Squeezed Greeks get taste for lowly street olives

Not acold from 1 of Athens’ busiest highways, passing motorists stop and stare astatine the bucolic cultivation country going connected successful beforehand of them connected the streets of Glyfada.

Nets spread retired connected the ground, workers picked olives beside a autobus stop.

With hundreds of olive trees connected its streets, the seaside suburb deed upon the thought of harvesting their olives to marque lipid for its poorer citizens a decennary ago.

Several different Athens suburbs person since followed. The western larboard of Patras besides does the same, and Greece’s 2nd metropolis Thessaloniki joined them this year.

“In summation to keeping the valuable effect from being lost… this nurtures the olive trees and besides protects pedestrians” from slippery sidewalk accidents, the Athens municipality of Alimos said when it appealed for volunteers to assistance prime its olives earlier this month.

A staple successful the Mediterranean fare for centuries, a one-litre vessel of olive lipid present costs betwixt 9 and 18 euros ($9.50-19) connected supermarket shelves successful Greece.

But the Glyfada olive harvest, estimated astatine astir 1 tonne of olives this year, is being fixed distant for free.

A municipality worker harvests olives from trees planted connected the sidewalks successful Glyfada, south of Athens. Photo: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP

‘Good oil’

“This is bully oil… each of Greece makes bully olive oil,” said Stavros Giakoumakis, the council’s lawman politician for greenery, who has overseen the task since 2014.

“Our onshore is the onshore of plenty, boys. Whatever we works takes root,” gushed the 70-year-old, who besides makes lipid from his ain olive trees connected his autochthonal land of Crete.

“If each municipality did the same, vulnerable families would person capable olive lipid to past the year,” helium said.

Local nonmigratory Eleni Papachristopoulou, who moved to the country successful the 1970s, said the trees connected her street were planted implicit 50 years ago.

“For years, the olives would autumn connected the crushed and cipher picked them up,” she said.

With Spain and Italy, Greece is simply a large EU olive lipid shaper and has the highest yearly depletion per capita successful the bloc astatine astir 12 kilograms per person, according to EU figures.

Glyfada’s street lipid tastes tangy and stings the pharynx – some signs of purity.

A abbreviated region from 1 of Athens’ busiest highways, a radical of workers from the municipality territory of Glyfada is engaged successful an unusual cultivation enactment that makes passing motorists stop and stare. Photo: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP

Pollution concerns

But wellness experts caution that nutrient grown successful municipality areas should beryllium tested for harmful chemicals.

A backstage radical of experts, the Scientific Society of Olive Encyclopedists (4E), this period warned that “olive lipid that comes from streets with accrued traffic… is burdened with pollutants which successful precocious concentrations represent unsafe chemicals.”

Of peculiar interest are mineral lipid aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAHs), which according to the European Food Safety Authority tin participate done biology contamination, and whitethorn harm DNA and origin cancer.

“Olive trees successful areas where the ambiance is polluted by exhaust gases whitethorn person an accrued magnitude of MOAHs successful the fruit, and consequently besides successful olive oil,” said 4E subordinate Constantinos Demopoulos, emeritus prof of biochemistry and nutrient chemistry astatine the University of Athens.

“Unlabelled olive lipid that circulates under the antagonistic whitethorn not person the required composition, not needfully retired of malice but due to the fact that of ignorance. I would not devour olive lipid that has not been analysed, adjacent if it came from a friend,” helium told AFP.

4E warned that section councils “appear to beryllium unaware” of the risks, and that the inspection of street olive lipid usually focuses connected acidity and different characteristics.

Additional tests required to observe the beingness of fossil substance hydrocarbons necessitate much “specialised” laboratories and travel astatine a higher cost, it said.

At Greece’s state chemic laboratory, the country’s foremost authority, acidity tests outgo 20 euros. Aromatic hydrocarbons tests outgo betwixt 150 and 180 euros.

Papachristopoulou said she was well alert of the contamination debate.

“We are worried, very overmuch so. But radical devour (the olives) – σύντομα they won’t person different options anyway,” she said.

Source: AFP