When you squeeze olive juice and drink it, isn't that oil?

What? A glass of juice can cost thousands of yuan?

Yes, you heard it right. This is a true event that happened in Shenzhen some time ago. A small cup of juice was so "sky-high" in price, but countless food anchors still rushed to try it as soon as possible. Poverty really limited my imagination.

Image source: @Beijing News Weibo

According to interviews, the extremely expensive juice is actually olive juice, which not only has a high purchase cost, but also takes up to three hours to make.

Seeing this, many friends must be wondering: Aren’t olives used to extract oil? Is drinking olive juice the same as drinking oil?

Surprise! The olives are not real olives

Olives are tree plants with oval or spindle-shaped fruits, thick skin, hard core and pointed ends. They are grown in Fujian, Yunnan, Taiwan and other regions of my country. Olives are good windbreak trees, not only edible, but also used as green plants to decorate urban environments.

There are many varieties of olives, including Chaoyang three-edged olives with white flesh, Chaozhou green-skinned olives with good flavor and high edible rate, and the olives used to make drinks in the news are called Jinyu Sannian olives, which are special products of Jinzao Town, Shantou City, Guangdong Province, my country. The flesh of this olive is golden and crisp, with a sweet taste. After chewing, it is full of fragrance and has a long aftertaste. The content of vitamin C per 100 grams of flesh is about 20 mg, the calcium content is 147 mg, and the protein content is 4 mg. The vitamin C and protein content are equivalent to 225% and 147% of ordinary olives respectively. It has both beauty and nutritional strength, and is a rare variety of olives with very high quality.

Olive juice, source: Internet

Here is a "lightning avoidance guide" for everyone: not all olives with the word "olive" in their names are real olives. Among them, there is a species called olive, which is "covered" with olive skin and is actually a world-famous woody oil-bearing and fruit-bearing tree species. The olive oil we eat daily is extracted from olives. The main component of this oil is monounsaturated fatty acids, which can prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. So don't worry about the oil in olive juice, because it is not olives.

Olives are good, but don’t eat too much

There are many ways to eat olives, and eating them raw is the most nutritious. They taste bitter at first, but the aftertaste is sweet and refreshing. Olives can also be used to make soup, which is a very popular way of eating in Guangdong. They are stewed with pork ribs.

Olives can also be used to make juice. Most of the olive juice we drink in beverage shops is mixed olive juice, which is a mixture of olives and other fruits. It is not a single olive juice. This kind of blended olive juice is in no way inferior to the thousand-dollar olive juice in terms of taste or nutrition.

But if you are looking for high nutrition, turn right when you go out, the fresh olives in the mall have higher nutritional value than olive juice. Of course, although olives are rich in nutrients, it is not recommended to eat too much. Olives have a high fiber content. Excessive consumption can easily cause bloating and abdominal pain. Adults should eat no more than five or six olives a day.

Image source: Tuchong Creative

The ultimate taste bud shock - candied olives

Today, the olives we encounter in supermarkets and restaurants are actually varieties called Olea europaea or olives. They have nothing to do with the native olives in China. Biologically, the true origin of the genus Olea europaea of ​​the family Oleaceae is actually in China.

Olives of this nature are full of bitter flavor. In order to eat them better, our clever ancestors came up with a wonderful method - pickling them with sugar. After candied, they will become candied olives on supermarket shelves, which have a sour and sweet taste and are particularly appetizing.

The production process of preserved olives is complicated and requires repeated steaming and drying. After steaming and drying, the fruits retain most of the nutrients of the olives and do not taste as stimulating as fresh olives. Afterwards, they are sealed in suitable utensils and fermented to become delicious. People in Guangzhou, Chaoshan and other places especially like this way of eating. It should be noted that preserved olives have a high sugar content. Although delicious, they should be eaten in moderation.

The tiny olives actually have such high nutritional value. Are you excited?

Finally: Chinese food culture is broad and profound. Don’t pay the IQ tax. With this thousand yuan, buy some of our own specialty olive preserves. Isn’t it delicious?

Review expert: Wang Guoyi, postdoctoral fellow in food safety.

Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/Heart and Paper