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The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

nytimes.com

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Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#21

Post by busterarm »

Stratoscope wrote: post #17
busterarm wrote: post #7

It's good for people to be aware of this but there's so much either ignored or misrepresented as to make this almost harmful. Fake olive oil peddlers aren't hurting themselves by peddling fake oil as the scam is as old as the olive oil industry itself. It's likely never going to go away and has been a mainstay of various criminal organizations (Sicilian mafia, etc) for longer than pretty much all of us have been aliv…

> It's so easy to get a decent quality olive oil once you know what to look for and it doesn't at all have to be from Italy. California Olive Ranch makes good stuff that is highly price competitive with the imported Italian stuff which is always more questionable anyway. Thank you for the recommendation! I've been looking for some good olive oil and I seem to recall seeing them at the local stores. Definitely think I…

I'm so lucky. My local Kroger regularly puts it on sale for $9. There's really no beating that.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#22

Post by crazygringo »

Unlike many counterfeit things... as far as I can tell, this really doesn't make any difference in the end, because olive oil is all about flavor, not labels.

Good olive oil can taste hundreds of ways, just like wine -- there are even olive oil tastings. The flavor can't be counterfeited at all, so it doesn't really matter what's on the label, what country it comes from, etc. -- olive oil is all so different, it can really only be bought by taste alone. You might have 5 different olive oils in your cupboard depending on what you're using them for, but you didn't buy any of them based on their label!

There's plenty of olive oil labeled extra-virgin that tastes like nothing. Is it really extra-virgin? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, it doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is that it doesn't taste like anything. If you're looking for an oil that doesn't have any taste (which there are many uses for), and it's cheap, go ahead and buy it. (I buy super-cheap "extra-light" olive oil for frying, it tastes like nothing, maybe it's cut with soybean oil, but cooking-wise it wouldn't even matter.)

In the end, "extra-virgin" is a label that doesn't really tell you anything, there are so many other factors involved. The only people being "duped" are the people who can't tell anyways.

(I mean, obviously I don't condone counterfeit oil, I'm just saying that as far as counterfeit things go, counterfeit EVOO is probably the least problematic thing ever.)

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#23

Post by gmack »

coldcode wrote: post #4

I reached the 10 article limit. Usually one can remove all the cookies but after a bunch of pages and a ton of JS executing it told me I had already ready 10 articles. So how are they doing this? Some kind of super cookie?

I always open such links in a Chrome incognito window. Apparently there is still a page count, but it gets reset every time you open a new window.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#24

Post by dsrguru »

maxerickson wrote: post #14
coldcode wrote: post #4

I reached the 10 article limit. Usually one can remove all the cookies but after a bunch of pages and a ton of JS executing it told me I had already ready 10 articles. So how are they doing this? Some kind of super cookie?

The page pushes a token into the url. Crop it where it makes sense. The whole extra virgin olive oil thing is weird anyway, other vegetable oils have (probably) better health profiles and a more neutral flavor profile (people aren't just buying it for their salad).

Extra virgin olive oil has a pretty great monounsaturated to polyunsaturated fat ratio and good flavor for salad dressing, eggs, sauces, meat dishes, etc. The only real downsides are low smoke point (some sources say that that means trans fat and other scary stuff can show up at the high temperatures used in stir-frying and deep-frying) and that good flavor != neutral flavor, which is sometimes preferable. Some presses of avocado oil and safflower oil have similarly great mono- to polyunsaturated fat ratios while also having high smoke points. Avocado oil tastes sort of creamy and nutty while safflower is very neutral.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#25

Post by busterarm »

fatjokes wrote: post #20

Dammit, can't they list the 30% or so of brands that aren't known to be adulterated?

It's all adulterated at some point or another. Maybe things are changing with the new EU regs but there is traditionally no brand consistency. I would never buy a bottle of imported olive oil without a taste test. That pretty much necessitates going to an olive oil store (amazingly there's one 5 minutes from me in suburban South Carolina...) and not buying at your local grocer.

Or you can just get the California oils that are known to be good.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#26

Post by seivan »

busterarm wrote: post #7

It's good for people to be aware of this but there's so much either ignored or misrepresented as to make this almost harmful. Fake olive oil peddlers aren't hurting themselves by peddling fake oil as the scam is as old as the olive oil industry itself. It's likely never going to go away and has been a mainstay of various criminal organizations (Sicilian mafia, etc) for longer than pretty much all of us have been aliv…

We were in the Slovenian/Italy recently on a business trip, and on our way home my company decided we should buy some wine. So we went to this place that offered us prosciutto with olive oil to dip in.

I was told that really good olive oil would sorta... sting you in the throat if you get a decent amount of it.

And it did. It was the first time I've ever had decent/real/good olive oil.

Anyway, pretty cool. Now I'm scared of buying olive oil.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#28

Post by quinndupont »

crazygringo wrote: post #22

Unlike many counterfeit things... as far as I can tell, this really doesn't make any difference in the end, because olive oil is all about flavor, not labels. Good olive oil can taste hundreds of ways, just like wine -- there are even olive oil tastings. The flavor can't be counterfeited at all, so it doesn't really matter what's on the label, what country it comes from, etc. -- olive oil is all so different, it can…

The (lack of) health benefits from using soy bean oil instead of pure olive oil may be significant, or at least misleading.

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#29

Post by busterarm »

seivan wrote: post #26
busterarm wrote: post #7

It's good for people to be aware of this but there's so much either ignored or misrepresented as to make this almost harmful. Fake olive oil peddlers aren't hurting themselves by peddling fake oil as the scam is as old as the olive oil industry itself. It's likely never going to go away and has been a mainstay of various criminal organizations (Sicilian mafia, etc) for longer than pretty much all of us have been aliv…

We were in the Slovenian/Italy recently on a business trip, and on our way home my company decided we should buy some wine. So we went to this place that offered us prosciutto with olive oil to dip in. I was told that really good olive oil would sorta... sting you in the throat if you get a decent amount of it. And it did. It was the first time I've ever had decent/real/good olive oil. Anyway, pretty cool. Now I'm sc…

my mouth is watering at the thought of eating prosciutto right now. Thank you! :D

Re: The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil

#30

Post by rosser »

crazygringo wrote: post #22

Unlike many counterfeit things... as far as I can tell, this really doesn't make any difference in the end, because olive oil is all about flavor, not labels. Good olive oil can taste hundreds of ways, just like wine -- there are even olive oil tastings. The flavor can't be counterfeited at all, so it doesn't really matter what's on the label, what country it comes from, etc. -- olive oil is all so different, it can…

as far as I can tell, this really doesn't make any difference in the end

Unfortunately, that's not the case. When olive oil is adulterated with oils that have lower smoke points, and that adulterated oil is then used under heat, for cooking, the adulterant oils can break down and yield toxic compounds (e.g., aldehydes and hydroperoxids). [1]

EDIT: Also, as noted by a sibling comment, the Ω3:Ω6 ratios for some of the adulterant oils can be wildly different from olive oil, in sub-optimal, or even deleterious ways.

EDIT 2: And what about food allergies? Suppose someone with a hazelnut allergy buys hazelnut oil-adulterated olive oil (they're fairly similar in terms of fatty acid contents, so it's a somewhat common adulterant). Still think it doesn't make a difference?

(Also edited for tone.)

[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050617065306.ht...

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