All of you that have do the cooking at home will have used cooking oil or olive oil at some point. Whether you use the oil for frying or salads, organic oil can provide the maximum taste with the minimum use of pesticides and chemicals in its production. Organic olives are used in the production and many people say that the taste is superior to non organic olive oil.

Olives are typically grown in the Mediterranean, with its hot dry summers and cool winters it is the ideal habitat of the olive tree. Olive oil is the oil obtained from the fruit of the olive tree in a mechanical manner. The liquid is pressed out of the olives. Organic olive oils are often picked and crushed by large stone rollers without the use of any mechanical machinery or unnatural processes. Expensive virgin oil is sometimes labelled in a way that you can trace exactly where the oil has come from. The bottle and tin can be numbered and this enables the buyer to identify from which trees the olive oil of each individual container came from.

As well as organic oil, fairtrade oil is increasingly available. The Fairtrade principal involves democratic organisation where producers have maximum control over their land and are often formed into co-operatives. Trade Unions are allowed, no child labour is used in the production and a decent wage is paid to the workers that pick the olives and produce the oil. The Fairtrade Mark means that a social premium is paid on the product which doesnt go to the individuals, it goes to the organisation or communities for development projects such as health, education and sanitation.

One producer of Fairtrade Organic Olive Oil is Zaytoun

Zaytoun is the UKs first volunteer non-profit project to import fair trade palestinian organic olive oil to the UK.

The oil is imported from farmers worse hit by the current political crisis in Palestine.

The agricultural economy, which is one of the major arteries of the Palestinian economy, has been significantly damaged due to the continuing conflict with Isreal.

65% of Palestinian families live in rural areas and are connected to agriculture in some form.

Rural livelihoods have been desimated through the confiscation of land, uprooting of trees, controlling of water sources, denying access to land and the lack of access to markets in Isreal and abroad.

Zaytoun attempts to seek a practical means of assisting the Palestinian People by providing consumers with something we use at least once a week, cooking oil!

Did you know that you can also buy olive based beauty care products such as soap? Olives have long since been known to hold the secret of youthful vitality.