[HN Gopher] Olive oil soars, and thieves go after century-old tr...
___________________________________________________________________
Olive oil soars, and thieves go after century-old trees in the
Mediterranean
Author : aa_is_op
Score : 130 points
Date : 2023-11-09 14:41 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| ggm wrote:
| Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.
|
| This is "selling the last harvest before the storm" behaviour.
| You would think an olive stealing gang knew there was a smaller
| crop next year if you chainsaw the limbs of the tree off.
|
| "I don't care" is awful. Analogies to the hive stealing in NZ
| come to mind, Manuka honey is so valuable, its frequently stolen
| by the same bike gangs which do meth dealing.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| If they elect to take the long position, usually a crime
| syndicate will move in on the industry and capture it. That
| doesn't mean they can't also opportunistically profit from
| industries they aren't interested in managing.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| ok, so, you think petty thrives have more long term incentives
| than what most capitalist endeavors have shown?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Those short term thinking Italian farmers only leaving the
| trees in for 150 years for their short term profits
| _shakesfist_ /s
| tlb wrote:
| Killing trees increases the market price of olive oil, so it's
| to the crime syndicate's advantage. So it's just hateful, not
| stupid.
| whirlwin wrote:
| It depends actually. If the thieves have to find new fields
| every year, it will be a logistics problem
| lovich wrote:
| That sounds like next years problem. If global mega corps
| already struggle with looking past the next quarter when it
| comes to consequences why would you expect people who are
| living off of crime to have a longer term view?
| whirlwin wrote:
| There are many factors at play here. It might be
| different levels of consciousness involved. Cutting down
| the whole tree is a bigger barrier and requires another
| level of ruthlessness.
| whatshisface wrote:
| ...you know that organized criminals kill people, right?
| whirlwin wrote:
| Do all organized criminals kill people at every
| possibility?
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Start out as thieves then pivot to a protection racket for
| the remaining farmers.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I didn't know Chapo Guzman had a HN account.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's going to bite them long term when people lose the habit
| of consuming olive oil as much because it's too expensive.
| Their mistake is treating it as zero sum
| seydor wrote:
| Most likely they don't kill the trees. Farmers prune the trees
| every year as well
| ggm wrote:
| Not during fruit bearing time, and I suspect with more of an
| eye to future yield.
| seydor wrote:
| actually some pruning is necessary to harvest very
| unruly/tall branches. Besides, pruning takes place right
| after harvest.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.
|
| Like any other kind of poaching. Killing elephants for their
| tusks, or killing sharks for their fins.
|
| People are fucking selfish, short-sighted assholes.
| s0rce wrote:
| I mean killing elephants and sharks is terrible but thats the
| only way to harvest those parts so its a bit different, its
| not like you could carefully remove them and they'd grow
| another set for harvest next year.
| RajT88 wrote:
| You have a point on the shark fins, but Elephant tusks for
| sure grow back!
| kelipso wrote:
| Elephant tusks are teeth, they don't grow back. Rhino
| horns on the other hand are hair, so they grow back.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > People are fucking selfish, short-sighted assholes.
|
| Orcas kill great white sharks only to eat the liver. Your
| intestinal bacteria will kill you (and themselves with you)
| if they escape into your circulatory system.
|
| There are many more examples of creatures being fucking
| selfish, short-sighted assholes. I guess it's inevitable when
| life evolves competing for resources, although we, as higher
| intellects, should know better.
| pjungwir wrote:
| It is said that Solon, the most revered law-giver of Athens,
| made cutting an olive tree punishable by death. I've also heard
| that because of their slow growth, planting an olive tree is
| something you do not for yourself but for your children.
|
| EDIT: one more bit of historical perspective. Myth says that
| Athena and Poseidon had a contest to see who would be the
| patron of Athens. Poseidon gave the gift of a saltwater spring
| (to which I guess the Athenians said, "uhh, thanks, I guess.").
| Athena gave the gift of the olive tree. Obviously Athens is
| named after her. So that's how much they valued those trees.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| My family is Sicilian and I don't think people understand how
| much olive trees mean to us. We have family in Sicily and if
| you did something to harm their olive trees it would be one
| small step below doing something to harm a family member.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Salt was pretty valuable back then. Poseidon wasn't
| misguided, but I guess Greeks had enough saltwater around for
| it to be specially convenient.
| rigid wrote:
| > Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.
|
| Reminds me of the Bologna/Aquino Paper on society collapsing
| due to excessive deforestation:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6?error=coo...
| Thrill read.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| This has been a problem for years in Portugal too, but lately the
| number and the amount of stealing has increased dramatically.
| More like a coordinated organized crime.
|
| Historically this was done mostly by some ethnic groups, I'm not
| sure if now there other forces or people behind it, as police
| forces have been more of less sleeping on this since it has been
| a "country problem" not a "city one" and as it has some
| ethnicities attached to it, the media also avoids to touch it, so
| the answer is: most of us don't really know what's going on in a
| deep way.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Hmmm... which ethnic groups exactly?
| barbazoo wrote:
| The poor ones
| hobotime wrote:
| Non-Portuguese colonizers
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Go ahead, say the quiet part out loud. Who is colonizing
| Portugal?
| WD40forRust wrote:
| TOP KEK! The Overton Window is about to go relativistic
| in the opposite direction...
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Colonizer or migrant from lands ravaged by colonization?
| Big difference in my opinion.
| slaw wrote:
| Portugal government let them in. Majority of Portugal
| people want colonizers, otherwise they would vote for
| current government.
| civilitty wrote:
| The Moors, obviously. /s
| dlivingston wrote:
| For those out of the loop like I am, this article goes into
| some detail on Portugal's migration wave:
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/21/portugal-europe-
| migrati...
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| A note that food oil prices are going up because of the war in
| Ukraine, which has reduced the availability of sunflower seed oil
| significantly, putting pressure in the Olive oil supply.
|
| In normal conditions, Ukraine would be the world largest producer
| of sunflower seed oil.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Cause or convenient excuse to raise prices?
|
| Just some math: 9% of edible oil production is sunflower oil.
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery...
|
| Ukraine historically produced 1/4 of that 9%
|
| https://latifundist.com/en/rating/uzhe-razlili-maslo-rejting...
|
| Let's rule of thumb this and say production is half what it was
| in Ukraine (and assume nobody else has switched to edible oil
| crops and Ukraine doesn't produce other edible oil crops, both
| probably false).
|
| That means there is 1.1% less edible oil going around this year
| for that reason.
|
| I think this is within the noise of good crop vs bad crop
| years, and edible oil is pretty elastic in use.
| veidr wrote:
| > Cause or convenient excuse > to raise prices?
|
| It's most commonly both.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| When you make it about just the numbers 1.1% difference
| doesn't seem like much, but you have to remember there's a
| complex network of producers, distributors and buyers
| fighting to make up that difference, the practical results of
| which can have other knock on effects throughout the network.
|
| Also, to answer your question, sellers leveraging the
| shortage caused by the war in Ukraine is also a result of the
| war in Ukraine.
| bad_alloc wrote:
| > Surging olive oil prices, driven in part by two years of
| drought in Spain, has meant opportunity for criminals across the
| Mediterranean.
|
| i.e. we are beginning to see the impacts of climate change on the
| food supply in Europe.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Exactly, many people I've spoken with who have olive trees are
| saying this. The lack of rain and the high temperatures have
| played an important role to the production and yield of this
| years olives.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| Wealthy westerners thinking climate change will only affect the
| global south are in for some hard lessons soon. "It can't
| happen here, it'll affect mostly the poors in the tropics, so
| we won't constraint capitalism at all for it or change our
| lifestyles," crowd think they're going to somehow outrun
| climate change. They don't realize as a group entirely
| dependent on exploiting the global south not only are they are
| risk if the gs is hurt, but their own climate is suffering now.
| If anything the northern West is more vulnerable to climate
| change than most due to it existing on a series of rube-
| goldberg machines in a long line of dominoes that, if hit in
| the right place, could cause systematic failure.
|
| Olive trees are low stakes, but ultimately a sign that climate
| change is moving north.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| You'd be surprised how self-contained the West could be if it
| chooses to.
| morkalork wrote:
| So far nobody seems to be willing to give up luxuries like
| fresh fruit and vegetables in winter though.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| It really is insane that the produce section of a grocery
| store basically never changes year-round.
| elcritch wrote:
| Nah the west could (will?) just grow them in vertical
| farms. Less pesticides, more water efficient, and fresher
| fruits and veggies:
| https://richmond.com/news/local/business/plenty-
| unlimited-ve...
| morkalork wrote:
| Let me know when they've figured out bananas, grapes and
| avocados. If/when the global south is crushed by climate
| change, we'll be back to eating what our great great
| grandparents were eating in winter. I hope you like
| potatoes!
| esafak wrote:
| We won't because we can develop new cultivars more easily
| now. But even if you were right it would not be the end
| of the world.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I'd be surprised if it ever chose to be.
|
| Being self-contained is something the West is incredibly
| bad at, and has been for (checks calendar) at least half a
| millennium. Depending on how much you think counts.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Pretty self-contained for a lot of things, actually.
| RajT88 wrote:
| The West keeps their derision for other people pretty
| local, to be fair.
| good8675309 wrote:
| Imagine if the cave men alive during the ice age were also dumb
| enough to think they caused it. I'm all for taking care of the
| environment but blaming every environmental change on humanity
| is the height of stupidity. If this infuriates you and you
| think people like me should be rounded up because we don't
| drink your koolaid, you might be in a climate cult.
| elnatro wrote:
| Did cavemen have a fossil fuel based economy? Did they
| produce billions of tons of CO2 each year?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| We're not blaming every environmental change on humanity,
| though? We're only blaming humanity for the ones we're
| probably responsible for. I don't see anyone saying we're
| responsible for plate tectonics (excepting the relationship
| between fracking and earthquakes, of course).
| greenhearth wrote:
| I don't think cavemen exterminated entire jungles and
| poisoned plankton with plastic.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| What you say is true but water management matters and this
| scarcity is largely self inflicted due to poor regulation.
|
| The estimates vary but something close to 80% of water in Spain
| is spent on agriculture. You have large areas of Murcia and
| Andaluzia pretty much covered in canvas greenhouses.
|
| A large fraction of this water for farming is spent producing
| year round tomatoes, strawberries, avocados, etc.
|
| Much of these fresh produces is exported so it has nothing to
| do with food safety and everything to do with profit. Farmers
| are actively selecting profitable water intensive crops while
| externalizing the cost of creating water scarcity.
| morkalork wrote:
| For a second I thought I was reading a reply in a thread
| about the drought in California!
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Everybody is remarkably similar when it comes down to
| money.
|
| Edit: Everybody is remarkably similar when it comes down to
| their desire to make money @fragmede
| fragmede wrote:
| No they're not. The mere possibility of boatloads of
| money changes people, the act of having money changes
| people. Having billions of it changes people. People
| aren't similar when it comes down to money, because
| everyone's money situation is different.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > What you say is true
|
| It's probably not. Regional draught conditions over multiple
| years is a common thing. The USA had very hot temperatures
| for a decade in the 1930s for instance and this is just 1 of
| many examples.
|
| Climate change isn't really a local thing like this is. The
| region has had multi-year droughts many times in the past and
| will have them in the future too. Climate change could make
| them more extreme, to be sure.
|
| But claiming that this is from climate change just does more
| to discredit it, and more-so the people who are climate
| doomers, than anything.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Regional draught conditions over multiple years is a
| common thing
|
| Winters have become increasingly milder across the
| mediterranean for the past 20 years, ask anyone, it is very
| noticeable.
|
| September use to be the end of Holiday season now you have
| locals going to the beach in late October with +25 Celsius.
|
| This means that reservoirs and river aquifers are not
| getting filled up during winter generating progressively
| more agressive draughts.
|
| It's not the end of the world, people will find a way, but
| luxuries like golf courses and year round strawberries will
| likely need to be curbed.
| abeppu wrote:
| Years ago I read some theory that part of the social pressure to
| create early states with centralized power and militaries in
| places with grain-centric agriculture was about the ease of
| stealing harvested grain. By comparison, places that had root-
| crops which could be left in the ground and harvested as needed,
| thieves could not quickly/easily take a lot of value, so there
| was less need to guard resources.
|
| The current article is kind of a reminder that the safety of
| crops / the difficulty of theft is variable with context; it's
| not just an attribute of the crop-type. If this continues, I
| wonder if we'd see tree-owners engage in something like tree-
| spiking, so it's literally unsafe to cut their trees.
| justinator wrote:
| Didn't work for the Irish. British took all the meat and left
| the potatoes behind. So although they were kept alive, it
| wasn't a great existence.
|
| And then the potato blight happened.
|
| Which England naturally didn't help out relieving.
| narinxas wrote:
| all that desperation IS a source of energy, granted the
| boundaries/gates/walls are administered in such a way to
| allow harvest... just (maybe toke up and) think about how
| mitochondria actually work. the 'energy' all comes from
| gradients of various sorts of presures (like the presure of
| hunger i.e. desperation)
| greenhearth wrote:
| This makes sense as nomads transformed by agriculture would
| probably be more interested in organized defense than offense
| (before prosperity, population booms and eventual land grab
| attempts.) Do you remember if this was a book?
| Spivak wrote:
| This is why China has so many walls, the first large agrarian
| settlements had to deal with a huge population of scattered
| nomadic peoples raiding them. You couldn't really take the
| offense to them because it would be like playing whack-a-mole
| but being nomadic they weren't well equipped to conduct
| sieges against towers and walls so that's what they did.
|
| If you ever wondered where that bit from South Park came from
| with the Mongolians that's where. But spoiler Genghis Khan
| found a way around that problem.
| greenhearth wrote:
| Believe it or not, the agrarian state predates China by
| thousands of years. It goes back 10k years to the early
| farmer migration into Southern Europe from the Middle East.
| And yes, I am very well aware of the Great Wall of China
| lol
| Spivak wrote:
| Okay, so first thing I wasn't talking about the great
| wall. That wasn't created until the Ming dynasty which is
| after the period I'm talking about. And second I mean the
| first agrarian settlements _in China_.
| abeppu wrote:
| I think I read an popular press article about a research
| paper, but I think books did end up being produced on the
| topic. I don't think this was the piece I recall reading, but
| this recaps most of what I remember:
| https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/food--cooking/grains-
| tubers-a...
| rindalir wrote:
| I think this idea is also present in the work of James C.
| Scott, author of "Against the Grain". But I think he was
| talking about this in the context of it being easier for
| governments to "steal" grains (and just subjugate the farmers +
| general population), whereas other agricultural societies such
| as those in parts of Africa avoided this kind of societal
| dominance and large parasite/ruler/priesthood class by growing
| crops like yams that were hard to just show up and steal/tax in
| bulk. You could always just leave the tubers in the ground for
| a while and harvest on an as-needed basis.(edit for spelling).
| abeppu wrote:
| I think especially when the first "governments" arose, but
| also now, the difference between "thieves" who visit you
| repeatedly and "rulers" can be pretty fuzzy, and is mostly a
| matter of perspective. But if some guys with weapons who are
| already in your extended community (perhaps your second
| cousins or something) run a protection racket and take 20% of
| your crop every year, but ostensibly protect you from
| roving/unknown guys with weapons who want to show up and take
| 80% of your crop periodically, then the presence of "thieves"
| justify the existence of "rulers" even if they're doing the
| same basic thing at different scales.
| rindalir wrote:
| That's how it always starts! :) I think the origins of the
| state in agrarian societies is super interesting. Does it
| start organically (like you and your neighbors agreeing
| paying a small % for a security service) and then one day
| you blink and its morphed into a massive bureaucracy with
| royal granaries, armies, ziggurats and human sacrifices?
| Does a certain class of people step in and intentionally
| turn the system into one that primarily benefits
| themselves? How complex does a society have to be before
| that happens? etc...
| WD40forRust wrote:
| That is called the Mafia State, and I vaguely remember
| Stefan Molyneux touching on that in the last decade.
| yvelon wrote:
| I think this is the reference you mention:
| https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/omoav/mmnp_pap...
| NKosmatos wrote:
| The situation with olive oil this year is bad... so bad that some
| farmers are using fake GPS olives to track stolen olives:
| https://greekreporter.com/2023/10/23/greek-farmers-use-gps-t...
|
| The price for virgin olive oil used to be 3-4 EUR/liter in the
| last couple of years and now it has soared to above 10 EUR/L. You
| can find some local producers (relatives/friends) selling for
| around 8 EUR/L but most people in the big cities will never see
| such a low price, on the contrary it will reach them for around
| 15 EUR/L :-(
|
| Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal (among other Mediterranean
| countries) rely heavily on olive oil for food preparation and
| this will affect prices and inflation.
| Spivak wrote:
| Is there some cultural reason this won't drive people to
| alternatives and they'll just eat the cost? Food has got to be
| one of the most elastic things in all of human history with
| diets shifting wildly over short periods of time depending on
| what's available and affordable.
| axioms_End wrote:
| I think olive oil is not that easy to replace as it's often
| used as a condiment due to it's unique taste.
| tw04 wrote:
| I would imagine much like "truffle oil" - you can take a
| concentrated extract and add it to a neutral oil to get the
| same flavor. If it stays high for long enough I have to
| imagine someone will release a competing product.
| s0rce wrote:
| Do people like the fake truffle oil or just pretend
| because it seems fancy and exotic? I can't stand it, way
| too strong.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Perhaps, but unlike truffle oil, which people eat for the
| flavor (and prestige/faux prestige), many people choose
| olive oil for health reasons. If you make some other kind
| of oil taste like olive oil, those people would not buy
| it.
| MeImCounting wrote:
| As far as I know those 'health reasons' are mostly
| propaganda and come from the new-agey sort of faux health
| circles. Correct me if I'm wrong I don't know much about
| the health of various oils this is just the impression I
| have gotten.
| vel0city wrote:
| The ratios of different types of fats in oils (e.g.,
| saturated vs unsaturated, mono- vs polyunsaturated, etc)
| do have different metabolic processes and effects, that's
| not any kind of new-agey or faux health stuff.
|
| The level of impact of such things is definitely still
| actively studied, but some fats do generally seem worse
| for you to consume than others.
|
| Now, anyone arguing eating a bottle of olive oil a week
| will cure your cancer is obviously full of it, but
| choosing different oils because of ratios of saturated
| fats and what not isn't entirely new-agey fluff.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Yes, while "heart-healthy" is overdoing it a little,
| there isn't much of a debate that olive oil is less bad
| than, say, lard.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Just so you know, the burden of proof lies with the
| person making a claim, in this case you, claiming the
| health benefits of olive oil are 'propaganda'. If you
| think you don't know enough to make a claim, that's fine,
| you can always a nice neutral question, like: What are
| the health benefits of olive oil?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| That's not "the claim". "The claim" is that olive oil is
| more healthy!
|
| Someone saying they are suspicious of "the claim" isn't
| _required to_ back their suspicions.
|
| You are welcome to fact-check the entire narrative: which
| would boil down to fact-checking the original olive oil
| diet health claim.
| kbar13 wrote:
| truffle oil takes awful tho
| lawlessone wrote:
| Flavoring extracts won't change that all these different
| oils have different smoke points and different ratios of
| fats.
|
| e.g Walnut oil can be used a salad dressing , heating it
| is bad.
| potatopatch wrote:
| Olive oil has a lower smoke point than cheaper oils so
| faking olive oil has been pretty easy.. I don't actually
| buy Italian olive oil since anyone who is faking oil
| internationally would be pretty crazy to make less by
| selling it as Spanish or Greek olive oil.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Olive oil is uniquely healthy compared to available
| alternatives. Mostly monounsatured fat, low omega-6.
| Polyunsaturated fats found in so-called vegetable oils are
| associated with nasty things, see
| https://www.zeroacre.com/white-papers/how-vegetable-oil-
| make...
| s0rce wrote:
| That entire website is going on about seed oils being
| evil... do you have a legitimate (peer reviewed extensive
| study in a reputable journal) source?
| kornhole wrote:
| I get most of my calories from fat and basically stick to
| olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and animal fats to
| stay healthy. Olive oil has no healthy flavorful substitute
| that is liquid at room temperature.
| timwaagh wrote:
| Yes. They have considered it essential for good health since
| forever so they are reluctant to say 'sure we can make do
| with other oil'. More recently that belief has been spreading
| because the data seems to prove them right. This is driving
| prices up.
| JaumeGreen wrote:
| People who can't afford it have been using sunflower oil for
| lots of things, mostly for frying. Normal salads, on the
| other hand, is olive oil or nothing. Not counting things like
| Caesar's salad, "ensaladilla", ... and other that have
| special sauces.
|
| The taste isn't the same, just as it's not the same the taste
| of a good olive oil from a normal one.
|
| Pig fat has been on decline for a long time, but it's still
| used for some things. Butter is not that cheap, margarine
| isn't either, and it's not as good (in either taste or
| "health" reasons).
|
| Olive oil is a staple in our kitchens, and things should
| change a lot before we stop using it. It's like telling Asian
| people to change and not use soya when it becomes expensive.
| goatforce5 wrote:
| Just to echo what you said:
|
| I was in Portugal a couple of months ago, and our local tour
| guide said the drought conditions meant we should expect to pay
| 3x the price for olive oil over the next year or two.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| I thought I was getting a deal at Costco for $14 a liter....
| jancsika wrote:
| If you're getting a deal on olive oil, chances are you're not
| getting a deal on olive oil.
| pklausler wrote:
| But Kirkland has a good reputation (deservedly? don't know)
| for authentic product labeling. I buy a lot of EVOO there
| myself, and think highly of the quality.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Wow, the GPS olives are a fascinating solution for a complex
| problem
| rcpt wrote:
| It would be great if people would cut down all the olive trees in
| southern Italy as it'd curb the spread of xylella fastidiosa.
|
| That disease will do to Mediterranean olives what citrus greening
| did to Florida oranges
| j45 wrote:
| Clarified butter is a nice replacement for Olive Oils. Very high
| burning point.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I find the taste to be very different.
| pempem wrote:
| clarified butter poured over salad has a different feel
| certainly.
| munk-a wrote:
| The biggest game changer is actually just using a cooking oil -
| there are plenty of alternatives that will have absolutely no
| impact on the final taste... and olive oil actually has a
| relatively low smoke point compared to other cooking oils.
|
| If olive oil was just used for flavoring, emulsification and
| dipping bread in we'd have a huge over supply - too many people
| were raised on "Drizzle some olive oil in your pan before
| heating".
| kzrdude wrote:
| Why too many? I'm convinced it is healthier, so I think too
| few use olive oil where possible.
| reedjosh wrote:
| What is cooking oil?
|
| Seed oil?
|
| Cause no thank you!!
|
| Luckily everyone seems to think animal fats are no good, so
| my family gets grass fed tallow for $30 a gallon tub.
|
| Tallow and lard are excellent for frying or fattening bready
| items.
| munk-a wrote:
| Tallow and lard are definitely excellent alternatives - but
| yea I was suggesting seed oils like peanut, safflower,
| sunflower or canola/rapeseed. Rendered fats have a weird
| reputation as there were health crazes that demonized it in
| the past but it's like most other oils - use in
| moderation... it's excellent to keep on hand though as it
| really makes a difference in baking.
| bsder wrote:
| Grass fed _and finished_ or just fed? A lot of "Grass fed"
| is then "Corn finished".
|
| I'd love to get "grass finished" tallow for anywhere near
| that price.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| What's a plant-based oil that is a good refined (not EV)
| olive oil substitute? Coconut imparts a flavor, peanut is
| good but pricey, canola is no bueno for health reasons?
| diydsp wrote:
| I like avocado oil for its high temp, light flavor. It's
| pricey, but generally it's good to minimize oil consumption
| for caloric purposes anyway.
| datameta wrote:
| Sunflower, safflower, grapeseed are all healthly and have
| at least a medium temp smoking point.
| hanniabu wrote:
| It's moreso health than taste for me
| nemo44x wrote:
| You don't generally cook with EVO. EVO is what you use to dip
| your bread in but you don't necessarily want cook with it.
| Virgin olive oil or refined is better and has higher smoke
| points.
| kzrdude wrote:
| I think that's a popular misconception
| jancsika wrote:
| > The biggest game changer is actually just using a cooking
| oil - there are plenty of alternatives that will have
| absolutely no impact on the final taste...
|
| I'm pretty sure I can taste the difference between popping
| corn in peanut oil vs. olive oil. In any case, I can
| certainly smell the difference which affects taste.
|
| > and olive oil actually has a relatively low smoke point
| compared to other cooking oils.
|
| I'm pretty sure I've popped corn with olive oil on multiple
| occasions without hitting the smoke point.
|
| And for things like pasta sauces or roasting potatoes it's
| not even close to the smoke point.
|
| There's also a fringe health benefit. Because high quality
| extra virgin olive oil is so difficult to find-- and so
| expensive-- relying on it as one's sole cooking oil
| essentially adds a tax to frying the hell out of all one's
| foods. This encourages healthier eating. :)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Yes, very easy to make from just butter.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I don't know which is worse: destroying an old and beautiful tree
| that takes years to bear fruit, or selling olive wood as
| firewood. That stuff is $26-$100 per board foot, and is a
| gorgeous hardwood. It's hard to work and harder to dry, but the
| result is something special.
| Zaheer wrote:
| Fun fact: Olive trees on average can live 500 years(!) The oldest
| known is 1500 years.
|
| Also something similar happens in the West Bank: [1]
| https://time.com/5714146/olive-harvest-west-bank/ [2]
| http://yris.yira.org/global-issue/6018
| seydor wrote:
| The thing is, being a worker in olive groves pays quite well.
| There s a huge shortage of farm workers , and many groves are
| left unharvested.
| codr7 wrote:
| I used to make 20 Euros a day harvesting olives by hand in
| southern Italy a few years back, not really my idea of well
| paid.
|
| But I did see a lot of unharvested resources; olives, oranges,
| lemons etc.
| seydor wrote:
| it was 60-90 / day in greece last year , probably even higher
| this year due to lack of workers and the high price of oil
|
| This is definitely an area where robotics and AI would be
| very useful
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Sounds like sabotage to me, just shake the tree and olives will
| fall very easily, easier to transport, you maximize your gain
| slim wrote:
| maybe 20% will fall. For the rest you need to scrape them off
| the tree
| Wonnk13 wrote:
| Wow, my girlfriend and I visited Crete earlier this year and took
| a tour of an old olive grove. They warned us prices were going to
| jump up, but this is bonkers.
| pvaldes wrote:
| This is organized crime and the economical effects are
| devastating. It does not matter if the trees can regrow
|
| The keyword here is diseases. Olive tree tuberculosis for example
| will easily propagate if you use the same pruning tool on
| different trees without disinfecting it.
|
| This is _not_ a joke. We are talking about estimated damages of
| 20 billion euro (with a B) that the European Union has been
| suffering just by Xylella fastidiosa, the "olive tree ebola" at
| a rate of 5.5 billion bleed each year since it appeared in Apulia
| Italy on 2013 and later on Spanish almonds in 2016. The disease
| can affect olives, almonds, figs, plums or cherries. It has 500
| species of hosts.
|
| Several new plagues entered inexplicably by Italy or Spain in the
| last decades. We should treat it much more seriously.
| gainda wrote:
| my heart breaks when i read about the trees.
|
| There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for
| this treachery.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| There will soon be a future where olive orchards are guarded by
| suicide drones.
| coding123 wrote:
| I guess these short term price spikes are to be expected as each
| industry establishes new hidden price collusion tactics to copy
| all the other industries doing it.
| jcadam wrote:
| You peasants should be eating cheap seed oil. Olive oil is for
| your betters.
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