By Dr. Bob Oksenholt

This is the first in a series about olive oil.

What it is. Where it came from. Why the real thing is good for you. And why much of what you buy is not what it says it is. The bottle may read Extra Virgin Olive Oil. That does not make it so.

Many oils sold under that name are cut with cheaper oils. Seed oils. Refined oils. Oils that have little to do with the olive.

You pay for purity. You often get something else. We will show you how to tell the difference. How to find true, cold-pressed, 100 percent extra virgin olive oil. How not to be cheated.

Now that you have some safe brands to choose from, we will follow the olive from the beginning. From its ancient roots, millions of years old.

From the scrub and wild groves where it first grew. Through the temples and empires that prized it.
Into the lab, where science measures what it does inside the body.

And then into the present, where profit and fraud have thinned and diluted one of the oldest foods on earth.

“The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?” — Judges 9:8–9

“The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven.” — Thomas Jefferson

The old legends say the olive tree was the first tree in Eden.

Olivia of Palermo, the Catholic saint and patroness of Palermo, is honored in Tunis by both Christians and Muslims. A cathedral bears her name alongside St. Vincent de Paul, and the oldest mosque in Tunis — Al-Zaytuna, the Mosque of the Olive — is said to have been built on a basilica dedicated to her.

At the ancient Panathenaic Games in Athens, they didn’t award gold medals. They awarded golden olive oil pressed fresh from sacred groves. A man crowned not with metal, but with oil. In ancient Greece, this was among the highest honors. At Olympia, winners of the Panhellenic Games received a wreath cut from the wild olive tree near the temple of Zeus, a tree the legend says Hercules had planted. The strength of Hercules, they said, flowed through the olive. Some said fresh olive oil from the Acropolis groves was more valuable than gold.

An ancient myth illustrates the value the Greeks placed on the olive and its oil, and is the story of how Athens got its name. Athena and Poseidon competed for the city’s patronage. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and offered the power of the sea — dominion, trade, and war. Athena offered an olive tree — food, oil, light, and medicine. The people chose the tree, and the city took her name. A tree still grows on the spot where legend says the original stood. When the Persians sacked Athens in 480 BC, they burned it. The ancient Greeks said it sprouted the next day.

When the Germans occupied the Acropolis during World War II, the 2,000-year-old tree was damaged again. American archaeologists preserved a cutting and grew a tree from it. The genetically identical tree was replanted on the Acropolis after the Nazis were defeated. It has never been allowed to die.

In Crete, the Vouves olive tree — estimated at over 3,000 years old — still produces fruit. Its trunk twists and turns with age, yet the tree persists. Older than Christianity and Islam. And still standing.

You could almost believe it remembers who planted it.

Trees older than cities, older than songs. They have lived through empires and earthquakes. Still alive. Still growing.

In Hebrew, the term for “olive tree” is es shemen, meaning “tree of oil.” It means more than oil. It means to shine. Like a face lit from within. Like the sun. Shemesh, they call it.

They weren’t just eating olives. They were worshiping the glow. Tree of oil. Tree of light. Trees, suns, and people, all trying to shine before the clock runs out.

In ancient thought, the tree wasn’t just a source of nourishment. It was illumination.

The word “oil” appears 191 times in 178 verses of the Bible. The oil most frequently referenced was olive oil. It appears in the context of both individual and communal ritual and celebration. Its presence signals abundance, healing, empowerment, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

In the Bais Hamikdash — the Holy Temple in Jerusalem — olive oil burned continually in the menorah as a symbol of God’s unending presence. Cakes anointed with oil were sanctified offerings. Unleavened bread mixed with oil was used in ceremonies of sanctification. Olive oil blended with myrrh, cane, and cassia was the holy oil of anointing. They used it to anoint kings, priests, and warriors. They rubbed it on their bodies. They consumed it. They burned it in lamps to light their homes and public spaces. Canaan itself was called “the land of olive oil.”

Psalm 89:20 celebrates the anointing of David: “I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him.”

Isaiah 61:3 speaks of the Messiah bringing “the oil of joy” to comfort those who mourn.

And Deuteronomy commands charity through the olive: “When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”

The olive branch first appears in the story of Noah and the Great Flood. Genesis 8:11: “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.” When the flood waters receded, that leaf in the dove’s beak was the sign that God’s fury had subsided and the earth had been restored — a signal to humanity that the world was renewed and safe to inhabit once again. The dove and the olive leaf are powerful metaphors for the moment when signs of destruction give way to signs of life and hope.

The olive branch’s symbolism continued in Greece and Rome, where it became linked to both triumph and tranquility. In Greece, the Olympic victor was crowned with an olive branch. During times of tension, states in the ancient world extended olive branches as tokens of peace, signaling that hostilities were coming to a halt.

The olive branch remains a powerful symbol today. The Great Seal of the United States features an eagle holding an olive branch with 13 olives and 13 leaves in one talon, arrows in the other — peace balanced against war.

In Islam, the olive is honored. Surah al-Mu’minun (23:20) refers to the olive as a tree “that grows oil, and delight for the eaters.” Surah al-Nur (24:35) describes a blessed olive tree: “A tree neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.” Oil that glows without fire — even the Quran recognized what the Hebrews meant by shemen. The tree of light.

In Catholic tradition, on Holy Thursday, the priests gather in cathedrals to bless it with incense, with chant, with centuries. They use it year-round to baptize babies and bless teenagers on the day they are confirmed. They dip their fingers in olive oil, smooth and golden, as they bless the newcomer into the faith. In the Catholic Church, olive oil is sacramental. It is blessed each year during the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday.

In Assisi, the man who would become the most beloved saint in Christendom lived his entire life among olive trees. San Damiano, where Francis began his religious life. The Hermitage of the Carceri, where he retreated to pray on Mount Subasio. Santa Maria degli Angeli, where he founded his order and where he died. All of them wrapped in olive groves. Giotto painted the trees into the frescoes of Francis’s life. Francis turned the olive branch into a universal symbol of peace — Pax et Bonum, peace and goodness. Five centuries later, Franciscan missionaries carried olive trees across the Atlantic and planted them at the California missions. Those trees still grow. Californians call them Mission Olives.

And in Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, Jesus spent his last night of freedom in a garden called Gethsemane — Aramaic for “oil press.” Eight ancient olive trees still stand there. Italian scientists carbon-dated three of them to the 12th century, about 900 years old, likely planted by Crusaders. The other five were too hollowed out to test. But olive trees regrow from their roots after being cut down, and the Romans cut down the groves around Jerusalem in 70 AD. The trunks are 900 years old. The roots beneath them may be far older. No one can prove they are the same trees that sheltered Jesus on the night of his arrest. No one can prove they aren’t.

“I will not eat bread without olive oil,” declared Aristotle. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, called it “the great healer.” Galen extolled its curative properties. The ancients understood what modern science now confirms — but that is a story for later in this series.

Next in the series: The wild olive bush that survived 40 million years, the Neolithic foragers who first ate its bitter fruit, and how a sharp rock and a cut branch turned a thorny shrub into the foundation of civilization.

Some Trustworthy Brands

Hearst Ranch Estate Olive Oil is produced by Hearst Ranch Winery in Paso Robles on California’s Central Coast. Their olive oils are locally grown, cold-pressed, bottled in small lots, and release-dated so you know it’s fresh. Around $30/bottle.

PJ Kabos Family Reserve (Greece) — USDA Organic, 750+ mg/kg polyphenols verified, Koroneiki olives, harvest dates printed. Gold award winner. Available on Amazon. Around $30-40/bottle.

The Governor (Corfu, Greece) — 900-1,100 mg/kg polyphenols, third-party lab verified. Lianolia olives from trees hundreds of years old. One of the first brands to put EU-approved polyphenol health claims on the label. Around $70+.

Ellora Farms (Crete, Greece) — Single estate, PDO certified, traceable to the farm. Koroneiki olives. Multiple gold awards. Available on Amazon and in stores.

Apollo Olive Oil (California) — Family-owned since the 1990s, custom vacuum mill that crushes olives in an oxygen-free environment to maximize polyphenol extraction. Certified by California Olive Oil Council. Consistently wins gold awards. American-made.

Entimio (Tuscany, Italy) — Organic, 600-900+ mg/kg polyphenols, lab tested, gold award winner 2025. Frantoio/Leccino/Moraiolo blend. Dark glass, harvest dates on every bottle.

Healthy Harvest — True Tuscan EVOO Single family estate in Tuscany, in continuous operation since 1803. Fourth-generation farmer. The company is based in Colorado but sources directly from the farm — no middlemen, no brokers, no blending.