Give me numbers. I learned to cook from cookbooks, glued to half-cups of this and tablespoons of that. It’s taken years to evolve to “a little bit of this, a little bit of that.”
So it was with great relief that I discovered some real numbers to help me decide if that fancy olive oil in the pantry was extremely zesty-tasting or actually going rancid. Here’s what I found for an article at Super Eco:
Extra-virgin and virgin olive oils keep at least nine months after opening. According to the Olive Oil Source, varieties containing more natural antioxidants may be good for up to three to four years, if properly stored in unopened containers. Other oils (especially particularly unfiltered oils) may be unpalatable within a year, even if stored properly. “A two-year-old olive oil may taste rancid to some, while others don’t mind it,” the Olive Oil Source notes. “Most people would be put off by the taste of any vegetable oil more than four to five years old.”
Read the rest of the article at Super Eco to find out why prolonging the shelf life of your olive oil amounts to a game of keep-away.
