The OLIVE appreciation thread!

[luna99]

Hooray for that beautiful, wonderful thing we call the olive!!! Just like the avocado, I used to believe I didn't like these little suckers and now I can't get enough!

I love the salty, vinegary flavor of them and could literally sit there and eat a bowl full if I'm not careful!

anyway.. please let's talk about the olive and how gorgeous and yummy they are! Tell me your favorite way to eat them... give me recipes with them.... tell me your favorite type....

long live the delicious olive! (not to mention olive oil!) ;)

[Mishka]

Yep...
I'm an olive addict too. I admit it.
Not only is the flavor great, they are so satisfying! I've noticed if I felt starving (esp. when I first ate raw) the olive always came to my rescue.

I also luv what they do to me...
I noticed I could still lose weight while eating olives, avocadoes, and coconuts. For whatever reason these fats metabolize really well for me.
Olives help break down/dissolve mucus...even more than oranges do. So if you sick hop on board the olive train.

There are those olive tapenade recipes...been wanting to try them.

[Veganforlife]

Kalamata Olives are THE best, in my opinion! Love 'em! Absolutely LOVE THEM. My mouth is watering writing this reply! :p
I make my own tapenade stuffed 'shrooms.
Olives
pine nuts
garlic
cilantro
Food process, then stuff 'shrooms of your choice. YUM-OH! I make that every week! So good. SO GOOD!!!

[luna99]

Olives help break down/dissolve mucus...

yes! I read about this... don't you love eating foods that taste SOOOO DELICIOUS and while you're enjoying them you can know they are GOOD FOR YOU too!?!

[luna99]

I make my own tapenade stuffed 'shrooms.
Olives
pine nuts
garlic
cilantro
Food process, then stuff 'shrooms of your choice. YUM-OH! I make that every week! So good. SO GOOD!!!

ok, I'm gonna try this ...it sounds amazing.

man, I love browsing the olive bar at my local grocery store. *drool*

[Veganforlife]

Some recipes call for them to be dehydrated. I did the first time I made it and didn't care for it.
I could just eat the filling - the olives and pine nuts and garlic and spice.

[moonpie]

Hi everyone, my name is moonpie and I'm a olive-holic.
I also love the olive!! I tried to make a couple recipes, but couldn't stop eating them and never had enough for the recipe...oh well...they're just too yummy on their own!

[Veganforlife]

I treated myself to a time saving gadget, which I love and makes life waaaay easier:

[luna99]

I think I may very well name my first born daughter olive! ;)

olive avocado maybe. haha.

[Little Mango]

Could you guys tell me how you can know if they are raw??:confused:

[Tropigal]

I love olives as well...still eat them, but most are not raw.
you can get sundried that are shriveled & black & have a VERY strong taste.
Rawfood.com also sells some "Raw power"olives for $9 a jar :eek: which i woud love to try but have not yet.
I believe all the rest are NOT raw.

[Sharon in Colorado]

Some recipes call for them to be dehydrated. I did the first time I made it and didn't care for it.
I could just eat the filling - the olives and pine nuts and garlic and spice.

I bet that would be good tossed in some greens.

[Tropigal]

http://www.rawganique.com/Food-raw-organic-olives.htm

here are some nice looking raw olives at $14 a jar!
raw olives are hard to find & v-expensive!
i don't mind that olives are not raw because i believe they are a healthy food & i don't eat them in huge amounts. Nor do i feel bad after eatig them!

[Crisyn]

I am in love with the mighty olive too! I like how in Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine they are used in unusual ways to add fat, nutrients and flavor - like in the chocolate peanut butter pie.
For anyone else in Canada, here is where I get mine....
http://www.realrawfood.com/fruit.htm
(Scroll down, they are near the middle of the page.)

[luna99]

http://www.rawganique.com/Food-raw-organic-olives.htm

here are some nice looking raw olives at $14 a jar!
raw olives are hard to find & v-expensive!
i don't mind that olives are not raw because i believe they are a healthy food & i don't eat them in huge amounts. Nor do i feel bad after eatig them!

yeah.. I know alissa sells the raw ones.. I just can't afford them and love em so much so I don't mind eating them, even if they aren't raw.

[Mishka]

I have ordered a bunch from D. Wolfe's site and natural zing.com...they say they are raw. I'll have to compare prices with Alissa's....cuz I'd rather support her. But like you mentioned it's expensive. So it's kinda a treat when I get them from there. I usually get them from Trader Joes...and I also like Santa Barbara green olives. I still have a high from being raw...so I guess it's one of those things...just like the truly raw cashews. You gotta pick your battles.

And thank you for the olive tapenade recipe ...looks deliciousioso!!!

I just finished my last 2 olives too!!! What to do , what to do????:eek:

[Tropigal]

how ARE the raw ones you ordered?
is the taste/texture much different?
I would love to try some but that is an expensive "mistake" if they are yucky! ;)
I really like the Santa Barbra greens too!
I get some awesome ones from WholeFoods on their olive bar that are garlicky/spicy. mmmm

[rawpriestess]

I love olives of all kinds

green with pimento stuffed inside

black peruvians

deep brown

in olive oil

in vinegar

in all of their glorious olive forms

[Stina]

Real confused. The lady at the health food store said the ones floating around in the jar, organic, were raw 'cause they're just packed in brine. Of course, she might not know. I ate half the jar in one sitting! Don't wanna lose that High-Raw-Glo!!!!!!!1

[Mishka]

Tropigal~
The really "claimed " raw olives tasted wonderful. I really love the italien spiced ones personally and the Botilla olive is very enjoyable too. Now the dried Peruvian ones (not in water, just dry) were very bitter. Bitter and I don't get along well. Makes me want to gag. So I'd only eat those as medicine if I was sick. Instead of cough syrup, I used olives.
Anyways, I can't tell much of a difference from the officially raw ones...except they almost taste more "ripe" or fresh or just something. Sometimes with the unraw glass jarred olives, they sometimes seem not fully ripe to me. They are harder to bite into with some. Of course the canned ones are soft. The raw ones are definitely not like the canned olives, more similar to the glass jarred olives. Hope this helps. For me...I'd rather buy raw olives than any other "speacity" item in raw land (foodwise)...but even then can't do it all the time. I wonder...if long time raw foodist would be sensitive to the difference?

Here's a story for you all:
For about a year of my life I couldn't eat any olives at all. Sad I know. I took a Human Anatomy class...and we had a cadaver(dead body) to disect. The smell of the formaldehyde drove me to the corner of the room, with my nose in a vicks rub jar to help. Later that night I opened a can of black olives...and almost started gagging again. Ferrous Glucanate cured with salt and water smells just like formaldehyde and that is what standard canned olives are in. Anyways, I gave them up till I found Santa Barbara olives. They can theirs in sea salt and water. Pizza's still bug me because I can smell that in the olives they use. Sometimes having a good nose has it's downsides. Never could have been a surgeon...couldn't have made it thru all the dissecting practice in labs. ugh.

[Stina]

so that's what ferrous glucanate is! oh the lovely things they use to preserve our food supply with. this kind of info strengthens my resolve to be Raw

[Little Mango]

I was Addicted to olives. I used eat a load of them in one go!! I got the ones in jars though never in the cans....

I used to really hate the taste of olives but then again I used to hate avocados and now they are my favourite thing in the world!:D

[Amberly]

Wow, I just put away my baggie of olives so I'll not eat them all before I even get to work. Greek Olives. They are sooooo good. I, too, thought I didn't like olives. I love them now!!! :)

[Alba]

Olives are da' bomb ( just to get all nineties on ya'll) - I esp. like the black, greasy, sundried, shrivelled ones - but they are a bit to salty for my taste so I soak them for an hour before eating...
I could live on olives...........
no. I couldn't....I wish though:p

Love alba

[Bethanie]

The first ones were soaked in oil and then i asked if they sold the sundried olives and the said yes but they don't taste much different than the ones in oil.
They're not canned but fresh and you can ask for the amount you want before you purchase them.
I too love olives.
Hope to do different things with them when i look at some recipes.
B.

[Bethanie]

The first ones were soaked in oil and then i asked if they sold the sundried olives and the said yes but they don't taste much different than the ones in oil.
They're not canned but fresh and you can ask for the amount you want before you purchase them.
I too love olives.
Hope to do different things with them when i look at some recipes.
B.

[herb_gardner]

i am so glad to see this topic, at just the right time. i too am an official olive addict! a local HFS just started carrying 4 different varieties of NFL raw olives and i must say that i am super stoked. i would say in the last two weeks ive bought 6-8 jars of the olives. yeah sounds like a lot, but my girlfriend who used to absolutetly hate olives, has now coincendentally, found a love for them, she probably ate half a jar yesterday actually, which is rather funny since she has been detoxing like mad lately, after her first 2-3 weeks raw, and thus she said nothing at all sounded good to her, except things like pizza, pasta, and other SAD foods, yet olives, and only olives were sounding good to her. thus she ate them like never before! i think she was just detoxing old residue of fattty salty greasy foods and was thus craving them, luckily olives were there to replace the SAD residue with the fresh rawness of olives, which are still fattly salty and greasy, yet the best ever!

[Linda1970]

How does everyone eat his olives? I bought some from Natural Zing, dried & unsalted black olives(no oil), and it's very bitter.

Are olives supposed to be bitter?

[RawCutter]

My favorite are lucques but forget I said that. I want them all to myself.

[Elizabeth]

Here is some info. that a group of olive lovers might find interesting...


first... a website that is an "ode to olives" filled with links to all kinds of info.

http://www.emeraldworld.net/olive.html

then some botanical and other info. also likely intersting to folks here..

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/olive.html

some people buy raw, uncured olives and cure them at home.. imagine that.:o I am thinking of

trying it, depending on how much the uncured ones are...


here is a blog on curing olives..and rawcutter, it mentions the Lucques olive.. :-)

http://curingfresholives.blogspot.com/2005/07/2005-crop-of-fresh-olives.html

and here is info. on ordering the raw, uncured olives. Unfortunately, sales are over until this coming fall, when the next crop comes in... Nice to Know!! I looked, and the prices are very good..and for you all who love to play around with food, and want less expensive Raw olives, it is something to keep in mind. You can have a sauerkraut crock going and also some olive crocks..LOL..

http://www.greatolives.com/FreshOlives.htm

[JGex]

Tropigal~
Ferrous Glucanate is formaldehyde and that is what standard canned olives are in.

Please provide your documentation for this.

[JGex]

Ferrous gluconate

Synonyms
Iron (II) di-D-gluconate


Description
Ferrous gluconate is a black dye.

It is composed of iron, bound to two molecules of gluconic acid, which is the acid form of glucose.

Uses
Ferrous gluconate is the black dye used to color ripe olives.

It is also used as am iron supplement to cure iron deficiency anemia.

http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/ferrous_gluconate.html


What is ferrous gluconate?

• Ferrous gluconate is a form of the mineral iron. Iron is important for many functions in the body, especially for the transport of oxygen in the blood.
• Ferrous gluconate is used as a dietary supplement, and to prevent and to treat iron deficiencies and iron deficiency anemia.
• Ferrous gluconate may also be used for purposes other than those listed in this medication guide.

http://www.drugs.com/mtm/ferrous_gluconate.html

Sorry to sound like a school teacher here (not that being a teacher is a bad thing!), but Ferrous gluconate is NOT formaldehyde.

I'm trying to edit so I don't offend anyone.... sorry for the repeat edits....

[lafsalot]

Oh, how I miss my olives! A little Italian market near me supposedly buys raw olives and cures them. My husband recently bought a pound that were cured in olive oil, garlic, and red peppers - one or two even had little stems. Are these considered raw? ~ Cathy

[Mishka]

Excuse me...
I completely stand corrected. (talk about milk brain)
"is like" ..."smells like"...."cures like"....I don't want that form of it in my body.
It makes me gag; whereas other olive juices do not.

[Damzlfly]

Is it really bad that I went to Whole foods and hit the olive bar, got myself a small tub of mixed olives and essentially have eaten them ALL?? I'm serious! I ate all of them!! Thank god I only got a small tub lol. Salad for dinner tonight :rolleyes:

[Eilene]

I am also addicted to oives. LOVE them!!! I love the Raw Power Olives. Yum!

[Zella Juice]

i got alissas dried greek raw olives. thanks for the soaking advise..duh. I should have known. but yeah they are a bit too salty. i thought maybe i was just getting more sensitive. we cut them up into tiny pieces and put on 'em on pizza. Or blend them up with the sauce.

[Veganforlife]

bumping this thread

[Elizabeth]

LOL..good idea LUcy, before we start another one!!! We sure do love our olives!!!:p

[jeannieh99]

Kalamata Olives are THE best, in my opinion! Love 'em! Absolutely LOVE THEM. My mouth is watering writing this reply! :p
I make my own tapenade stuffed 'shrooms.
Olives
pine nuts
garlic
cilantro
Food process, then stuff 'shrooms of your choice. YUM-OH! I make that every week! So good. SO GOOD!!!

Oh, now your talkin' lol. Kalamata are my all time favs!! See what you started??? My mouth is watering too, Now I HAVE to go out and stock up on my kalamatas!!

Jeannie

[Davylp25]

* Wahoo *

I love Raw Kalamata Olives... I got my 12 Jars of Raw'Lives" on it's way as we speak. Can't wait!

[jeannieh99]

* Wahoo *

I love Raw Kalamata Olives... I got my 12 Jars of Raw'Lives" on it's way as we speak. Can't wait!

Many Middle eastern stores sell them so much cheaper than any other venues I've found. They also sell tahini lots cheaper. I had them make me some tabuli with out the wheat....it was soooooo delish......and raw!!:D
I saved time and money.:eek:

Yummmm.....great snack!!
Jeannie

[Beckla]

add the mint like Alissa does... and the tapenade and shrooms? Yeah.

So.

Good.