Are White Dots on Olives Safe to Eat?

[Monique]

I bought some olives today, prepackaged ones that are not on oil (only a little). I just opened the package and there are white dots on the olives in certain places, at first I thought it were mites (the ones you get on roses), but it's not. It could be mold, but it's not fibrous, but I can whipe it off.

So.. are they still good? I tasted one before I noticed the white stuff and they were the best I ever tasted (there's a remark on the package that they won a best food award and a separate technology prize for quality and best trade )

In the ingredients it says it contains potasium sorbate as a preservative agent, could it be that what I'm seeing?

 

[out of whack]

I see this and http://www.starfinefoods.com/faq.html. But even though these harmless spores appear as white dots, all white dots are not necessarily harmless spores. The responsible thing to do is to first feed a couple of olives to your boss and to that annoying guy in accounting. If they still show up for work the next day, enjoy your olives!

 

[Monique]

Thank you, I just did some google research and came to the same conclusion: the spots are harmless bacteria (Lactobacillue plantarum) that appear as part of the fermentation process yippee

The spots apparently are called 'yeast spots', but research has shown that they actually don't contain yeast: http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/1/2/82.pdf learned something new today..

 

[Moonbear]

I'm glad you asked this, because I've noticed white dots on olives before too, and have never been sure if it was okay to eat them or not when I see them (sometimes they show up when I put them in the fridge after opening a jar, so I wasn't even sure if it was just something precipitating when chilled). Yay! Good to know they're safe to eat now. (Of course, I always figured as long as I was soaking them in a martini, I'd kill anything that was harmful to eat. )