I bet over the years, we’ve all taken at least one (or many) algorithm tests which spell out your personality traits.  I know I have.

One of my 5 main traits is that I am a learner.  I love learning new things to see how they work, why they do, all about them, etc – you get the idea!  Knowledge makes me feel empowered.

It was no different with Olive Oil.  Once I knew that this was the business I wanted to start and was excited about, I signed up for an Oil Olive Sommelier class.  I didn’t even know that such a class existed – did you?  I had to learn more and of course, once I knew about it, I registered and learned so much.

Here are some interesting facts I learned from Level 1 of the course :

  1. Spain is the top producer of Olive Oil. They produce half of the worlds Olive Oil.  Italy comes in 2nd, Greece is 3rd and Turkey is 4th.  This surprised me; I thought Italy would be the number one producer.
  2. There are 1500 different varieties of olives around the world. Who knew?
  3. The Olive is a fruit and when it’s squeezed, it produces fruit juice. The process of getting the oil is through centrifugation (The process of making Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is complicated and delicate– I’ll share that in another blog).
  4. In Italy and Spain, each person uses an average of 12 liters per year of EVOO
  5. In Greece, it’s 25 liters!
  6. In the US, it’s only 1 liter a year. We need to change that!
  7. The health benefits of EVOO are many.

EVOO produces a natural anti-inflammatory compound called Oleocanthal.  This compound, along with all the other compounds in the oil, has potential health benefits for anti-inflammatory diseases, can help reduce LDL (bad cholesterol) and helps to lower blood pressure along with other benefits. For more information, here is a link to an interesting article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/health/mediterranean-diet-can-cut-heart-disease-study-finds.html

In this course, I met world-renowned Olive Oil experts. It was a privilege to learn from them and made me more committed than ever to introduce Americans to the truly excellent oils from around the world.

In October, I will start the Level 2 course. I’m so excited to complete the Sommelier Certification.

I will share my learning with you. If you have any questions or topics you’d like to know about, just message me. Let’s take this journey together.

Ciao for now,

RoseAnne