Extra Virgin Olive Oil = Unrefined oil from olives. The olives are pressed and the oil goes directly into a bottle to be sold. The oil is "impure" so tastes strongly of olives.

Olive oil = refined oil from olives. Similar to canola oil, sunflower oil, vegetable oil, etc. "Impurities" have been removed so the oil is mostly colourless and tasteless.

A lot of recipes use the flavour of the unrefined "extra virgin" olive oil and would taste off if the refined olive oil (or any other type of oil) was used.

[–] MusketeerX@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks, good summary. Had always wondered about this!

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 6 points 1 year ago

From some quick googling, it looks like you can get oil out of the olives easier by heating or otherwise refining them with chemicals in some way, but this affects the taste and nutrition, so virgin olive oil is olive oil you get only mechanically ie by pressing/crushing it, extra virgin olive oil is a high quality grade of virgin olive oil, and regular olive oil can be made by heating or chemical refining with a bit of the virgin olive oil mixed back in to give it some of the olive flavor back.

[–] aeternum@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

it means the olives haven't had sex.

[–] x4740N@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

https://lmgtfy.app/?q=what+does+virgin+in+extra+virgin+olive+oil+mean