If before arriving on your table it is up to us millers to make sure that all stages of extraction and storage of extra virgin olive oil are guaranteed ...

Once you arrive at your home, you need to take some small steps to ensure that the oil keeps all its properties intact, until the expiration date.

How is extra virgin olive oil preserved?

As I often repeat, the main enemies of extra virgin olive oil are light, oxygen and heat, so we need to protect our oil from these three factors.

Sunlight, direct or diffused, accelerates rancidity , so it is better to store your stock in the dark, and we avoid, if not for immediate use, to pour it into transparent cruets.

We can safely keep the oil in the tin it came in, until it is completely finished.

Every time we use it, we close the cap well. the passage of air accelerates the oxidation process and therefore decay.

The oil attracts all odors to itself, so let's keep it in environments without strange smells.

Make sure that the ambient temperature remains between 10 and 20 ° C

If you exceed 20 degrees, the heat accelerates the rancidity of the oil, causing it to age earlier than expected.

While if it drops below 10 degrees the oil freezes.

What happens if it freezes? ”

Unsaturated fats pass from liquid to solid form, during defrosting, the bonds between triglycerides and glycerol are broken, releasing fatty acids.

This leads to a faster rancidity and loss of phenolic substances.

The sudden changes in temperature also accelerate the natural decanting process of the solid particles, thus creating an important residue on the bottom of the container.

How is extra virgin olive oil stored? | Conclusions

So let's avoid freezing the oil in the winter or exposing it to high temperatures in the summer. If there is a cellar available, I recommend keeping your supplies there as it is a cool and at the same time dark place;

I hope this information will be useful for you to better maintain the properties of the oil you just purchased.

Thanks for reading my article, I hope you found it useful.

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In the meantime, if you have any questions, write them in the comments, I'll be happy to answer you.