for is what. What you get. Certainly the stuff you're buying here, you know it's going to be fresh, but you're going to pay a bit more money for it.
- [40:24]
A
Yeah. You mentioned earlier, first of all, your boxed wine. I still, I really. I really want to focus on that. Is it because you. The more oxygen that gets into a bottle per se, is worse for you?
- [40:38]
B
I was in our studies, we used to study the storage of olive oil. How long could we keep it for before it would go off? The things that you've got to be worried about is firstly, heat. Heat is the biggest problem of all. I've got a photograph of a bottle of olive oil sitting next to the stove and I showed it at a conference I went to and I said, you should never do this. And somebody said, where's that? And I said, that's my wife's kitchen. But as much as I tell her she'll always put the bottle of olive oil down next to the stove where she's cooking. Heat is the first thing. Light is the second thing, because light will make olive oil go off too. If you take a green bottle of olive oil and put it out in the sun, it will go yellow almost over a daytime. So the chlorophyll in that olive oil is reacting as chlorophyll should to light and it'll go off and then the next thing it'll start to go rancid. So the green chlorophyll is a positive thing for the oil and you should have some green in your olive oil when you buy it. The other thing is oxygen, of course. So this box that I'm talking about, you can have it collapse without any oxygen getting in as you use it. By the time I get to the end of my box of olive oil, the bag's flat. There's a little bit of olive oil in it, but there's no air in it. So perfect.
- [42:05]
A
Oh, that's amazing. I was listening to, obviously, a. An episode that you did an interview and you said. I think you mentioned that Australia sits sixth in the world right now. Is that what you said in terms of best olive oils? Or maybe you said it was Spain, what we.
- [42:27]
B
I'm not sure I could rate it in those terms, but I certainly talked about the number of awards we won. So our industry's only been going for 20 or 30 years. We certainly had olives grow here in Very early settlement, particularly down in South Australia. So there's been olive trees there forever for the last 200 years. But the industry started running 20 or 30 years ago. And even now we've got some of the best olive oils in the world. So I'm not sure where we rate.
- [42:58]
A
But what's the difference between Australian olive oil and Spain olive oil?
- [43:03]
B
That's a really good question. Because when we first started producing it, we were exporting some to Spain and to Italy and places. And they were getting our oil and saying, this is not olive oil. And we said, why? And they said, well, the fatty acids are a little bit different to what our standards are.
- [43:19]
A
And they were measuring it the same way as you like.
- [43:22]
B
Exactly. Well, we all use exactly the same, the International Olive Council standards. But when you grow olives, if you grow olives in Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, you get four different types of oil.
- [43:34]
A
And that's due to the way the fruit. Yeah.
- [43:37]
B
The temperature, the moisture, everything to do with it. So if we grow Manzanellos or something from Italy and we grow them here in Australia, it's gonna be a little bit different. And we had to go and fight to have the standards changed to accept our olive oil because it's olive oil off trees, out of olives. But it's. It just varied a little bit from what we're getting from. From Europe.
- [44:00]
A
Yeah, it's, you know, it's kind of the way you're discussing this. It's kind of like the supplement industry. Yeah, right. I get asked about supplements every single day, and I think it's not about what the supplement is, it's about the manufacturing of it. You can buy supplements now on Amazon, for example, but there was a really big study done on most of the supplements on Amazon showing that none of them contain what is said on the label. So then that becomes scary. It's like, well, what if. What are people ingesting? So now there's like quality assurance. It's like, are they certified by a third party governing body and are they double certified or triple certified? So you know that the purity is there in the making, manufacturing process itself. To know that with every capsule you're getting everything that it says on the label. And then you've also got like omega threes, which become rancid as well. So that's really hard. You got to look at manufacturers. So now I'm thinking that you really have to. It's not about olive oil itself. You're looking about, you're looking at the manufacturer Itself.
- [45:00]
B
It certainly are. But the other thing to worry about is storage and transport. Yeah, but we were talking about why things are different prices and the different quality of oils. One of the things is deterioration. But there's also the case of people putting other things in olive oil bottles and calling it extra virgin olive oil. Now, we've had some of the tests we did in one of these litigation cases in the states. It was all what we call. Well, it was processed oil in the bottle and it was labeled extra virgin. Now, it was olive oil. And the argument from the defense was that it is olive oil. What's the problem? Well, the label says extra virgin olive oil, and that's a specific description of something. And it wasn't that at all. When you crush olives, the dried rubbish that comes out, the rest of the fruit is called pomace. And you can buy pomace olive oil in supermarkets because they take that pomacet and they wash it with solvent to get the rest of the oil out. And it's hexane or something like that, an organic solvent. They get the oil and the solvent and they boil the solvent off. And now you're left with the residue that's been in this pomace. It could have been sitting out in a pile of mold, growing, whatever, pumice for a long time anyway, that that oil can be regained and put in a bottle and call pomasoil. Now, it's probably perfectly healthy. It's been refined, it's been through all the process. But you put that bottle in supermarket in one of our big supermarkets here, Pomasoil, people don't know what pumice oil is, and they're just as likely to pick that up. As long as well as extra virgin. The price will be half, of course.
- [46:55]
A
But does it say pomace oil?
- [46:56]
B
It says pumice oil, or it says refined oil, or it says something like that. But if it says pure olive oil, then pure olive oil is also refined oil. And if it just says olive oil, it may be a blend of olive oil and refined oil.
- [47:11]
A
And there's no law against that?
- [47:13]
B
No, that's an international description of olive oil. Olive oil is a mixture of refined. And so I always say to people, don't look at anything else except extra virgin. It's the only one to buy because we know it's been picked and processed for human consumption.
- [47:30]
A
Thank you, Mud water, the coffee alternative, for sponsoring today's episode. So I have a coffee every single morning, without a doubt, my almond cortado. I have Been also having one at 2pm and let me tell you, I have felt the crash until I swapped it out for Mud Water. So I literally now instead of having my 2pm coffee, I'm having Mud Water. It's their original blend of cacao chow, turmeric and mushrooms like lion's mane and cordyceps. And let me tell you, I have clean energy, laser sharp focus and no jitters. So if you're caffeine, caffeine sensitive or you just want to upgrade your routine, this stuff is a game changer. If you're into Matcha, their Matcha blend is one of the best that I have tasted. It's smooth, it's earthy, it's energizing. To be honest. All of the Mud Water ingredients are amazing because they are organic, they're sugar free, they're vegan, and they're scientifically backed to support focus, immunity and energy. So if you're ready to ditch the crash and sip Smarter, go to mudwater.com and use code NEURO to get 43 off. Plus it's free shipping and they give you their frother, which is definitely a must. That is mud water. M u d w t r.com code neuro for 43 off. I know so much now. I'm definitely going to the to go and get your olive oil as well. If you are, if you are unethical, I'm sure you'd sit here now and tell us all of the brands not to buy and the ones that you've probably called out during the litigation process.
- [49:14]
B
Look, you can see them on, you can do a search for them on the Internet and they come up and there was a settlement not long ago for about $8 million, a class action on one of the ones that I sat on. And it was because people were selling oil, it was not up to the chemical standards. It probably was when it was first manufactured, but by the time it was in the supermarket it wasn't.
- [49:36]
A
Yeah. And do you know what else likely with the that might be happening? I'm not sure, especially in the US is when anyone can sell anything on Amazon now, Right? So let's just say you type in cobra mistake olive oil on and you want to buy it on Amazon, somebody else might be bottling something up in the same bottle. So there's now manufacturers or people, I would say, who are copying the actual labels of the real olive oils or the real supplements, placing them on bottles, putting whatever junk in that bottle and sending it to you. You think you're getting the Actual real brand labeled supplement.
- [50:08]
B
Yeah.
- [50:09]
A
And I'm scared that that might happen in the olive oil space as well.
- [50:13]
B
I'm really worried if we say too much negative about it, we'll frighten people off picking stuff up in the supermarket. But if they pick up extra virgin olive oil, it's a good chance that the supermarkets themselves have tested that oil. You would hope and. Well, yeah, I mean, when we first started testing it, they weren't testing it. There was no analysis to have been done at all. But I think certainly some of the oils are coming back into the laboratories. In Australia, we have two accredited labs who were doing all those tests for supermarkets and things. People going in and buying extra virgin olive oil can be pretty sure that they're getting what they're paying for.
- [50:53]
A
We'd hope. What else haven't we covered on here that you want everybody to know?
- [50:58]
B
Well, we talked about deterioration of things. We didn't talk too much about adulteration. But there are cases where people are mixing things other than olive oil in bottles. One of the big things in Italy is hazelnut oil, which is blended with olive oil. Hazelnut oil is so similar to olive oil that we can't even test that it's there. So you can put up to 20% hazelnut oil in olive oil and nobody knows it's there. And this has been a big problem with oil coming into Italy and blending and lots of stuff on the Internet about blending of shiploads of hazelnut oil with Italian olive oil, which is. But I've spoken about it before. We've tested some avocado oil which coming from Mexico and one of the bottles that we tested was pure soybean oil.
- [51:52]
A
How is this even allowed?
- [51:54]
B
Well, nobody tests it. That's the problem. We don't have an official government laboratory that tests all the foods and oils that come over the border. And we've just got to rely on the people who are selling it and supplying it to make sure that it's the right thing.
- [52:10]
A
And with most manufacturers you can go to, like Cobram Estate, for example, go to their website and probably read a lot about who they are and their manufacturing process.
- [52:20]
B
Yeah, look, I wouldn't have any hesitation with Australian manufacturer of olive oil. I mean, it's such a small industry. If someone did something wrong, they would know straight away.
- [52:30]
A
But that's really surprising. 20% hazelnut. That's because it's cheaper, obviously.
- [52:36]
B
Well, I would have thought hazelnut oil would be fairly expensive. And I think it's coming from Turkey or Syria or somewhere. And I've got to be careful about that. I don't know where it's coming from or what's happening, but certainly that has been a big problem for the International Olive Council is the blending of hazelnut oil. But yeah, we've found canola oil in olive oil in Australia with. But the majority of cases is oil it's just either been put in the bottle when it was an extra virgin or put in the bottle and then it's, it's gone off. So one or the other.
- [53:11]
A
Yeah, I think, look, I think all of this, the reason why we, we did this podcast is pretty much because when I said to you earlier that it's, it's deemed as this superfood, I think, you know, they did a documentary on the blue zones, which we won't even talk about the controversies of that. But the blue zones where you find especially in Mediterranean countries in Europe, a lot of these people who are living to so called the centenarian years till they're living to 100 do eat a lot of olive oil. They do cook a lot with it. We've now got people who are doing olive oil shots. You know, they're shotting olive oil. It's just insane. And I do see, I've actually written about the longevity benefits of olive oil because they contain polyphenols. That's probably the most, most abundant ingredient within olive oil that is correlating to a longer life. You know, can down regulate inflammation, can help with cell membrane fluidity. I'm sure it helps with many other things as well.
- [54:10]
B
Yeah. And I think that where that sixth in the world came from, I was looking, I was talking to somebody about the longevity of Australians and we are about sixth in the world for longevity. So Italians and Spanish are below six. They're probably eighth or ninth or something on the list. They live in olive oil. I mean everything they have, well, as you would know, it's drowned in olive oil. Our population eats very little olive oil.
- [54:39]
A
In contrast the Australian population. Yeah, the culture.
- [54:42]
B
So it's hard to say that olive oil is the magic bullet. It's, I'm sure it's very good. It's got a lot of good things. If you wanted polyphenols, you can get them from other sources, of course.
- [54:54]
A
Blueberries.
- [54:55]
B
Yeah, why not?
- [54:56]
A
I really need to bring on a blueberry expert because I have a bone to pick with them. There was a really big study that was done on blueberries and dementia and it went viral. I was like, this is amazing, right? Like brain health. This is fantastic. And then when you actually look, the study was funded by the blueberry industry. So when you actually understand clinical epidemiology and where you know how studies are funded, you kind of get a bit down.
- [55:24]
B
If you look at vitamin E in olive oil, people will say, oh, it's good because it's got vitamin E, but coconut oil has more vitamin E than olive oil.
- [55:35]
A
Well, this was very informative, and thank God that people like you exist. Or. I don't know if you're the only one here who's.
- [55:42]
B
I've got replacements since I left the.
- [55:44]
A
Place, so, yeah, I learned so much. And I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. And I can't wait to go out and tell everyone how to best source their olive oil. So thank you for being part of the Neuro Experience podcast.
- [55:56]
B
You're welcome. Thank you.