Your Olive Oil May Not Be Healthy

The Great Olive Oil Scandal

Dear Reader,

You probably know that olive oil is healthy. Nutritionists have long touted its heart-healthy benefits. In addition, numerous studies have found olive oil has other amazing health benefits, including helping control your blood sugar levels, providing antioxidant protection for your cells, improving your cognitive function and memory, and helping your digestion and bone health.

What you probably don't know is that it's really difficult to find real, unrefined olive oil. Most olive oil may NOT be what you think it is, and it may NOT be HEALTHY. Most olive oil sold on store shelves, even some high-priced extra virgin olive oil sold in upscale health stores, isn't "real" olive oil. Most olive oil is processed in a way that robs it of health-giving properties and, worse, it's mixed with inferior processed oils like sunflower or hazelnut oil to lower production costs. While real extra virgin olive oil is one of the best choices you can make if you want to be healthy, processed oils are toxic and dangerous to your health! Unfortunately, that's what you're getting when you purchase most olive oils.

I'm Raymond Francis, a M.I.T. trained scientist, a registered nutrition consultant, and a best-selling author of several health books, including the bestseller Never Be Sick Again. I am passionate about sharing my health and nutrition knowledge. I want to warn you about the dangers of most olive oil and share my secrets for how to find a real, great-tasting extra virgin olive oil that will provide you with all of the amazing health benefits.

Raymond Francis Biography: Raymond Francis has written four groundbreaking health books, Never Be Sick Again, Never Be Fat Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, and Never Feel Old Again. Raymond is an internationally recognized health expert and has made over 2,000 television and radio appearances.

Not All Olive Oil is Created Equal

Olive oil has been part of a healthy human diet for more than 5,000 years. In fact, olive oil has been singled out as a key contributor to the health of the Greek centenarians. To preserve the same health benefits that these Greeks received, modern oil must be produced in a manner that does not damage the oil's nutrients. Unfortunately, that costs more so the incentive to cheat is huge.

As the health benefits of olive oil became more well-known, demand began dramatically outstripping the supply. As a result, suppliers started cutting corners and using low quality olives and “stretching” the supply by adulterating the olive oil with other highly-processed and unhealthy oils. Most commercial olive oil is processed in a manner that damages its nutritional content, and this is only the beginning of the problems with it.

Most of the olive oil on the market today does not duplicate what our ancestors were eating, and almost always you are not getting what you think you are buying. Almost all olive oil is processed and diluted in ways that result in the loss of nutrients, which are essential to health. Olive oil is almost unique among the oils, in that it can be consumed in its crude form without refining. Not refining the oil has the benefit of conserving the vitamins, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, and other nutrients. The powerful antioxidants, in real extra virgin olive oil are beneficial to health and protect us from damage caused by free radical oxidation.

Most people don’t know the vast majority of olive oil brands in supermarkets come from companies that don’t own a single olive tree! They obtain the oil from middlemen, who don’t necessarily get it directly from the grower. They are often produced from poor quality olives that have been grown in poor soils or hot climates, and are lacking in antioxidants. Low-quality olives include those that are harvested late and are overripe, or those not processed quickly enough after harvesting to prevent damaging fermentation.

The increasing demand for olive oil has moved production toward automation and mass production. To reduce costs, olives are machine harvested along with leaves and twigs. Olives that have dropped on the ground are often mixed with the good ones. They are shipped in all kinds of containers, many of which are poorly ventilated. They are heaped in large piles and stored for too long and often become moldy. The oil is then extracted in a continuous centrifuge while hot water is used to help separate out the oil. Antioxidant polyphenols are soluble in water and are washed away in this process, thereby lowering the shelf life and the nutritional quality of the oil. Factory produced olive oil has a short shelf life of only months, whereas real olive oil typically stays fresh at least 2 years.

In addition, low quality olive oil is usually highly processed to improve its apparent quality. Techniques such as steaming, bleaching with peroxide, and adding food coloring are often employed. Such processed and adulterated oils are manipulated to meet certain technical and taste requirements in order to appear to be higher-quality, but they are not healthy and they can even be toxic! They often contain toxic trans fats, solvent residues, pesticides, and other contaminants. Highly refined, solvent extracted, hazelnut oil is the most common adulterant because it is cheap, and its presence is extremely difficult to detect even with the best analytical methods.

And let’s not forget about the shippers and retailers involved before that bottle ends up in your pantry - even the best oils will deteriorate if left in a hot truck or near a sunny window. Add it all up, and you have poor farming methods, middlemen, processors, shippers, and retailers all contributing to the low-quality olive oil you have been buying while being misled into thinking you’re buying a healthy product!

You Can’t Trust the Labels

How do you avoid buying these unhealthy olive oils? If you find a bottle of olive oil that is labeled as “olive oil” or “extra light,” those are both categories denoting considerable refining and processing and you should completely avoid buying those. Theoretically, extra virgin olive oil is “real” olive oil, and it is the least damaged by processing, followed by virgin olive oil as the next least processed oil. Unfortunately, this is a true scandal, and almost all olive oil labeled “extra virgin” simply isn’t what it claims to be! Fraudulent labeling is commonplace and all too many are adulterated with inferior, unhealthy oils.

Consumers are not adequately protected because the laws have not kept pace with the development of the industry. Olive oil was once a cottage industry based on family-owned farms that took pride in their oil. Today it is a giant global industry. This transition is why many of the abuses in this industry are not yet illegal. For example, there is no law that says extra virgin olive oil has to be 100 percent olive oil. Recently in an upscale health-oriented grocery store, I saw one liter bottles of Italian extra virgin olive oil selling for $9.99. One can only guess what is in those bottles! In Italy, just the labor and bottling costs for a liter of high quality, extra virgin oil can be over $10. Such oils normally sell for over $50 per liter in the United States. Low price means low quality, but even higher prices are no guarantee of quality. I have seen plenty of low-quality oils selling in gourmet specialty shops for premium prices.

How to Find Real Olive Oil

Unfortunately, trying to find real extra virgin olive oil is like looking for a needle in a haystack. High-quality, extra virgin olive oil contains generous amounts of flavonoids, polyphenols and squalene, which are critical antioxidants that help protect your cells from damage by free radicals. Squalene also contributes to the body’s detoxification and defense systems. Finding flavorful oil that optimizes these antioxidants is what you want, but not what you get with most olive oil.

Quality in olive oil production is even more variable than wine production. Creating a quality olive oil is an art and is even more expensive than creating a quality wine. I recommend looking for a small estate farm producer who is growing olives in rich soil. The farm must be located in a climate that is not too warm or too wet, which can lead to lower quality oil. Olives grown in colder climates have more antioxidants, while wet climates have more pests requiring the use of insecticides. Olives must be handpicked, not mechanically harvested, because care must be taken to exclude leaves from the harvest and not to injure the olives. Injured olives begin to ferment, and while leaves add desired green color to the oil, the chlorophyll from leaves promotes oxidation, destroying precious antioxidants. The harvested olives must be crushed within hours, not days (as is often the case); olives begin to ferment and turn rancid if you wait too long after harvesting. All this extra care adds to cost, but you don't want to buy an olive oil that is cutting corners to save money at the expense of your health.

To produce high-quality oil, traditional production techniques should be employed. Most commercially produced oil is filtered and looks clear because their high speed production techniques introduce hard-to-separate water. Any water in the oil will cause it to oxidize and deteriorate much faster. A stone wheel should be used to crush the olives. This is slow, time-consuming and costly, but results in a better product where, importantly, the oil and water fractions are easily separated. The best oils are unfiltered and cloudy because the small particles contain both flavor and antioxidants.

A Healthy & Great Tasting
Olive Oil You Can Trust

Caveat emptor (buyer beware) has never been more true than today, and most people do not have the time to do the kind of exhaustive research necessary to make sure they're getting what they pay for and what they want. As an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance, I founded a company called Beyond Health in 1994 to provide my readers with cutting-edge health information and the highest quality health products in the world.

After spending four months researching the olive oil scandal, I spent several more months looking for an extra virgin olive oil that is produced with the care and quality needed to provide you with all the amazing health benefits. It was quite a challenge to find a producer that did the whole process right.

The bottom line is that modern, factory-produced olive oil has been stripped of its health-enhancing nutrients, and the task of selecting high-quality oil has been made very difficult. That's why Beyond Health has made the selection process easier for you by providing its own extra virgin olive oil.

We have found a producer that meets our very strict standards. Beyond Health Extra Virgin Olive Oil is produced on a small family farm in the Central Valley of California. Their olives are grown without pesticides. They are handpicked from the trees, and are carefully washed and dried to remove any debris. They are milled with a stone wheel within 12 hours of harvesting to maintain peak freshness. The paste is then pressed in a hydraulic press, and the oil collected in temperature controlled stainless steel vats, decanted, and bottled to our exacting specifications. Each bottle is individually stamped with the date it is produced to help ensure freshness. This first cold-pressed oil is the genuine stuff and retains all the natural flavor and goodness. It is why, when the University of California tested olive oils in a study several years ago, Beyond Health's oil measured with the highest antioxidant content of any oil tested - it doesn't get much better than that.

Not only is Beyond Health Extra Virgin Olive Oil made “the old-fashioned way” to preserve all of its natural antioxidants, it is not adulterated with inferior oils. It is 100 percent extra virgin olive oil with superior flavor. You can rest assured you’re getting that rare commodity - real, pure, unrefined extra virgin olive oil, with every single one of its health-giving properties!

Order Today & Take Advantage of Special Pricing

I hope you decide to try Beyond Health Extra Virgin Olive Oil today. You will enjoy all of these great benefits and more:

	Maximum antioxidant protection providing amazing health benefits for your heart, cells, brain, digestion, and bones
	100% pure, unrefined extra virgin olive oil with absolutely no adulteration
	Produced in small batches by hand on a California family farm
	Harvested from the freshest olives grown without pesticides
	Each bottle individually stamped with the bottling date to ensure peak freshness

Order Beyond Health Extra Virgin Olive Oil for as Low as $19.95 Per Bottle PLUS Free Shipping!

Sincerely,

Raymond Francis
President & Founder of Beyond Health

P.S. If you aren't 100% satisfied with Beyond Health's Extra Virgin Olive Oil, simply return it within 30 days for a full no questions asked refund of your purchase price. Hurry to take advantage of this special offer and start enjoying the healthiest and most delicious olive oil you've ever tasted.

References:

Wilson J. 5 things you may not know about olive oil. CNN Health, February 26, 2013.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/health/five-things-olive-oil/

Chen J. Forget the IRS - There’s an Olive-Oil Scandal Afoot. Time.com, May 17, 2013.
http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/17/forget-the-irs-theres-an-olive-oil-scandal-afoot/

Mueller T. Letter from Italy: Slippery business. The New Yorker, August 13, 2011.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller?currentPage=all

Garner D. Olive oil’s growers, chemists, cooks and crooks. A review of Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller. The New York Times, December 8, 2011, C6.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/books/extra-virginity-by-tom-mueller-a-word-on-olive-oil-review.html?_r=0

Frankel EN. Report: Tests indicate that imported ‘extra virgin’ olive oil often fails international and USDA standards. July 2010. UC Davis Olive Center, Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, University of California, Davis.
http://archive2.capradio.org/wwwdata/resources/files/22593d.pdf

Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter. Olive oil may boost bones in Mediterranean Diet. November 2012.
http://www.nutritionletter.tufts.edu/issues/8_11/current-articles/Olive-Oil-May-Boost-Bones-in-Mediterranean-Diet_922-1.html