Is it safe to eat olives off the tree?
It is safe to eat an olive directly from the tree but it is not recommended as they will be extremely bitter and not enjoyable. Olives need to be cured first before they can be consumed and enjoyed.
While eating olives from the tree is technically safe, the flavor is bitter, almost to the point where it is not edible. Because there is so much bitterness in the trees olives, you cannot eat them until they are treated to remove the compounds oleuropein and ligstroside. Each of the aforementioned methods for curing will remove the bitter compounds from an olive, or will reduce the compounds sufficiently so that olives are far more palatable.
Each curing method takes weeks to months to leech off enough oleuropein and ligstroside compounds to produce the tasty olives that we are used to eating. When olives are harvested, they must be cured, or treated, to leach out the compounds of oleuropein and ligstroside, which produce a strong bitter taste. For edible purposes, olives are processed, or cured, to remove oleuropein, which is found in both leaves and fruits of the tree.
When you leave olives in water, the chemical called oleuropein slowly leaches from the olives into the water via osmosis. This takes a few weeks, and it does not get rid of the chemical called oleuropein, which is why the olives will still taste bitter, and you need to eat them quickly, because it does not last. Even though fresh olives grow on trees and they seem to have the look of a fresh fruit, they are filled with a chemical compound called oleuropein, which is really, really bitter.
| How to prepare olives to eat? | Is it safe to wash olive in lye? |
| Put the olives in a bowl, pour 1 part salt into 10 parts water and cover them with the mixture. | Washing your olives in lye gets rid of bitter chemical compounds. |
| The olives should be drained after a week and then brined again for another week. After that allow it to sit for 1 month. | Olives are washed in Lye for 8-12 hours to get rid of those compounds. |
People who grow and harvest olives get to know olive flavor; they are the ones who can eat a fresh olive without throwing up. Curing olives yourself is a good way to have a good time with your product, as you would not want to consume it straight from the tree. By the way, if you do not have an olive tree, but want to make olives, I am looking at if you can just order them picked.
Unprocessed olives are not going to sicken you or kill you, but chances are, you are not going to want to eat any. You can purchase unprocessed olives that do have a pit inside, but you have to cure them to get rid of that horrible bitterness, and also you will need to remove that unappetizing pit. While you can remove the pits in a fresh olive yourself with ease, you will still need to take care, while buying pitted olives is easier. This process takes the least time, but water treatment removes the smallest amount of oleuropein, so olives treated in this manner will still keep a bit of bitterness.
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This method with salt draws the oleuropein from the olives a lot quicker than water or brine methods. A brine treatment is a similar process, but instead of just using water, olives are left in a solution of salt and water for one week. Brine curing is also a simpler method, in which olives are immersed in a water-pickle salt solution over the course of several months.
Some olives will benefit from a brine or lye curing, while if you are looking to retain some of the bitterness for additional flavour, you may want to consider water-based or dry-salt curing. There are various methods of removing the bitterness in olives, like brining, dry salt curing, lye treatments, and water curing. Most olives that you find at stores are treated with curing, which is a process that softens olives and helps to remove the bitterness.
Green olives, which are younger, unripe olives, may undergo curing in water, which eliminates the raw fruits bitterness. Green olives are picked before fully maturing, whereas black olives are left on their trees to mature. However, highly skilled farmers will often taste only matured black olives, which are a bit less bitter than greens.
Unprocessed, right from the tree, olives are bitter, really bitter, and green ones are still even bitterer than those that are completely matured into black. Olives are exposed to a warm sun after they are picked, or left on the tree, in order to develop their chewy texture and bitter flavor. Olives straight from the tree have high concentrations of a compound called oleuropein, which gives them their bitter flavor. Olive glucosides are also found in tree leaves and bark, just in case you are really into raw foods and are considering munching those, too.
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To make them edible, raw olives are processed through one of a few curing methods that extracts the olives glucoside. Olives contain Oleuropeins and phenolic compounds, which need to be removed, or at least reduced, in order for olives to become edible. To make an olive palatable, it must either be soaked in lye or brine, or packed in salt; such treatments will leach a phenolic compound called oleuropein. Oleuropein A juicy-looking olive is home to oleuropein, a phenolic compound that is so bitter that it shaves the teeth.
Washing your olives in lye gets rid of bitter phenolics and the oleuropein compounds in just a few seconds. Olives are washed in Lye for eight to 12 hours, which gives the compounds ample time to escape. With a few basic safety precautions, lye quickly and thoroughly neutralizes oleuropeins in the olives, leaving behind the buttery taste that is more recognisable from canned olives that we have grown up with.
Olives treated with salt curing will be textured like raisins, with a slight bitter flavor. The curing process is like fermentation, in which natural olive sugars are converted to lactic acid, and the bitter compounds are ejected.
Water-cure olives are immersed in a tank, changing water every day for one or two weeks, depending on the desired bitterness level. After the water-curing period, green olives are stored in pickle brine, which imparts a salty taste. The most common and effective method for curing olives at home is using either water or a brine solution.
In addition to curing to be eaten or cooked, olives can also be processed at home to obtain their valuable oils. Olives are typically sold in jars and cans, and these containers are used to store olives until ready for eating.
Very skilled olive-growers have to be older, wiser, iron-tipped growers, because before an olives flavor off the tree comes through when it is chewed, a taster has to pass first through quite a bit of bitterness, which will ruin the faces of any other person.
Can olives be eaten raw?
There is no need to consume raw olives as they are too bitter to consume. The only way to consume raw olives is to process them through curing or pickling. In Mediterranean cuisine, olives are usually made into olive oil, but some olives are preserved for use in meals, particularly in the preparation of olive oil.
How do you prepare olives to eat?
Put the olives in a bowl or pot, pour one part salt into ten parts water, and cover them with the mixture. For a week, you should weigh down the seeds with a plate and let them sit in the refrigerator. The olives should be drained and brined for another week, after which the process should be repeated. After two more brings, allow them to sit for a month.
What is the best time to eat olives?
Olives can be consumed at any time of day. However, they contain a lot of good fats. Therefore, if you want to have a nutritious nighttime snack, you can consume them before bed. Additionally, they regulate blood sugar, make you feel fuller, and promote restful sleep.