Unprocessed olives won't make you sick or kill you, but chances are you won't want to eat one. Olives right off of the tree contain a high concentration of a compound called oleuropein, which gives them a bitter taste.
When eaten raw, olives are extremely bitter and, for all intents and purposes, completely inedible. Not only is the texture completely different from what you'll find after they've been processed (they're more mealy and mushy), they also contain a substance called oleuropein that makes them bitter.
So while you will not get sick by eating raw olives, you will not enjoy eating them. All olives are cured before getting to you. This process gets rid of their extreme bitterness and also makes them 100% safe to eat.
While olives are edible straight from the tree, they are intensely bitter. Olives contain oleuropein and phenolic compounds, which must be removed or, at least, reduced to make the olive palatable.
While an olive fruit or olive oil allergy is rare, it's possible. You're more likely to have an allergic reaction to olive tree pollen than from the fruit itself. If you develop a food allergy to olives, it's best to avoid the fruit. Those particularly sensitive to olives may also be allergic to olive oil.
They can cause diarrhea.
The high content of fat in green olives oil is known to trigger gastrointestinal problems and cause digestive disorders, such as diarrhea. When you consume them in huge amounts, your system would be unable to digest them completely, which normally results in minor to moderate diarrhea.
As Smithsonian Magazine explains, beginning in 1919, a series of botulism outbreaks occurred due to a batch of poorly canned olives. The briny treats had been shipped from California, and were unknowingly harboring the deadly bacteria Clostridium botulinum. Botulism is a rare, but serious illness.
Olives, like many other kinds of produce such as potatoes and sour cherries, just aren't something that you eat raw. Unprocessed, straight off the tree, they are bitter, very bitter, and the green ones even more so than ones which have fully ripened to black.
Forget buying olives in a jar
That's because the olives we enjoy are essentially pickles. Whether steeped in oil or a salt brine, olives only become truly edible after curing. The raw fruit is bursting with oleuropein, a bitter compound that must be removed prior to eating.
Olives are packed with antioxidants, which have been shown to help with chronic inflammation. Two kinds of antioxidants found in olives, hydroxytyrosol and oleanolic acid, have been effective in reducing inflammation in animal test subjects.
According to the American Chemical Society (ACS), fresh olives contain an overwhelmingly bitter compound called oleuropein. This substance renders the stone fruit "absolutely disgusting" when eaten raw. While fresh olives are generally considered to be inedible, consuming one raw won't actually cause any harm.
You seal the jar, and what's inside? “That's a perfect cultural medium for botulism,” Taylor says. In 1919, olive-related botulism outbreaks started killing people. In August, 14 people got sick after a dinner party at a country club near Canton, Ohio.
The odds of contracting listeria are still extremely low. The avoidance of cured olives is simply to reduce an already-low risk. The best thing is to stick to heat-treated olives from a can or jar for the rest of your pregnancy, or heat up or cook the olives, which will kill most pathogens, including listeria.
To keep your saturated fat intake within the recommended guidelines, it's best to limit your intake to 2–3 ounces (56–84 grams) — about 16–24 small- to medium-sized olives — per day.
For eating out-of-hand, you can first dip the olives briefly into boiling water to remove salt, allow them to air dry, and then rub them with a little olive oil and add herbs, such as rosemary, before serving.
Raw olives are incredibly bitter, so once harvested they are cured and then usually preserved in salt or brine. The small, oval olive fruit has a flavour ranging from salty to mild and sweet.
Jarred olives
Jarred green olives are an unripe, raw product, and jarred black olives are a half-ripe raw product, but both are processed the same as canned olives — lye cured, and the black olives are oxidized. The difference, however, comes down to how they are preserved.
Nutritional value: Both green olives and black olives are nutritious, but if you're looking for the healthiest olive option, green wins by a narrow margin. The reason is that green olives tend to be higher in polyphenols (antioxidants with anti-inflammatory benefits) than black olives.
Though olives are perfectly fine to consume straight from the jar, we recommend that you rinse them under cool water before serving. This removes most of the brine and sodium that coat the olive and can take away from the actual flavor. If you are watching your sodium intake rinsing is a must.
Do jars and tubs of olives need to be refrigerated after the container is opened? The company said no, if they are handled correctly. That means if the olives are kept submerged in their brine and kept out of heat and direct sunlight, they will last up to six months at room temperature.
The classic symptoms of botulism include double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth and muscle weakness that goes down the body, first the shoulders, then upper arms, lower arms, thighs, calves, feet. If untreated these symptoms may progress to paralysis.
Any change in appearance or smell is bad news. For example, if the olives smell kind of funky, or start to look shriveled or discolored, you should bid them adieu.