TEN EVOO MYTHS — BUSTED

Not all myths are ancient or carved in marble. Some sit in our pantry, waiting for us to experience one of the world’s greatest foods. Extra virgin olive oil is culture, health, history, and everyday magic. So it might be time to bust the myths that hold it back.

1. Myth: Olive oil is just another cooking fat.
Truth: Seed and vegetable oils are flat, processed, never meant to be sipped or savoured. Olive oil is fruit juice, pressed from the flesh of olives, alive with flavour from mild to robust. And yes, cooking, too!

2. Myth: You can’t fry with olive oil.
Truth: Frying, whether sautéing, stir-frying, or deep frying lives at an ideal temperature of 350–375°F. That’s where extra virgin shines. It holds steady, adds flavour like no other oil can, and once cooled, you can jar it to use for your next fry.

3. Myth: All extra virgin olive oil is 100% extra virgin.
Truth: Take your chances. With no labelling laws on the books, that “extra virgin” bottle on the store shelf could be bulked out with refined oils. We know this because we test every batch in our own lab before it's on our shelf. Imagine buying Quebec maple syrup only to find it cut with corn syrup — that’s not breakfast, that’s a con.

4. Myth: The greener the oil, the better.
Truth: Green fools the eye. Some of the most balanced, complex oils pour golden, others emerald. That’s why olive oil sommeliers hide its colour in cobalt-blue tasting glasses, to stop their eyes from lying to their tongues.

5. Myth: Olive oil improves with age, like wine.
Truth: Wine matures. Extra virgin olive oil fades. Fresh oil is vibrant, grassy, buttery, floral, nutty, even peppery. Time only flattens its voice.

6. Myth: “Light” olive oil is better for cooking.
Truth: “Light” is a marketing trick. The oil is treated with heat and chemicals to remove impurities, off-flavours and odours. Here's the shocker. It's often blended with traces of extra virgin to give it a whisper of flavour and colour.

7. Myth: Extra virgin olive oil can be made anywhere.
Truth: Olive trees are divas. They thrive only under long, blistering heat and bone-dry summers, with exceptions. Too wet, pests take over. Too mild a winter, no flowers, no fruit. Trees can grow in many places, even in Canada — but greatness demands extremes.

8. Myth: Italy makes the best olive oil.
Truth: Much of Italy is too mild and too wet. Labels that say “Made in Italy” often hide industrial-farmed Spanish oil — shipped in and bottled. The best extra virgin comes from Italy's Puglia and Sicilian regions, from countries that hug the Mediterranean, and from farms with like-climates far south of the equator.

9. Myth: “Cold pressed” is magical.
Truth: There’s no magic — just basic science. And simple. To press olives that produce extra virgin olive oil, heat is its enemy. If the crushed olives get too warm when they are pressed, the batch gets a fail and is forever, never extra virgin.

— and the ultimate myth —

10. Myth: Extra virgin olive oil is too expensive to use every day.
Truth: Where olives grow, everyone downs more than three tablespoons a day — cooking, finishing, everything. It’s the backbone of the world’s healthiest diet. Closer to home, we barely scrape a teaspoon, yet drown in six tablespoons of canola and corn oil. Yet Canada’s own health experts recommend two tablespoons a day. Too expensive? Two a day costs less than your morning latte. No need to drink it — just cook with it!