TESORO Olive Oil Review: The 2025 Sensory Product of the Year

I am beyond excited to share this TESORO Olive Oil review and announce that it was named Rooted & Refined Living's 2025 Sensory Experience 2025 Product of the Year.

2025 Sensory Product of the Year

Olive tree from the FEUDO DISISA estate.

I started exploring Italian Olive Oils from a struggle to find a good balsamic vinegar. The short version is I spoke with Louie from Extra Virgin Olio by Madge & Louie, a United States based importer of Italian Olive Oils and Vinegars. Through that conversation, he turned me on to a world of Italian Olive Oils that made everything taste better. The full story can be read at The Olive Oil Conversation That Transformed My Kitchen.

During the last few years, I tried many fantastic Italian Olive Oils from Madge and Louie's. The one that stood above the rest was TESORO. The Sicilian based FEDUO DISISA, which also has a line of award-winning wines, has something really special with TESORO and offers an unparalleled sensory experience. The first thing that you come in contact with is the sleek and elegant look of the black bottle with the gold lettering, giving it a premium feel. The taste is a smooth, complex flavor, with hints of artichoke, and a peppery finish. TESORO also has a great pairing versatility with pastas, caprese, meats and fish.

The Rooted & Refined Living Standard: 

"Unlike traditional review sites, my selection process for Product of the Year involves personal use of multiple Italian olive oils for 5 years of daily use. My family and I personally use TESORO on pastas, meats, caprese and my favorite, bread dipping. This award is a view into what we use at the Fiore dinner table."

TESORO embodies what we strive for at Rooted & Refined Living. In a world increasingly shaped by technology and AI, people are craving more sensory based experiences.

Also, for those in the US, I highly recommend reaching out to Louie to change the way you experience olive oils and if you are ever in Sicily, visit FEUDO DISISA for some olive oil and wine tasting. In fact, Louie, and his wife Tina may also offer Olive Oil tours in Italy and you may just get to stop by FEUDO DISISA!

As a point of reflection, I have been writing about products that elevate your sensory experience for the last 6 months. To date, I have published 10 stories, based on all products I personally use and love. All of these products are amazing in their own right. As I was deciding on the Product of the Year, TESORO stood out based on how it helped elevate our cooking experience across so many dishes including pastas, caprese, steaks and fish, just to name a few.

Buon appetito! Congrats again to FEUDO DISISA!

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Selection Process Transparency: FEUDO DISISA and Extra Virgin Olio by Madge & Louie did not have any input in this decision, nor was I compensated for this award selection. As shared on previous posts, some of the links are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

Blue Zone Inspired Smoothie with Black Beans and Garbanzo

"Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation."

My Blue Zone smoothie journey has been nothing short of evolutionary.

Photo by Mikey Frost

I have always been a breakfast eater. I remember when I was a kid, my mom would always make me breakfast. Sometimes it was eggs, other times it was pancakes or waffles. Some days, I would make myself breakfast cereal with milk.

The thing that I loved the most was reading the back of the cereal box. That is what we did before the days of scrolling on a cell phone.

As I became an adult, I continued to eat breakfast but during the work week, I would usually have breakfast cereal augmented by eggs on the weekend.

About 7 or 8 years ago, I noticed that I wasn't feeling great after breakfast (even after switching to the healthier, organic cereals. I don't know if it was the milk sensitivity or the lack of real nutrition that was derived from the cereal, even though it was fortified with vitamins.

After consulting with some friends, my wife and I embarked on making smoothies. We purchased an organic protein powder with Mary Beth choosing the chocolate flavor and me picking the veggie flavor. Researching the ingredients, it had everything we could ask for including 20 grams of protein and 6 grams of fiber (21% of your daily allowance) and up to 50% of the daily allowance needed across over 15 vitamin categories.

The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: 

"Smoothies can provide a complete meal experience. Periodically assess how your daily smoothie is making you feel and make adjustments as needed. Treat the process as an ongoing experiment in sensory health. Assess how you feel two hours post-consumption, both physically and cognitively. Make adjustments as needed."

Mary Beth's smoothies were fairly basic with the protein powder, a banana, ice, one or two other supplements and she was good to go. Mine was much more involved adding frozen fruit, bananas, ginger, and a few other items.

Over time, my smoothie kept getting more involved. I should mention now that I pre-make the smoothies on Sunday for the 5 workdays, usually still having eggs or an Acia bowl on the weekends. In general, I felt great and so much better than I did when I was having cereal and milk. I even talked about it in my TEDx Talk, How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life.

However, a few months ago, Mary Beth started to pull back on her smoothies referencing that she was starting to feel bloated from them, and for me, it wasn't having the same effect that it had when I started. Something was off and I couldn't put my finger on it.

Then I read a post by Azadeh Gharehgozlou about protein bars and the reason why people are experiencing the same symptoms as Mary Beth. It was the way some of the proteins were processed. As a result, I decided to do something which seemed a bit radical but honestly, not that strange once I started digging into it a bit more.

I replaced my protein powder with a combination of 1 can of Black Beans and 1 can of Garbanzo Beans (also known as Chickpeas). I think I almost gave my mom a heart attack reading this as I can't tell you how many times she tried to get me to eat beans as a kid. Now I am putting them in my smoothies and consuming them daily.

The reality is that the black and garbanzo beans don't have a taste, and their texture gets mixed in with everything else. I do want to share that I do eat both on a regular basis anyway, but this is a deliberate way to consume both daily.

I also wrote in another post, The Books That Transformed My Purpose and Longevity, where the author, Dan Buettner shared that one of the best foods that people consume in the Blue Zones regions are beans and they are consumed on a daily basis due to their inexpensive cost combined with their high protein and fiber content.

For those of you who are wondering, here is what I put into my smoothies. I use an older version of the Ninja Professional and we also have this Ninja blender version for more daily use.

My Blue Zone Smoothie Ingredient List:

• Frozen Wild Maine Blueberries

• Frozen Organic Strawberries

• Frozen Pineapples

• Frozen Spinach

• 2 Bananas

• 1 can of Black Beans

• 1 can of Garbanzo Beans

• 3 Tablespoons of Local Honey

• 2 Tablespoons of Pure Maple Syrup

• 3 cubes of fresh cut Ginger

• 1 Fresh Turmeric Root (or 1 tablespoon of the Turmeric Spice)

• 1/4 cup of Steel Cut Oats (I pre-grind them so I am not chewing my smoothie)

• Ground Pepper

• 1/2 Teaspoon of Sea Salt

• 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon of Cayanne Pepper

• 5 scoops of Bran

• 2 scoops of Peanut Butter Powder

• 2 scoops of Cacao Powder

• Daily, I add a trio blend of Chia, Hemp, and Flax Seed Mix (because it will expand and harden if premade)

I think I got it all. I know this combination of foods is not for everyone (including my family), but it works for me. Plus, I know I am getting a well-balanced breakfast each day.

I would love to hear about your breakfast / smoothie experiences in the comments below.

For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.

The Shift Away From Processed Sugar

"Disclaimer: This article shares personal experiences and is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and should not replace professional medical consultation."

In this post, I want to share some background on how our tastes have evolved over the years and how we learned to appreciate the subtleties of foods that are highlighted in this site.

Family photo (Oct 2020) of one of the few times we made homemade pasta. From left to right, me, Mary Beth, Michael, Emma, and Matthew.

I read a LinkedIn post recently from Azadeh Gharehgozlou where she described what happens to your body when you stop eating sugar for 14 days. The host of benefits are too many to list, but you can read about them here. Within that post, in the comments section, she shared a common question around “Isn’t fruit sugar too”?

Her post got me thinking about all of the times my mom would try to get me to eat sweet potatoes, peas, and asparagus and I would turn my nose up at it as a kid. I ate some basic vegetables like corn and broccoli, and I was a bit better on fruit with oranges, apples, bananas, and watermelon but beyond that, I was pretty limited.

A vendor at a farmers' market in Kauai making a pure sugar cane drink. This is real unprocessed sugar. Michael actually thought it was a bit too sweet and he wound up mixing it with something else.

Like most kids, I loved cookies and other sweets and that was a good portion of my diet. Don’t get me wrong, I still love chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t eat 5 of them each afternoon like I did when I was a kid.

Although as an adult, especially in my 20’s, I can’t say I was much better. I remember vividly shopping with Mary Beth when we were first married and waiting to buy the Oreo’s when they were buy 1, get 1 free (we would buy 4 as a result of the sale). Each bag of Oreo’s would last about a week between the two of us, but sometimes quicker. We didn’t think anything of it and that buying process lasted well into our 20’s and early 30’s.

The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip: 

"Moving to a healthier lifestyle can be a slow and steady approach, stacking habits. Start by reducing soda by one glass a week, replacing it with water. Then two. Then three. Next, pick another habit and slowly build on it. Over time, you will notice a significant impact from many small changes."

Then something changed. Our oldest son, Matthew, was diagnosed with Aspergers (now High Functioning Autism) at an early age. As we navigated this, Mary Beth also began exploring how nutrition might play a role in his daily comfort and routine. We had an experience early on where we noticed a pattern. We typically take an annual trip to Aruba We typically take an annual trip to Aruba where we have timeshare, and in one of our first trips, Matthew, age 1 at the time, didn’t like the milk we had to buy so we did without it for the week.

We noticed as the week went by, he seemed more settled and wasn’t as fussy. When we got back home, we introduced milk again not thinking anything of it, only to quickly see that agitation return. We started digging into whether he had a sensitivity to casein (milk protein). When we removed milk from his routine, we noticed he seemed more physically comfortable, which helped him stay calmer during the day.

Over the years, we had to do this a few different times, typically with foods he loved the most, and unfortunately foods that were seemingly good for him like peanut butter. While he was never allergic to any of the foods, there was definitely a sensitivity to them that caused his mood to fluctuate.

Then another big event happened. A few years after Matthew’s diagnosis, which was a constant battle in and of itself with the mood swings, Mary Beth got diagnosed with a benign tumor in her inner ear canal, called Acoustic Neuroma. There are some very famous people who have had this as well including Mark Ruffalo, the late Pat Summitt, who was the legendary women’s college basketball coach, and Kelly Stafford.

After Mary Beth’s surgery, she experienced debilitating headaches. To support her body's recovery and reduce inflammation, she decided to cut out things like sugar and soda from her diet. It was a major lifestyle shift, but she feels much better today. In a bit of solidarity, I did the same but while she cut out soda cold turkey, my process was a bit slower over time. I used to drink a can of soda every night at dinner (and had been ever since I was a kid). I went from every night to 5 nights a week to 3 nights, to 1 night, to zero.

Two unexpected things happened as a result of my lack of soda (and subsequently reduction in processed sugars like Oreos). Those vegetables that my mom had been trying to get me to eat ever since I was a kid started to get introduced into my diet. It didn’t happen overnight but the actual real foods that I was eating on a regular basis anyway started to taste better. I then became a bit more adventurous and started to try things like sweet potatoes, asparagus, beans, and even fresh peas. All foods I would stick my nose up at for 40 years. The second and more surprising change was that I noticed my lips didn't feel chapped anymore. I haven’t really used lip balm in 15 years but used to use it all the time when I was drinking soda.

Mary Beth apple picking

Over time, I started to eat more and more whole foods and less and less processed foods. My family gets a bit annoyed at me that I have a strong discipline where I can eat just 1 potato chip and bypass the Oreos if I see them. Although I still love (and eat) chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, and other sweets but these are typically freshly made, not processed.

Even after doing research for 20 years now on different foods and their effects, we are still learning. Mary Beth had shared recently that the smoothies she was drinking was making her bloated and not feeling good. Coincidently, Azadeh Gharehgozlou had another post about protein bars and the reason why people are experiencing the same symptoms as Mary Beth. It was the way some of the proteins were processed. Five years ago, I changed my breakfast from a "healthy” cereal and milk to a smoothie, and I started to notice me feeling much better.

Emma helping make eggplant parmesan from 2011.

Since I am always on a quest to improve, over the years, I started to experiment with lots of things in my smoothies including fresh turmeric and fresh ginger to chickpeas and black beans. I am currently now working to figure out how I can replace my 20 grams of protein from the protein powder with other more natural sources like adding both black beans and chickpeas at the same time (it doesn't taste bad but it has a bit of a neutral taste that I am still working on to get a bit of flavor back).

If I was to offer one tip, it is not to start introducing healthy foods first but maybe start eliminating certain foods, whether it be soda, Oreos, potato chips, or something similar.

This is a long story to share but it was because of these experiences, from Matthew’s autism diagnosis and Mary Beth’s surgery that started the change to improving our health. If you are interested, here are a few links for more information. 

Steve's TEDx Talk- How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life

Matthew's TEDx Talk- Navigating Life with Autism

Cover photo from Boston Public Library