Our Love of Olive Oil May Destroy the Mediterranean
Olive oil has won the world over with its beneficial, heart healthy monounsaturated fat and distinct flavor. But in order to meet with the huge demand for this wondrous oil, some pretty aggressive agricultural practices are destroying Mediterranean ecosystems.
Parts of Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal are being densely packed with olive trees, heavily irrigated and treated with chemical fertilizers to meet with high consumer demand. Soil erosion is becoming a big problem and desertification could be coming soon. Spain, which has suffered from years of drought, uses 80% of its water to grow olives. Not so good for its people.
So what’s a culinary epicurean to do? Buy your olive oil closer to home. My personal favorite is Tehama Gold, organically grown in northern California and family owned and operated. Let’s support the industries that are actually built to thrive and survive.
Source: Telegraph
Image: wollombi
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Path to Gold: Artisan Olive Oil
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. With so many choices available,
The Legendary Olive Tree
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. The olive tree has been
The Toilet Tax: a Charge for Every Flush
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. Some experts in drought-ridden Australia
Eye Candy for Gourmet Foodies
XHello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic. For those of you who
|
Bookmark |
2 Comments
October 13th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Don’t paint all Italian olive oil with the same greasy brush!
There are a lot of small, artisanal and organic producers in Italy that are keeping the Italian countryside looking like a picture postcard, and articles like this don’t really help our cause! It’s only the intensively farmed olive groves have soil erosion and water table problems. Organic olive groves like ours don’t use techniques like deep ploughing between the trees, intensive fertilization and pesticide application. In Italy there is a renaissance of small olive oil producers like ours as people are seeing the benefits in the quality of oil we produce. We at Nudo strongly believe in bringing the producer and the consumer closer together and so have started an olive tree adoption scheme, where you can adopt a tree and receive the oils that it produces. You can even come and give the tree a hug if you like.
Ciao for now,
Jason.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Thank you so much Jason for responding! I’m really glad to know that there are plenty of artisanal farms out there. I guess the point of the article isn’t so much to buy only from U.S. producers, but to buy from artisanal producers. Thanks for the info.
Welcome! The comment box is all yours to say what you like. Just make sure you use a real name, not a site or company, so you don't get sent to the spam bin. (That makes us sad.)