{"id":687759,"date":"2018-05-24T02:41:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T02:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/origin-www.tasteofhome.com\/?p=687759"},"modified":"2018-05-24T02:42:37","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T02:42:37","slug":"this-is-why-you-cant-buy-fresh-olives-at-the-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tasteofhome.com\/article\/this-is-why-you-cant-buy-fresh-olives-at-the-supermarket\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is Why You Can\u2019t Buy Fresh Olives at the Supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"Admit it, have you ever really thought about why you don\u2019t usually find fresh olives on store shelves? Typically, olives go from being grown on a tree to getting picked and then to the jars you see in the supermarket. That makes sense, right?\u00a0 But, why are they always found in a jar, soaking in a salty brine?\r\n&nbsp;\r\nSorry to disappoint all of the olive lovers out there, but the fresh fruit actually tastes\u00a0<em>really<\/em>\u00a0horrible\u2014so horrible that grocery stores won\u2019t sell it. The compound in the fruit that makes it taste so disgusting and bitter is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/anrcatalog.ucanr.edu\/pdf\/8267.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">oleuropein<\/a>. Fresh olives contain up to 14 percent of it. (Make sure you don\u2019t fall for these\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rd.com\/health\/healthy-eating\/supermarket-tricks\/1\">very sneaky supermarket\u00a0tricks<\/a>.)\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<h3>How Olives Become Edible<\/h3>\r\nProfessional olive processors and bold home cooks use three different methods to remove the oleuropein. The first two methods are soaking them in water or fermenting them in a salt brine. The downside to those methods is that they take weeks.\r\n\r\nThe third method is a chemical shortcut, and it can get olives onto supermarket shelves much faster after being picked. It involves soaking the olives in Lye, or sodium hydroxide. Also known as NaOH, sodium hydroxide speeds up the chemical breakdown between oleuropein and sugar to less bitter (and tastier) compounds. This whole process takes about one week. After being thoroughly rinsed of any chemicals, the olives are packed in salt brine to help preserve them when being shipped.\r\n\r\nSometimes the saying, \u201cfresh is always better\u201d isn\u2019t always true, and with olives, that is definitely the case. Next, find out these\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rd.com\/advice\/saving-money\/secret-grocery-shopping-tips\/1\">10 smart grocery shopping tips you need to know<\/a>.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one fresh fruit that you won\u2019t find on the shelves of any grocery 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