I recently wrote about how olive oil has become my main dietary source of fat since I took a gene test that showed I don’t do well with saturated fat. Tony is the man behind my favorite brand of olive oil, Kasandrinos International, which he single-sources through family farms in Greece. In this episode we’ll explain more about what that means, how to find and appreciate a great quality olive oil, and why this oil is such a great source of health benefits (and amazing taste!) when it comes from the right source.
You’ll also want to check out the show notes below for some special discount codes on Kasandrinos olive oil just for Wellness Mama podcast listeners.
Episode Highlights With Kasandrinos International
- Why freshness matters when it comes to olive oil
- How much olive oil most people in Mediterranean/Blue Zone diets consume in a week
- Why olive oil is so much better for you than vegetable oil
- How to recognize a good quality olive oil, and some pitfalls to look out for
- Whether or not you should cook with olive oil, and why it’s such a controversy
- How olive oil works for me as a headache remedy
- Using olive oil in beauty products: why it works
- What a Mediterranean diet actually looks like
- Why the way you eat may matter just as much as what you eat
- Pesticides used on olive trees and why organic is the way to go
- And more!
Resources We Mention
- Kasandrinos Olive Oil
- First-time subscribers save 50% off your initial order with code WELLNESSMAMA50
- Or save 25% on a one-time order with WELLNESSMAMA25
- Alitura Naturals
- Engineering the Alpha by Adam Bornstein & John Romaniello
More From Wellness Mama
- 276: What You Need to Know About Olive Oil With Tony Kasandrinos
- 631: The One About Oils and Fats – Short Episode
- Olive Oil Benefits (& How to Choose One that Isn’t Fake!)
- Garlic Olive Oil Remedy for Ear Infections
Did you enjoy this episode? Do you have any questions for Tony or me? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.
[toggle title=”Read Transcript”]
Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. You’ve heard me talk about them a lot and it’s because I love them so much. Their products are a regular part of my life and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t use at least one of their products in a given day. My hands down favorite is their coffee with Lions Mane and there are two ways I drink it… they make convenient packets that are great for adding to hot water for instant coffee on the go, and they make ground coffee with Lion’s Mane that is great for brewing just like you would any other ground coffee. Neither of these tastes like mushrooms… they taste just like coffee but provide the added boost from Lion’s Mane, which gives me clean energy and focus all day without the jitters or acidity of some other coffee products. I also love the coffee packets for the popular dalgona coffee that’s making the rounds on social media right now and I make it with Coffee with Lion’s Mane packets and coconut sugar for a delicious iced coffee treat. Check out this and all of their products at foursigmatic.com/wellnessmama and code wellnessmama gives 15% off.
This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse, my new personal care company that is based on the recipes I’ve been making at home in my kitchen for decades. Many “clean” products simply don’t work and this is why I have spent the last decade researching and perfecting recipes for products that not only eliminate toxic chemicals but contain ingredients that work better than their conventional alternatives and that nourish your body from the outside in. I’m so excited to finally share these products with you and wanted to tell you about our brand new dry shampoo! It can be used various ways. You can sprinkle it in clean hair to add volume and to extend time between washes, sprinkle it in hair that has not been washed in a day or two to absorb oil or sweat and you can work in to color treated hair to maintain color-treated hair by not having to wash as often. It contains oil-absorbing kaolin clay and volume-boosting tapioca which work together to refresh hair at the roots. Lavender oil and cactus flower help to balance scalp and strands’ natural pH. We even added hibiscus for healthy hair growth. You can check it out and try it at wellnesse.com and my tip is to grab a bundle to save or subscribe and save as well!
Katie: Hello. Welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com, that’s wellnesse with an E on the end, which is my new line of personal care products, like hair care, hand sanitizer, and toothpaste.
This episode is about all things olive oil, which is a huge staple in my diet and my main dietary source of fat since discovering that I have genes that make me not do so well with saturated fat. So, I’ve been limiting saturated fat and focusing on a lot of seafood and a whole lot of olive oil, like, to the tune of a liter a week to get enough calories most weeks.
I’m here with a good friend of mine, Tony Kasandrinos, who is the co-founder of Kasandrinos Olive Oil, which is a single-sourced olive oil through family farms in Greece. And we delve into all things about the benefits of olive oil, about the Mediterranean diet, how to source a good olive oil, and so much more. You’re also going to want to check out the show notes at wellnessmama.fm for some special discount codes where you can save up to 50% on their olive oil. He was able to give an amazing discount for you guys as listeners. You could also find that by going to wellnessmama.com/go/olive-oil, but that link will also be in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, so it’s probably easier to find it there. But make sure to grab that discount of up to 50%, depending on how you order.
And without further ado, let’s jump in and learn about all things olive oil.
Tony, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
Tony: Oh, thank you. It’s my pleasure.
Katie: I’m excited to have you back because you were a really fun guest the first time around, and also I have learned so much more since our first interview about olive oil and its many benefits. And it has become actually my primary fat source in my diet, which I can talk about a little bit later in the episode. But I’m excited to have you on to learn more about this and especially because you have a very direct expertise. So, to start, I would love to delve into some things that people don’t know or understand when it comes to olive oil.
Tony: So, we’ll touch on a few things. I think one of the big misconceptions is olive oil is like wine because they come in nice bottles, and they come from the same region of the world. But olive oil is actually a fruit juice, and it does not get better with time like wine does. So, the key is to really consume that olive oil as quickly as possible. That’s really kind of what sets us apart from most olive oils out there. We kind of looked at the whole industry as a whole.
As we were starting, we talked in the last podcast how we got our start, and it was really just sharing our family’s olive oil with our family and friends that are here in the States. And as it grew and grew, we really had to look at, “Okay. Do we want to put our olive oil into stores where we kind of lose the quality control of how that olive oil is stored and when it’s sold?” We came to a decision that, “No, we do not want to” because we want to really offer our customers the most fresh fruit juice possible.
Now, that being said, it will stay long for a few…it’ll stay good for a few years, but it will degrade over time. And there’s a few other little factors like, when did you actually crack the seal on that bottle? Did you seal it properly once it was opened? What temperature was it stored at? Was it stored in the light, or was it, like, in a dark cabinet where it should be? So there’s quite a few other factors that go into how long and how fresh an olive oil will stay. But that’s definitely a misconception out there is that it’ll stay good for, you know, years, and, unfortunately, it doesn’t. All the positive properties inside the olive oil, they will degrade. So that’s definitely one of the big topics when it comes to the olive oil and the olive oil industry is how long is that olive oil good for.
Katie: That makes sense. So, give us a quick refresher of what are some of those beneficial properties in olive oil. I know there’s been so many studies done about the benefits of olive oil. But what are some of those main factors that are important to know about?
Tony: Yeah. So, you know, being that olive oil has been around for literally thousands of years, and in many countries, that was your main…primary source of fat outside of animal fat, there has been a ton of studies done like literally thousands. Some of the really key benefits to it is, you know, it has been proven to reduce inflammation. It has been proven to be, you know, very heart-healthy food to ingest. It’s been proven to boost brain health. You know, like, we discussed offline, the people of the Mediterranean, especially in their older years, in their ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, you will definitely see a difference in their quality of life and how active they are and how they live. I’m personally a firm believer that that comes from the foods that they eat and how active they are along with living a much more stress-free life than we do. And if you look at, you know, Spain or Italy or Greece or Tunisia, basically everywhere around the Mediterranean, olive oil is the base of basically every single meal from…I mean, everything is basically cooked in it or slathered in it after it’s been cooked or it’s eaten raw. So, yep, the olive oil is definitely, like, just the foundation of health and of everything you do eating-wise when it comes to that region of the world.
Katie: Yeah. I read the stat that was pretty amazing to me that in Greece, a person eats on average 26 liters of olive oil per year, which is essentially a liter every couple weeks, which is a pretty amazing statistic. And I’ve also had Dr. Gundry on this podcast, and he actually recommends more than that. He says he consumes and recommends a liter per week of olive oil, which was really staggering to me. But like you mentioned, there are so many studies about the benefits of olive oil, which as a monounsaturated fat doesn’t have some of the issues that other types of fats have. So we all probably heard, if you’ve listened to me for a while, you know that polyunsaturated fats, especially processed polyunsaturated fats like vegetable oils, can be really problematic for most people.
I’m still a big believer that saturated fats can absolutely be healthy but with the caveat that some people don’t do well with them based on genes. And they can either raise glucose, which seems counterintuitive or lead to potentially other problems. So people with ApoE4 genes, for instance, typically want to avoid certain types of saturated fat. Olive oil being a monounsaturated fat is exempt from a lot of those problems. So it makes it a fat that you can consume in large amounts from what the studies say very, very safely. And so it’s my main source of…probably my main source of calories other than fatty fish in my diet but also something I consume close to that rate that Dr. Gundry recommends. I’m curious both on a personal level and just from what you’ve seen in the data how much olive oil you consume and how much you recommend.
Tony: It changes honestly during what time of year are we at. And this is just something I’ve noticed in myself. When I’m in Greece, I definitely, which is usually a month or two out of the year, consume a lot more just because of the non-stop fresh vegetables, and we just pour a ton of it on those. And even here in the States, basically, when I’m eating Greek salads, which is summertime and early fall here in Nevada, I’m probably consuming I would say close to a liter a week. I mean, I’ve got, like, a pretty big source of olive oil. In the wintertime, I don’t eat as much. Now we do cook with it. I bake with it, but I do love finishing with it as well. So, like, if I cook lamb chops, I’m probably putting some olive oil on after the fact…after it’s cooked. It changes. I mean, I’d say maybe like half…maybe 500 milliliters, half a liter a week during the winter months when I’m not eating as many fresh vegetables.
And just so people know exactly how much that is, your average tree produces about 4 to 8 liters of olive oil a year, which only happens once a year. If you’re doing a liter a week, you’re pretty much consuming close to an entire olive tree. So, one person can very easily consume 10 trees worth of olive oil a year. So, it’s just an interesting little fun fact. And, you know, really, what I try to explain to people when they are consuming olive oil, especially our customers that go through a lot because, you know, we have some customers that they’ll just have, like, one bottle every few months, and I’ve got some that go through three-liter cans that are pretty big. You know, they’re going through one or two of those a month. So it’s really, like, this is what goes into that bottle. And we were talking about this before.
But when you really are connected with the process and see, “This is what goes into making this bottle of olive oil that we’re, you know, bringing here to the States and sharing with our customers,” you really see, “Okay. This is really what I’m consuming.” It’s not just liquid in a bottle, but it’s everything that went into creating that olive oil. That really is an entire year process because they only do fruit, you know, one time a year, and that’s it. So, just an interesting thing about what actually goes into making that olive oil.
Katie: That’s really fascinating and amazing to think that some of us are eating many, many trees worth of olive oil per year. I know one thing I do often is if I ever get a headache, I found that just, like, a sip of olive oil almost always breaks the headache. I would guess maybe because of the antioxidants. I don’t really actually know the reason, but that’s a fun trick I found. But you’re right. We know from the studies…I feel like actually, most sources agree on olive oil, it’s one of those few foods that doesn’t take a lot of heat from any source, but we know that it’s very high in certain antioxidants. And they think that could be the reason it is correlated with reduced risk of things like heart disease and stroke, even type 2 diabetes, which is interesting. I think all of those share the commonality of being inflammatory diseases in a certain way. But they think that certain antioxidant compounds in olive oil even aid in glucose metabolism. So, that could also be maybe another reason for the headache connection. One thing I know that comes up when it comes to olive oil, there’s a lot of kind of mixed opinions on if it’s good for cooking because of the heat…smoke point and the heat point. What are your thoughts on that? Is it a good cooking oil?
Tony: Talking about this is like talking about politics or religion. I get this question all the time. And I’ve seen studies that say it’s fine to cook with it. I’ve seen other studies that say, “No, you don’t cook with it.” I will just give you Tony’s opinion. I’ve been cooking with it my entire life since…or my parents, since when I was a little kid. My grandparents and everybody in my family definitely does cook with it. That being said, I don’t, you know, get it to a point where it’s so hot where it is smoking. But we definitely cook meat in it, we cook vegetables in it, and we also consume it raw. So, as far as what we do, we definitely cook with it.
Katie: I do as well. When I read through all the research, I felt still very comfortable cooking with it, and I also typically add it to food after cooking as well just for extra healthy fats but, yeah, same thing on our end. One thing I do a lot is use it in baked goods in place of like butter or coconut oil, which I have found actually seems to extend the shelf life of these, and I’m guessing because of the polyphenols in olive oil. But it also just gives it a much richer taste. Any other cooking tips you would give since I know you’ve…this has been part of your culture and your cooking since the very beginning?
Tony: Yeah. I mean, it’s really…it’s limitless. Actually, I learn new things all the time, which is really cool, and actually, sometimes I learn them from my customers. I was actually on the phone with one of our customers yesterday, and she was telling me that her daughter puts it in her oatmeal in the morning. I was like, “Okay. That’s a first” and even, like, on ice cream. So, the best thing that I really like to tell people, just try it out with new different things even if it’s kind of, like, totally off the wall or you wouldn’t think you would eat it like that. But for me, honestly, like, my favorite…it’s not even a trick, but it’s my favorite thing to do. And I’m just gonna give people, like, the recipe because it’s simple, and it takes two seconds. But it’s a prototypical… It’s a Greek salad. It’s tomatoes, cucumbers, some olives, some onion, and oregano and salt, and then just drown it in olive oil and actually let it sit for a good hour and then eat it. And it’s, like, literally my staple every day during the summer, which is a great, refreshing, healthy, great meal.
But with that…with the olives, I guess this is a little secret or trick, and it’s a little time-consuming but we actually…and we’re gonna be bringing these to America probably next year but is the olives themselves, we actually take a very fine, like, little razor blade and slice the olives usually one or two slices in each olive, and then we’ll marinate those olives in olive oil and spices for a few months. And then when you eat those olives, they’re gonna be much better tasting than had they been just in brine. So, that’s I guess my little trick with olive oil.
Katie: Nice. That’s a great one to know. Okay. So I also want to talk about olive oil topically because…this is something I’ve originally used, but I haven’t actually delved into the research very much. But I have found that olive oil is the best moisturizer for my skin, and I use it before going in the sun as well. But is there any data that you’ve seen on the benefits of olive oil topically?
Tony: Yeah. I mean, there’s been a bunch of studies on how people use it, you know, literally on their skin, whether it’s for dry skin or for eczema or for…you know, people use it in their hair as a moisturizer. I know like Andy over at Alitura uses it in his skincare products, you know. It’s been being used on skin for literally thousands of years. The great thing is there’s no chemicals in it outside of just, you know, the compounds that make up olive oil. You know, there’s no fragrances in there. There’s no pretty much anything but the juice of the olive. And common sense-wise, you know, when it comes to putting things in or on our body, I’m going with a natural product 10 out of 10 times, you know. But, yeah, people have been doing it forever. It’s really limitless what you can do with it. Even if you go into, like, oil pulling with olive oil or just putting it in your hair, on your face, over your body, it’s really pretty limitless what you can do with it, and even with your pets. I know my mom, her Shih Tzu was having some skin issues, and she started putting olive oil on it, and a few weeks later, it was gone.
Katie: That’s fascinating. I hadn’t even thought about the pet uses, but I know we have a lot of people with pets who listen. And that’s great to know. I also wanna circle back. So, you mentioned the Mediterranean diet which I’m sure everyone has heard of that like many, many sources point to this as a very long-term, sustainable, balanced approach to nutrition that seems to reduce the risk of a lot of problems and improve a lot of longevity factors. Parts of Greece are known as blue zones, and in general, Greece has a reputation for having a lot of healthy and as you mentioned active people. So, I would love to delve into that a little bit more. So as someone who grew up partially there and who has been there more than probably most of us listening have, walk us through what the actual Mediterranean diet looks like.
Tony: So, it will alter a little bit based on the exact region, and even though Greece is a tiny, little country, I mean, it’s about the size of New Jersey, depending on where in the country you live, the diet is actually gonna be very different like if you’re up in the mountains or along the coast. But it is definitely very high in fruits and vegetables and the fruits more in the summertime like figs. That’s actually one of my favorite parts of Greece is the figs. Yeah. So it’s gonna really consist around a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Meats, you’re really not eating much beef there like we eat here. It’s more gonna be lamb or goat or pork as far as your land animals. And then fresh seafood is always very abundant and very common in meals, especially along the coast. Now, if you’re up in the mountains, you’re not gonna be having too much fish. And a lot of nuts as well and a lot of beans.
The real thing, you know, it’s really just real natural food. You’re not having a lot of processed foods, although that’s starting to trickle its way into the country as things just become easier. But when you get into your villages and kind of your real traditional Mediterranean diet, at the end of the day, it’s a lot of vegetables. I hate to, like, make it sound so simple, but it really is simple. It’s fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and some meat and seafood with lots of olive oil. You will have cheeses as well. Feta is definitely at every meal in Greece. But other than that, that’s really, you know, what we’re eating over there. And then you will have your desserts and pastries, but that’s it, once in a while, and wine. I can’t forget about wine. Wine is very common even at lunchtime to have. And we’re not talking like glasses of wine but to have a small glass of wine at lunch is very common.
Katie: That’s so fascinating. I’m so curious about the idea of blue zones and, you know, just places in the world where we’re seeing a higher concentration of healthy people, and it’s on my list to visit a lot of these places. But I also wonder if…because Americans, we love to find, like, the single approach and just try to systematize it and do that one thing and double down on it. And I’ve always wondered if we just applied those same factors here in the western culture if it would actually have the same effect. Because I suspect that it’s also part of what’s built into the culture that makes those things so beneficial. So in other words, it seems, like, from what I’ve read, and you could know much better than I would obviously, that in Greece, in places like Italy, people eat in community much more often. And it’s much more slow and calm and focused on relationship than this fast-paced I’m just gonna eat really quick on the go. So, I wonder, you know, if we ate the same foods but we were in that same sympathetic state, rushed all the time, still stressed out, if it would have the same effect. How much of a role do you think community plays over there?
Tony: Huge. I mean, everything is, you know, family, friends, and really everything. Almost your whole day revolves around eating, but it’s not like you’re eating the entire time. But the actual process of sitting down at a table and being with your family and friends and sitting there for probably, like, three to four hours, it’s not uncommon. I don’t think you’d ever really go to dinner in Greece, like, in a village setting and be done within three hours. Like that’s almost unheard of, and it’s very rare where you’ll see people just eating alone or in front of a TV. Like, they’re just things that we do here in America where it’s like, “Okay. I gotta eat. I gotta cook something really quick and eat it and then go do whatever.” Like that’s not how it is over there. It’s a very different process. Now, we’ll say breakfast is usually a quick meal. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. And then you usually in the summertime you have siesta after lunch, which is cool.
And then dinner is usually very late compared to our standards. If you were to go to dinner at 7 p.m., you would find that most restaurants are still closed outside of Athens. You know, once you get into, like, the non-touristy parts of Greece, most restaurants don’t even open until 8:00, and they’re not really…people aren’t really going there until about 9 p.m. And then they’ll stay there until, like, 1:00, you know. It’s a much more relaxed, slower process than it is here. And, you know, there’s a few other things that come into play there, whether it’s…it’s a much more stress-free environment just being there. So we might be able to replicate it here in the States, but, I think, there’s just a lot of other factors that come into play that would have to be taken into account from, you know, people are walking a lot more, and they’re generally walking vertically because everything’s very hilly or mountainous over there. So you’re getting a lot more movement and you’re also getting…in most cases, not in all, but you’re getting fresher food. Generally if you’re eating fish in Greece, it was caught the day before or that morning.
The vegetables and the fruits are generally grown in the backyard of many restaurants. That whole really being connected to your food, it’s usually right there in front of your face. Most places outside of Athens, and I say Athens because Athens is a very large, big city, and it’s different than down in the villages… But in a village setting, it’s a much more sustainable, closer to your food environment and, I think, between living a more stress-free life, between being a lot more active and being active all day long and every day, and just really taking your time to prepare food and to sit down and eat food and really have that social experience that over there is really normal but over here seems it, like, it really only happens at holidays, so, yeah, that’s kind of the difference that I see from my experience of being in America and being in Greece.
Katie: That makes sense. It makes me wanna move to Greece, too.
This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. You’ve heard me talk about them a lot and it’s because I love them so much. Their products are a regular part of my life and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t use at least one of their products in a given day. My hands down favorite is their coffee with Lions Mane and there are two ways I drink it… they make convenient packets that are great for adding to hot water for instant coffee on the go, and they make ground coffee with Lion’s Mane that is great for brewing just like you would any other ground coffee. Neither of these tastes like mushrooms… they taste just like coffee but provide the added boost from Lion’s Mane, which gives me clean energy and focus all day without the jitters or acidity of some other coffee products. I also love the coffee packets for the popular dalgona coffee that’s making the rounds on social media right now and I make it with Coffee with Lion’s Mane packets and coconut sugar for a delicious iced coffee treat. Check out this and all of their products at foursigmatic.com/wellnessmama and code wellnessmama gives 15% off.
This podcast is brought to you by Wellnesse, my new personal care company that is based on the recipes I’ve been making at home in my kitchen for decades. Many “clean” products simply don’t work and this is why I have spent the last decade researching and perfecting recipes for products that not only eliminate toxic chemicals but contain ingredients that work better than their conventional alternatives and that nourish your body from the outside in. I’m so excited to finally share these products with you and wanted to tell you about our brand new dry shampoo! It can be used various ways. You can sprinkle it in clean hair to add volume and to extend time between washes, sprinkle it in hair that has not been washed in a day or two to absorb oil or sweat and you can work in to color treated hair to maintain color-treated hair by not having to wash as often. It contains oil-absorbing kaolin clay and volume-boosting tapioca which work together to refresh hair at the roots. Lavender oil and cactus flower help to balance scalp and strands’ natural pH. We even added hibiscus for healthy hair growth. You can check it out and try it at wellnesse.com and my tip is to grab a bundle to save or subscribe and save as well!
I love that you brought up a couple times the idea of being in touch with your food and how important freshness is. And, I think, that is one thing certainly we can and should learn from in the U.S. is we all have the ability to be more in touch with our food in some way, whether it’s growing sprouts in our kitchen or having a backyard garden or shopping at a farmers market. And, I think, that’s an easy step that not only makes food much more delicious but also gives us that relationship with our food. And I know this was a driving force for you guys as well. Can you explain why freshness and single source is so important when it comes to olive oil?
Tony: No, definitely. It’s actually in my opinion by far the most important thing. And, I think, we talked about it the last time, but really how we started our company was literally just sharing our family olive oil with family and friends and then creating a website where our friends can go and buy it. We never had the intent of starting a business, but that’s what it turned into. And we really try and keep that on the forefront today. We do this company because we really love it, and we love sharing our olive oil with people. And, you know, it’s a way that we can kind of give you Greece in a bottle, I guess.
That being said, you know, the number one most important thing with an olive oil is getting it fresh and getting it as soon as possible after it has been harvested. And in the Northern Hemisphere, olive oil is harvested from about October to late February. We really strive to get it to our customers as soon as possible. And we don’t bring over tons and tons of oil and then sell it to stores where it might sit on a shelf for, you know, who knows how long underneath the light, which damages the polyphenols and the chemical properties of the olive oil, which take away some of the health benefits. So the key when it comes to getting an olive oil, you know, whether it’s ours or another olive oil, is, one, kind of knowing your source because you really want an organic oil.
Because, like we just said earlier, this is a fruit juice, and pesticides are, you know, sprayed on olive trees just like any other fruit tree to produce more olives and olive oil. So you really wanna look for an organic source that is not doing that. So that’s the first step. After that, you know, you really wanna just get it the freshest thing you can. Like with anything, it’s best to go right to the source. So if you can go directly to an olive oil company or, you know, our olive oil company or any other one, whether it’s local, whether in California or from Europe, is really just going right to the source so you can get the best thing possible. Because, unfortunately, when it goes through the distribution process of getting on a store shelf, you’re adding a lot of time onto that whole process of getting off of a tree and turning it into oil and getting it on your kitchen counter.
Now, over in Europe, you really don’t have that problem as much just because that’s where over 90% of the world’s olive oil comes from is right around the Mediterranean. So it’s very easy. But, you know, coming over here to the States and just because, you know, we’re so large population-wise and people do consume a lot of it, you know, the actual age of the oil kind of gets lost in what people are buying, you know, and they’re really not even…a lot of people aren’t even thinking about it. It’s not their fault. They didn’t really know, “Hey, I should probably be getting the freshest stuff available.”
It’s really something that when we’re talking to customers or I’m on a podcast like this and just trying to tell people I was like, “That is the number one thing you need to be looking for.” And every bottle should have the harvest date or the production date of that product. If it doesn’t because it’s not required to be on the bottle, I wouldn’t even touch it honestly. So, just really trying to get back to the source of where your food is coming from.
Katie: Absolutely. And you mentioned you have customers who go through those three-liter ones monthly, and we actually go through a couple of those monthly because it’s our main cooking oil. But to that note, before we move on, I wanna make sure I mention, and I’ll put the links in the show notes with the specific at wellnessmama.fm, but I know you guys have, like, a special deal for new subscribers, and that’s what we’ve done because then I don’t have to think about it, and we always have olive oil on hand. But can you talk about that?
Tony: Yeah. You know, on our website, you can purchase our olive oil, you know, just whenever you want whether it’s, you know, once a month or once every six months or once a year or you can do our subscribe and save option as well. We do that. It just makes it easier so you don’t run out, especially if you kind of know how much you use. We’re very flexible with it. People can get it delivered once a month or every two months, every three months. Those are the options on the website. If you wanna do it every six months, just shoot us an email. We can do it very easily. So that’s, like, kind of the benefit to the customer is hey, “I’ve always got my amount of olive oil that I personally consume as a brand.”
And we’re a very small company. We plan on staying that way because we really like to focus on quality instead of just massive volume. It helps us because we do bring our olive oil over to the States quarterly. So, if we know, “Hey, this is how much we have coming in from people who are on a regular basis subscription,” it allows us to really kind of guesstimate how much we need to bring over. The link you put in there, it gives customers a few different options of what they can order, but the discount code that you have is good for anything on our website. So if they do wanna get the big three liter cans or even the smaller little travel packets that we have, it’s pretty much…it’s good for anything on there.
Katie: Amazing. And then a couple, not necessarily related to olive oil, questions I love to ask for the end of interviews, the first being if there is a book or a number of books that have had a dramatic impact on your life, and if so, what they are and why.
Tony: I’ve read quite a few different books, you know, whether it comes to, like, military type books or finance books, health, and fitness. I would say, like, the one book that I kind of always keep at a forefront and I go back to, I literally have, like, highlighters in there and tabs, would be a book by John Romelo…Romaniello, sorry, I mispronounced his name, called “Engineering the Alpha.” It’s more of a…geared towards men. It’s kind of a fitness book, but it’s also, like, a life book in my opinion. It kind of breaks it down from a whole health approach to nutrition to training.
So I’ve read a lot of, like, amazing books, but I would say that’s probably been the most influential and the one that I go back to probably, like, on a monthly basis. You know, I just, like, read little blurbs of it or, you know, if I get to where, “Hey, I gotta really hit the gym hard,” I go back to, like, some of the training in there. Yeah. I’ll say that’s probably definitely the most influential book and continues to be. It’s not, like, I read it one time, and it changed my life or anything. But it’s something I just go back to very often.
Katie: That’s a great one. My husband likes that one as well. I’ll make sure I link to that in the show notes, too. So maybe that’s a great gift, for any woman listening, for the guy in your life, if you’re trying to, you know, kind of subtly get him on board with stuff, that could be a good starting point. And then lastly, is there any advice, it could be life advice, it doesn’t have to be related to health, but it can be, that you want to leave with the audience today?
Tony: It’s probably the same thing I said last time but, like, move every day and especially walk. You know, like, I think, we’ve really gotten away from that. And the last time we talked, I was still on active duty before I retired, but it’s something I started years ago, and every morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, like, I go for a walk, whether it’s 30 minutes or sometimes 60 minutes or sometimes I’m like, “I’m gonna walk all the way to Effi’s house,” which is, like, two hours. Effi is my sister.
Yeah. I think we’ve really gotten away from that, and it’s something that kind of has been a staple in my life. And I really think the rest of my day is better because of it. I’ll usually follow it up with, like, a quick little 10-minute, you know, bodyweight type workout, push-ups, sit-ups, just kind of mix it up, whatever. Yeah. I just think, you know, sometimes we get really focused on work and kids and just all the other things that are involved in life and don’t take a little bit of time first thing in the morning to really dedicate to ourselves and just start the day like that.
Katie: Such great advice. I know I mentioned it before on the podcast, but one of my best life tips is very much in line with that and is also a free thing to do which is as soon as possible after getting up, just go outside and hopefully exercise. But even if you can’t exercise, just spend time out there as soon as possible after you wake up and let the light hit your skin and your eyes. That leads to so many beneficial hormone cascades throughout the day, including things that improve sleep at night. And to your point, it’s bonus points if you can do it while walking or moving or yoga or whatever is your form of movement. I think anytime we can stack healthy habits like that, it gets us to health faster.
Tony: Definitely.
Katie: Awesome. Well, Tony, I appreciate so much what you do. I had to have you back on because your olive oil is, like I said, very much a daily part of my life. And I do very much consume a liter a week at this point. I’m grateful for you and the sourcing that you guys have and that it shows up in my house, and I don’t have to think about it. And for any of you guys listening, make sure you check out the show notes at wellnessmama.fm to get that discount code and figure out how to get the discount because that’s been amazing for our family, and we use it for everything. But, Tony, congratulations on your recent engagement. Thank you for all that you do and thanks for being here again.
Tony: Oh, my pleasure.
Katie: And thanks as always to all of you for listening and for sharing your most valuable asset, your time, with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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