Densimetric sorting can improve the quality of olive oil in Italy

An Italian dish is probably incomplete without a dash of extra virgin olive oil. Due to its rich flavour, versatile taste and health benefits, extra virgin olive oil is an indispensable item in our kitchen pantries. Regular intake of extra virgin olive oil helps prevent heart disease, improves chronic inflammation and combats cancer. There are numerous factors that can affect the quality of olives and olive oil. This includes cultivar, tree age, environment, harvest time and storage conditions. Scientists have recently discovered that post-harvest sorting can be of paramount importance in controlling the olive and olive oil quality. To address this, they have developed a relatively new, easy-to-implement and non-destructive method of olive sorting based on density. Using a saline solution for densimetric sorting, they reported the effects of density as well as harvest time. They extracted oil from olives using a micro-extraction apparatus, centrifuge and separating funnel. For ...