Olive Oil New Price

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Please don't change this price into your country's money. You'll have a heart attack.

Price matters, to me at least. That is how I got off the bottle. No. I mean the olive oil bottle, not the bottle from Scotland with a gentleman named Johnnie walking purposefully to Aberdeen, I presume.

Olive oil is back, after an absence of about a month from store shelves. Who cares? This price is the reason why I said ta! ta! to olive oil and started using canola oil. I was surprised to see these bottles. I thought olive oil was discontinued because other shoppers had also decided it was becoming expensive. Previous prices were between $16-18, now look at this return-from-the-dead price: $22?  No. That is far from the truth. Maybe the store didn’t have any because there were no olives in all the European Union (EU) countries. Tunisia also produces olive oil. The problem with broke people is that they think the whole world is. I couldn’t afford it anymore, but you can.

I’m ashamed to admit that I believed the ‘extra virgin’ marketing ploy, although I had no way of proving it was different from plain virgin olive oil. I got caught up in the healthy brigade, I forgot two things. One, I don’t like asparagus and olives, in that order. Secondly, I did not like the idea of using the most sacred part of a woman’s body to sell things. Yes, young men can be virgins too, but we all know that it is predominantly used to describe women who have not been 'conquered.'

Conquered, because Nigerian producers still make movies about ‘I’m still a virgin,’ and the man hugs her in appreciation. It’s part of color-coding women. He visits brothels, has kids in orphanages because he didn’t marry the mothers so, parents kicked their daughters out of the house. He told some to terminate the pregnancy. But surprise, surprise! He finally found the one who ‘kept it’ for him, and him alone.

They must be creative and come up with a marketing jingle to replace ‘extra virgin.’ Why do you care, you said you use canola oil now? True dat, but can we stop using women’s bodies for marketing products and video games for boys?

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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