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Oil week: Week 19 of BigBarn’s food and drink weeks

The fields are starting to turn yellow with rapeseed ready for the season! Virgin olive oil and cold pressed Rapeseed oil is really good for us. It is delicious for roast potatoes & dressings and we should eat more for health reasons.

We can now buy cold pressed virgin rapeseed oil and special imported olive oils all over the UK, not because the food industry has made it available, but because enterprising people and farmers have ignored ‘the industry’ and grow, press, bottle & market their own.

This is a classic example of how the food industry is failing consumers and why we should turn to our local farmers for the best produce and help build a new, LOCAL, food industry.

Virgin cold pressed Rapeseed oil is high in omega 3, and essential for our health. A recent study showed we should consume 10 times the quantity of Omega 3 oil, to Omega 6, found in most oils and foods, like crisps.

UK farmers have been growing rape for 40 years and sold via the food industry. It has then been used to make vegetable oil using solvents to extract as much oil as possible. The trouble is, the solvents are difficult to extract at the end of the process, and ruin the end product.

Luckily some enterprising farmers, angry by the low price they were being paid for their rape, realised they could make a better return by crushing their own and sell for the same price as a quality Olive oil.

An even more interest fact is that local rapeseed oil could have some of the same anti allergenic qualities as local honey, helping hay fever and perhaps many other ailments.

Rapeseed oil direct from British farmers

Rapeseed oil direct from British farmers

This is why we should look local for the best food and drink. The more we communicate and buy, the more farmers are encouraged to grow more, and diversify. Likewise the more we buy the better economies of scale and the cheaper the produce will get.

To find your local rapeseed oil producer, or specialist, real, olive oil (a great deal of olive oil is blended with cheaper oils or has solvents in) and buy online we have lots of enterprising farmers in our MarketPlace. To make the delivery charge less of a burden, you can buy a larger quantity and share it with your friends.

If you have a favourite ‘oil’ recipe that you’d like to share, or any other recipe, and would like the chance to win a prize, please video your recipe and add it to KIS (Keep it Simple) Cookery. Please have a look at existing videos here and try and keep your video less than 2 minutes long.

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