Olive oil fraud

MaryRowe
MaryRowe Posts: 736 ✭✭✭✭

I've come across bits and hints about this topic a good bit lately. This is the first article I have seen that really goes into depth about the problem and continues with another article about trustworthy products.

https://www.mashed.com/281801/the-real-reason-your-olive-oil-is-probably-fake/

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Comments

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited November 2020

    @MaryRowe There was a great deal made over this online & in the news about 10 (I think more, actually) years ago. It seemed thought provoking/alarming at the time. I found that there was very little helpful information about brands in Canada. I opted for buying the oil in glass bottles, not tin or plastic, which narrowed down my choices considerably. Other than that, I really had nothing else to choose by. I knew that tin is not a great thing to store any food in & neither is plastic.

    I will take a look at the link & see if anything has changed as far as information that I can use up here to help me decide on a brand.

    Well, nope. The brand I have chosen isn't listed in the good nor bad. It is made in Tunisia, not Italy, but I have no idea if that makes any difference. I am not familiar with any others...good or bad, except the Bertolli, which I've seen in the stores.

  • Tave
    Tave Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Scary! I'm sure olive oil is not the only victim. Due to lower harvests and higher demand, vanilla is another product that has become expensive and subject to fraud.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @Tave That is true. I have heard many warning for many years about the clear Mexican vanilla extract. It is actually quite unhealthy if not dangerous to consume. I was told, if it is clear...it was not made with vanilla beans.

    I am sure that that is not the only one. I don't imagine that it is hard to color an extract. Even some clear extracts have added color...I think that is weird.

  • Tave
    Tave Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Caramel color, burnt sugar, is added to a lot of food and beverages. I'll have to take a better look at my olive oil. Most of what I've seen is from Spain.

  • MaryRowe
    MaryRowe Posts: 736 ✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning I guess I was not paying enough attention to hear about this issue the last time around--pretty disheartening that 10-or-some years later it is still a problem, and still hard to track down reliable information about specific brands. I guess this is just another lesson that we have to be very careful about anything we don't make ourselves.

  • Slippy
    Slippy Posts: 117 ✭✭✭

    Caveat emptor


  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I heard somewhere that if you put your olive oil in the fridge over night it should be cloudy and coagulated. If it doesn't do that then it's not real olive oil. I've tried several and only found one locally that actually became cloudy and coagulated. It's Aldi's organic olive oil and it's pretty cheap so who knows if it's actually real or not. I do buy some every 6 months from Jovial Foods who I trust to be selling the real stuff. I use the Aldi olive oil if I need to use a lot and the expensive stuff to make really good pizza sauce or pasta sauce or to drizzle on veggies.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @kbmbillups1 YES! I read that too! After hearing that, I had tested mine & it did just that. It set up just as you said. The one I buy at this point in time is Terra Delyssa.

  • vickeym
    vickeym Posts: 2,134 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have seen many vegetable oils that get cloudy and coagulate when refrigerated. Had never heard that olive oil would do this as well.

  • Tave
    Tave Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭✭

    So, I put the two brands of olive oil that I have in the refrigerator overnight. The cheap stuff didn't change at all. Not surprised. The olive oil from Spain turned cloudy.

  • KimMullen
    KimMullen Posts: 38 ✭✭✭

    @kbmbillups1 Yes, I've tested my olive oil in the fridge too. It gets cloudy and thicker so I feel good about the brand I use. Olio Beato Demarco. It tastes great too. I get it direct from the company.

  • frogvalley
    frogvalley Posts: 675 ✭✭✭✭

    I heard about the olive oil issues years ago, too. Ann Italian woman I worked with was married to a man who imported olive oil. I always wanted to meet him so that I ask him to teach me how to taste a good olive oil. I imagine that it's like learning about wine and you just need to have a guide to help you understand what you are tasting. Alas, I never did get to meet him and have left that organization, but I'd still love to learn about olive oil.

  • MaryRowe
    MaryRowe Posts: 736 ✭✭✭✭

    Just came across a really good article about the threat to Italian olive trees that is causing a large part of the problem--and at the very end, a glimmer of hope in experiments with new cultivars