03: Mediterranean Mystery: Katina Mountanos on How to Spot a Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Release Date: 08/04/2026
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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03: Mediterranean Mystery: Katina Mountanos on How to Spot a Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Essential Ingredients Podcast
“You can taste the quality.” —Katina Mountanos Most of what's labeled "extra virgin olive oil" on grocery shelves isn't giving you the extra virgin olive oil benefits you think it is — and Kosterina founder Katina Mountanos found that out the hard way. In this episode, Justine sits down with Katina to unpack why so much store-bought olive oil tastes flat, what polyphenols actually do in the body, and why the "don't cook with olive oil, it has a low smoke point" advice you've been following is flat-out wrong. Katina traces her obsession with real olive oil back to summers on her...
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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Essential Ingredients Podcast
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info_outline“You can taste the quality.” —Katina Mountanos
Most of what's labeled "extra virgin olive oil" on grocery shelves isn't giving you the extra virgin olive oil benefits you think it is — and Kosterina founder Katina Mountanos found that out the hard way.
In this episode, Justine sits down with Katina to unpack why so much store-bought olive oil tastes flat, what polyphenols actually do in the body, and why the "don't cook with olive oil, it has a low smoke point" advice you've been following is flat-out wrong.
Katina traces her obsession with real olive oil back to summers on her family's farm in Koroni, Greece — and the moment, years later, that a $12 bottle from a New York supermarket tasted nothing like it. That gap sent her through an olive oil sommelier certification, a deep dive into polyphenol research, and eventually a full-time business built on transparency: harvest dates, single-origin sourcing, and third-party testing for everything from acidity to microplastics.
This episode is for anyone who's stood in the oil aisle wondering which bottle is actually worth it, and for anyone rethinking what "seed oil vs olive oil" really means for their health.
• High-antioxidant extra-virgin olive oil can contain 500–1,000+ mg/kg of polyphenols, compared to roughly 150 mg/kg in average grocery-store bottles.
• Smoke point is not the right test for whether an oil is safe to cook with — free radical emission under heat is what actually matters, and olive oil emits far fewer than seed oils.
• A bottle labeled "Italian" or "Greek" extra-virgin olive oil can still be a blend of residual oils from multiple countries and harvests, bottled together under one label.
• Plastic packaging accelerates rancidity and can leach microplastics, so glass or tin with a visible harvest date is a stronger buying signal than the words "extra virgin" alone.
• Fresh, high-polyphenol olive oil produces a peppery burn at the back of the throat — the same sensation researchers first mistook for ibuprofen contamination.
• Cooking with avocado oil or genuine early-harvest olive oil, instead of canola or other seed oils, is a low-effort swap with a real anti-inflammatory upside.
Listen to the full conversation for Katina's grocery-aisle checklist and her at-home smell-and-taste test — then subscribe so you never miss an episode. https://tinyurl.com/Essential-Ingredients-Podcast
Meet Katina:
Katina Mountanos is the founder and CEO of Kosterina, a premium Greek extra virgin olive oil and Mediterranean foods brand built at the intersection of taste, health, and transparency. Raised between New York and the olive groves of Koroni, Greece, Katina grew up knowing what truly good olive oil should taste like. After becoming a certified olive oil sommelier and uncovering the powerful health benefits of high–polyphenol extra virgin olive oil, she launched Kosterina as a passion project while working in consumer brands at Walmart.
Today, Kosterina’s early-harvest, cold-pressed, high-antioxidant olive oils, fruit-infused vinegars, and olives are nationally available at Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, and online, and are recognized for both exceptional flavor and rigorous quality testing. Grounded in the Mediterranean diet, Katina’s work champions cooking at home, clean ingredients, and replacing inflammatory seed oils with olive oil to support heart, gut, metabolic, and overall health.
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Chapters:
00:52 Meet Katina Mountanos: Growing Up in Greek Olive Country
06:09 Why Kosterina's Polyphenol Levels Triple the Average
08:46 Building Kosterina as a Passion Project While at Walmart
14:26 Busting the Smoke Point Myth About Cooking With Olive Oil
16:51 Canola Oil, the "Hateful Eight," and Why Blends Deceive
19:09 How to Spot Real Extra Virgin Olive Oil at the Store
21:48 The Smell-and-Taste Test for Good Olive Oil at Home
27:31 What's Next: Vinegars, Olives, and a 2027 Launch
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