Study finds olive oil still technically virgin

Despite their reputation for being very much an acquired taste, the lowly olive has actually been one of the most important crops in human history. First cultivated more than 10,000 years ago, olives have been used in food, hygiene products, religion, medicine, and in the lamps that lit the homes of the great thinkers of our past such as Homer and Socrates. Virtually every culture in southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa utilized olives in their day to day lives, and in the process of founding our modern world.