Very interesting, and good for those living in southern Europe or California, who have access to olive pomace. It might give impetus to a new industry, using the by-products of oil production, and a new, organic product for fungal treatments. Let's hope so.

Josko - Can you use it as animal feed? As a 10% supplement it's been used in finishing pigs and lambs. More than 10% and the high phenol quantities could cause problems. But it spoils quickly, so unless you can dry it, make silage of it (lactic acid fermentation), or have a huge herd of pigs to fatten, it will mold and that's not good. For composting it, it's high moisture and would need to be mixed with something fairly dry like straw or wood shavings, and turned frequently. Layering it with straw and turning it with a plow might work for mixing such large quantities. I found only one analysis of it as a fertilizer, and it's not as high nitrogen as some things like chicken manures. Olive Pomace: 1.15/0.78/1.3 (NPK?) Ask the local agricultural college to get a grad student to do some field testing for his or her degree research ... how does it work as a tilled-in supplement? How much can you add - how many CM/year? Can fields be planted immediately, or do they need to be left for a month or two or longer? If you can spread it as it comes from the presses and till it in to decompose in the fields that would be ideal. It's less work and less expense. Thinking back to some avocado processors in Mexico that have large quantities of avocado peels and seeds left ... they crush the seeds for high-grade cosmetics oil, then use the pomace and peels for pig feed, then use the pig manure on the avocado orchards. However, they harvest year-round so they don't have tons of material one month and none the next.

Ease of cleanup has absolutely no relationship the whether or not the pan will perform the cooking job better. I buy my pans based on how well they cook, not how easy they are to clean. Always buy high quality cookware suited to the task and buy for life. I've found properly seasoned cast iron to be superior for frying, deep frying, hearth cooking, searing meat, cooking cornbread, eggs and a number of other foods. Nothing sears better than cast iron. Cast iron's limitations are few but include reacting with highly acidic foods like tomato bases and lemons and accelerating the oxidative degradation of cooking oils at high temperature. This is remedied by using high quality enameled cast iron. Seasoned cast iron cookware gets better with time, unlike chemical non-stick coatings. For precise temperature control required in sauce making, candy making etc, stainless-lined solid copper cookware such as Falk Culinare is superior. Very few companies produce copper cookware worth buying - Falk is in my opinion the best and their bimetal process is actually used by the other major manufactures of quality copper cookware. Stoneware for baking is wonderful material and should be used more often. Same goes for clay cookery. It is always more important to have a wonderful, healthy meal than it is to save a few extra minutes doing dishes. Sleepyhollow

You can buy both coco butter with and without the scent for soap making; if you don't want to scent the recipe then use the scented one. I have people that prefer different butters and oils. You can control some of the properties of the soap depending on which oils are used in the soap recipe and how much superfatting is being used as well. Generally, a combo of 2 or more oils (I usually use 5 oils in my recipes)are preferred; usually, olive/coconut, palm/olive, palm kernel/olive, etc. Pomace olive oil is cheap (or used to be), no need to use the good stuff(I save that for cooking).