The difference between extra virgin olive oil and pomace oil

L’olive oil is one of the basic ingredients of Mediterranean diet, a diet recommended by most nutrition experts. On the shelves of supermarkets, however, there are different types of which you do not know the difference. For example, what changes betweenextra virgin olive oil and theolive pomace oil? Knowing the characteristics of the two products can allow you to choose the most suitable one for the use to be made of it in the kitchen, with the best nutritional values ​​for your diet and also save a few euros.

The extra virgin olive oil

To understand the difference between extra virgin olive oil and pomace oil, let’s start by explaining what the first of the two products is. Extra virgin olive oil, the most famous of the oils deriving from olives, is obtained by pressing the fruit exclusively with mechanical processes, or the mills. The end result must be free from organoleptic defects e its acidity cannot exceed 0.8%. In fact, olive oils are distinguished from each other mainly by acidity, i.e. the percentage of free fatty acids expressed as oleic acid in 100 grams of oil.

In addition to extra virgin olive oil, on supermarket shelves we also find:virgin olive oil, also obtained from the pressing of the olives made only with mechanical processes, which has an acidity between 0.8% and 2% and can present some defects, which however do not affect the nutritional properties and healthiness; then there is theolive oilrefined olive oil combined with virgin or extra virgin olive oil, whose acidity does not exceed 1%.

Olive pomace oil

To these is added olive pomace oil. To grasp the difference between the latter and extra virgin olive oil, you must first understand what it is by chance. It’s about a secondary product which is obtained from the extraction of oil from olives, a puree made up of peanut fragments, sections of peels e olive pulp residues. This residue still contains a percentage of oil, usually between 3% and 6% of its weight.

A quantity that is recovered by the so-called sansify. Here, with particular pressing and centrifugation processes, and above all with the use of chemical solvents like thenot that one (prohibited technique for extra virgin olive oil), crude olive pomace oil is obtained. The solvents are then separated from the oil through the distillation. Only after the crude has been refined does the product become edible. The production process is very similar to the production of seed oil.

The difference between extraversion and pomace oil

Extra virgin olive oil and pomace oil are therefore products that derive from two different ones production processes. A second difference concerns theacidity: the former, as written, cannot exceed 0.8% to be defined as such according to the regulations; pomace does not exceed 1%. Olive pomace oil contains a major amount of linoleic acid (between 9.5 and 15.5%), an essential fat that promotes blood clotting and has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, belonging to the omega 6 group.

While defending well, olive pomace oil is a few steps lower for quality extra virgin olive oil. Mostly in terms of taste, smell and on a nutritional level. This “inferiority”, however, does not make it a product to be avoided as it derives from a processing residue that some could see as waste. On the contrary.

paying less (the price in the supermarket is cheaper), you can benefit from a good and delicate oil, suitable for different uses in the kitchen: from fries (thanks to a high smoke point) to preparations such as bread, buns, biscuits e taralli. Finally, it is also used in the manufacturing industry cosmetics and, in the energy field, for the production of biomass.