Stuffed olives are a processed food with few real ingredients

Stuffed olives are one of the great successes of the food industry, which we have become accustomed to, knowing that they can be more expensive than if we bought olives with a pit. Furthermore, not all fillings literally correspond to what is stated on the label. So it could be that they do not contain pepper, anchovy, tuna, salmon or cheese, but rather "a reconstituted paste, formed by crushed pepper, thickeners, texture enhancers, flavor enhancers and food stabilizers that maintain its shape and preserve it for months," states dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols.

And it is a shame, because olives are, initially, as good as extra virgin olive oil: they provide the body with monounsaturated fats and also antioxidant compounds (polyphenols). Furthermore, olives, like yogurts or gherkins, are a fermented food, which means they provide billions of active bacteria to our body. That is to say, if we define olives nutritionally, we must say that they are healthy and nutritious, but everything becomes complicated with manipulation: the industry preserves them with large quantities of salt, and manipulates them to stuff them with ingredients that are pastes of, that is to say, they are not olives stuffed with anchovies or peppers as they say in large letters, but rather manipulated pastes that contain a part of these original ingredients. And if not, check it if you have them at home. Turn the round pot over and look for the fine print. You will find that it says "anchovy paste", and then the percentage of what is in it, which is not even a tenth: it is usually 6%. Next, next to the explanation of the paste made from anchovy (or pepper and cheese paste), there are all sorts of ingredients that make those olives have more flavor, more aroma, more taste. They are manipulated to make us like them more. That is why they contain this whole list of ingredients, which, so as not to bore you, I will mention a few because it can still be more extensive: sodium alginate (they add it so that the anchovy does not break down over time), yeast extract, flavor enhancer (E621), thickener (E401) and acidulant (E330).

More expensive than pitted ones

: after stuffing them, coat them and fry them a turn in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. Or another chef's trick, in this case from the : after stuffing them, bread them and fry them for a moment in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. Or another chef's trick, in this case from the chefs at the Franca restaurant: pass your stuffed olives, for a moment, on a hot griddle. Eat them hot! A real pleasure for the senses!

To finish, if you are one of those who dream of olives, of those who think you cannot go a day without eating them, also know that the nutritional recommendation is to ingest a small portion due to the high sodium content they contain. If you macerate them yourselves, you will have no problem.