Types Of Olives

There are basically two types of olives on this earth; black olives and green ones. This, however, does not capture the large variety of olives that are available on the market. Although they are commonly mistaken for vegetables, olives are technically a fruit. Fruit or vegetable, however, the important thing here is that olives are very beneficial to your health. They promote a healthy digestive functioning, they can lower the level of cholesterol in your blood, and they can help you regulate your blood pressure. They are also rich in vitamin E, an anti-oxidizing agent that slows down or even prevents immune diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer, plus olives are kind of an aphrodisiac that can improve your performance, increase your sexual desire, and enhance your fertility levels. In simple words, olives offer so many benefits that they should not be absent from your daily diet, plus they are very tasty and can by used in many foods. Different types of food, of course, will taste better with different types of olives. Olives are often used in pizzas, in salads, or you can simply eat olives along with a slice of bread and some cheese.

Keep in mind that, in general, all types of olives prior to consumption are either cured or prickled so that they remain fresh, and maintain their nutrients and taste. One option is to have them oil-cured, another is water-cured, or brine-cured, while some are dry-cured, or even lye-cured.

Among the most common types of olives, one comes across the manzanilla olives, the picholine, and the sevillano which belong to the green types of olives, as well as the Liguria and the lugano olives, the ponentine variety and the gaeta, the nicoise variety, and on top of them, the most famous of all types of olives, which are the kalamata olives. More specifically and with regards to the black olives just mentioned: manzanilla olives come from Spain; they first go through a slight lye-curing process and are then packaged along with lactic acid brine and a lot of salt. Picholine on the other hand, are green olives that grow in France, they are salt-brine cured, and usually some sort of citric acid is used to preserve them. As for the last of the green olives, although the US is not exactly known for producing olives, the sevillano variety grown in California is definitely something to be proud of. Sevillano olives like the picholine are salt-brine cured. Now, as far as the black types of olives are concerned, the first four (the Liguria, the ponentine, the gaeta, and the lugano varieties all come places scattered around Italy. They are usually salt-brine cured (except for the gaeta which is dry-salt cured), but for each one a different preservative is used. Nicoise olives on the other hand are a French variety. As for Kalamata olives, these are definitely the best compared to all other types of olives both for their taste and for their nutritional value. They are, in fact, deep purple in color, look like an almond (both is shape and size), and they are brine-cured. They are excellent for salads and olive patte.

Bottom line is that when if olives are not part of your daily diet, you don’t know what you are missing out on.