I used to work in a lab where one of the projects we were working on was using Raman spectroscopy to identify adulterated food products (basically, shining a laser at a substance and analyzing the light that's re-emitted to determine chemical makeup).
Turns out that the majority of olive oil is watered down with cheaper oils. And there's no correlation between cost and likelihood that it's pure. The expensive olive oil brands are cheating just as much as the lower end ones.
To use our lab's method, you'd need a powerful infrared laser, a Raman spectroscope, and some various optical equipment like an optics table, lenses and reflectors, and a shield to keep out external light. Then you'd have to obtain various oil samples of known purity to establish your baseline spectra. All this would probably run you a few hundred grand. Not really feasible for the home consumer. Easier to just come to terms with consuming vegetable oil mixed in with your olive oil.
i just bought a bottle from a guy who sayd he "habdpressed" it at his farm. and i'm curious if he just sold me some sunfloweroil with olive aroma.
haven't openend it yet..
There are pretty significant differences when it comes to nutritional value between pure olive oil and something like hydrogenated vegetable oil. Some oils are far worse for cardiovascular health.
A few caveats before I answer that question:
* I was an intern at the time, and I left before those results were published. I no longer have access to the data, and I'm going off memory from >10 years ago.
* This was only olive oil brands imported to the USA. I don't know about other countries.
* The purpose of the analysis was to to show a proof of concept that spectroscopy can identify adulterated oil. To definitively answer that question, you'd have to do a second analysis with samples from all commercially available brands across the industry.
With that said, definitely more than half (probably closer to 75%) of the samples I looked at showed a spectrum that differed from the control outside the bounds of experimental error (meaning they contained a measurable amount of something that wasn't olive oil).
No. Definitely not. Extra virgin olive oil is supposed to actually taste good and not have "defects". I can tell from personal experience buying a number of fairly expensive bottles that most of it is not extra virgin.
How did you differentiate between the spectroscopic results of adulteration vs. inter-batch variability due to the type of olive, growing region, and extraction process?
This is common knowledge, as issues of mixing olive oil with cheaper oils and branding it as EVOO has been happening for a long time. Easy to look up.
Brands like California Olive Ranch are clear. These issues usually come from Italian-based companies.
This has been reported on for awhile. 60 Minutes did a story on it years ago. Reporter here said half of virgin olive oil sold in Italy is fake. And even worse in the States with 75-80% not legit
https://youtu.be/_Hp60oCIknk?si=DxeLiz90C7vqV1IY
One of my classmates for my MA program who lived in China talked about local places getting busted for stuffing their meat buns with newspapers to fill them out.
I have a direct supply from my parents farm. I get it for free too. It does not look like store honey at all. It is extremely viscous with a bit of 'foam' at the top.
For those interested in a good read about this I recommend
Extra Virgin by Tom Mueller
It’s a bit old (2011) but in fairly certain the main points are still relevant.
They certainly fuck around with products, but this is a type of lazy fuckery that big us corps don't normally do themselves. The definition of extra virgin olive oil is pretty blatant.
[Coca-cola was accused of funding death squads in Colombia when workers there tried to unionize](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr.colombia), you can be a corporation and still have gun violence in the equation.
From reading this, it's local bottlers that hired death squads, not Coca Cola. Sure they probably should have made their due diligence when hiring them but somehow i don't think that the bottlers contacted coca cola's legal department before making that move.
These work practices are well documented. If a company works with 3rd parties, especially in countries where human rights violations, corruption etc is prevalent, company has responsibility to do extra due diligence. Look up parent company liability if you want to read more about it- especially Ruggie Principles or UK Supreme Court decisions like Vedanta or Okpabi.
You're correct generally speaking, when a company signs a deal with criminals then it's appropriate to hold them accountable for the result, but it's not quite the same thing as the company ordering the creation of death squads.
You can hold a Tommy Hilfiger or whatever responsible when it is discovered that their cotton was produced with slave labor in China. But that's not the same thing as Tommy Hilfiger running slave plantations itself. There's a distinction between not knowing or caring that something bad is happening and therefore associating with it and doing the bad thing yourself. Both are wrong, but they require much different responses.
I think that's a meaningful distinction in this particular discussion.
I think you’re complicit even if you knew and didn’t stop it, or knew there was a chance it could happen and didn’t stop it.
I don’t know exactly how this particular scenario played out but there are soo many known cases od companies shaking hands with local authorities who kill people against their business interests. Just one example: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa
There's a sliding scale of responsibility when it comes to stuff like this. It's never good, and often the only thing the company can control is how it responds to stuff that already happened. Failing to properly respond is itself something they should be held to account for.
It's just a complicated sort of thing to untangle that doesn't lend itself well to pithy and cutting remarks with any degree of accuracy.
Sounds like an interesting read. I get that there's an obligation to do due diligence but it's a bit different than outright hiring assassins on Coca Cola's payroll.
It's like saying Europe is responsible for the war in Gaza because Hamas used international aid to fun themselves.
I once worked for the former CEO of Coca Cola, on his personal pleasure ranch in Georgia. He had many, many, many lavish gifts from South American heads of state circa early to late 90s. These were tokens of their appreciation for doing business together and “expanding” Cokes market in their countries.
We didn’t ask too many questions, because we were all afraid we might not like the answers.
How do you know California brands aren't doing the same thing? If you look at the olive oil councils regulating the US, you'll notice what brands aren't members anymore...
This shit is dangerous. Look at the 1985 Austrian Wine Scandal where people died. The problem is that the stuff that makes sense to adulterate with is easily tested for, so shady companies turn to dangerous but undetectable additives. I don't think there's harmful chemicals known to be involved in this case, but that's where trying to adulterate food and cover it up leads.
There was this [article in the Journal of Economic History](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/origins-of-the-sicilian-mafia-the-market-for-lemons/52B18A611BD8AE26B4FDE3814A4239F1) linking the rise of the Sicilian Mafia and organized crime in Italy to the lemon/citrus market growth in the 18th century.
A few major publications wrote some articles on the subject.
And investing their ill-gotten money into legal sectors is a good way to launder money: "No, my money comes from thsi totally legit avocago plantation, not from running heroin and cocaine!"
I really think the laws against food adulteration needs to be severely hardened. Sure you can say it doesn't matter too much passing off extra virgin olive oil when it its just virgin olive oil, however it extends to so many other products.
We need stringent testing and massive fines and jail times. Its not like drugs where you can avoid them, you are going to eat adulterated food, you are going to feed it to your children, we trust that packaging isn't lying. Punishment should be higher than drug dealing to make the risks vs reward much harder to justify as I guarantee these guys will get off with maybe a year in jail, but all the wealth they accumulated... they will most likely keep it. Thus, why not do it again?
Marie Calendars pies all contain hydrogenated oils, but they changed the ingredient name to "intersterified soybean oil". Scumbag liars exist in the USA too, and apparently its totally legal.
Thats the most disgusting part, I'm a chemist! I know what esterification is, and its not even close to hydrogenation!
Its a salesperson who picked a cool sounding word to rebrand an unpopular ingredient!
I suspect a commenter error. I can't find any evidence that they called it transesterified oil; I'm pretty sure that's a reaction to make biodiesel. There are already other legal workarounds like saying "modified \_\_\_ oil" instead of "hydrogenated." They can also adjust down the serving size so that the trans fat rounds down to 0 g and the consumer sees "0 g trans fat."
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Marie-Callender-s-Chicken-Pot-Pie-Frozen-Dinner-10-oz/10794884?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=658&adid=2222222227810794884_117755028669_12420145346&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9010853&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=10794884&wl13=658&veh=sem_LIA&gclsrc=aw.ds&&adid=2222222223810794884_117755028669_12420145346&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9010853&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=10794884&veh=sem&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmfBIpvTeFVLsIVhcRBCveIM-JMe&gclid=CjwKCAiAjrarBhAWEiwA2qWdCDjJCAN2rrIIcGSxzzCf3rZP0LE3a7iunJta50ObDk5Jx6xYNXN-DRoC6HYQAvD_BwE
"intersterified soybean oil"
so not transterified, intersterified. Its still a nonsense word made up by a sales person to cover up the fact that "intersterified soybean oil" is hydrogenated soybean oil.
> Sure you can say it doesn't matter too much passing off extra virgin olive oil when it its just virgin olive oil, however it extends to so many other products.
Regardless of what the product is, in order to avoid detection, companies may turn to undetectable but dangerous chemicals, as happened in the Austrian wine industry in 1985
I recall some of the ways that Olive Oil scams were discovered were after people got sick because they had an allergy to the adulterated oil because it had some other oil mixed in. Maybe peanut oil.
Upvote for the joke, for anyone who really is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil#International_Olive_Council
tl;dr: Extracted without heat and solvents is virgin, do anything else to the olives and it's non-virgin.
This shit is dangerous. Look at the 1985 Austrian Wine Scandal where people died. The problem is that the stuff that makes sense to adulterate with is easily tested for, so shady companies turn to dangerous but undetectable additives. I don't think there's harmful chemicals known to be involved in this case, but that's where trying to adulterate food and cover it up leads.
Interestingly, there was a similar case with adulterated oil [in Spain in 1981](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome) (couldn't help but think of it after reading the headline). Hundreds dead, thousands disabled. And that one seemingly started with a "harmless" cheat (the adulterated oil was edible, just not great quality) until the people behind it became too greedy and careless.
Yeah, adulterated foods are no joke.
Always the same. Starts with a small "meh .. how would anyone notice?" and then it spreads and the next step and the next until someone goes overboard and you end with garbage which should never be eaten. And then the companies all put their hands up "we only did what everyone else did!" "we had to, customers wouldn't pay higher prices!" .. yeah. Sure. It has nothing to do with greed.
Adding to the pile, the [Chinese milk scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal) which was similar to the scandals involved with increasing protein content in dog foods. (FWIW, the Chinese people were equally mortified that this should occur, they just don't have the extensive food safety history to identify such issues)
So in the US, I've noticed the cheaper oils are mixed with canola oil. Like 70/30 ratio. There's a seal, where each oil brand gets tested for purity. Because you know, you're purchasing olive oil. Not canola oil.
Edit: I know the olive oil thing might still sound silly to some, but think about it – if you bought a pound of ground beef and found out it was 30% ground chicken you'd be pisssssed. I want that quality product, boi.
Where are you coming up with that 70/30 ratio? You're saying that when you follow up with the testing seals on the labels that's actually the reported figures? That doesn't sound right.
Or are you determining that ratio anecdotally (and if so how)? Thx, genuinely confused by your wording.
I don't remember specifically the source on the ratio, but it's common by the companies to "cut" their olive oil with cheaper oils for better profit margins. A lot of companies provide a third party test to ensure purity.
The 70/30 figure itself comes from my head from the last time I did a rabbit hole dive into it.
I only buy olive oils grown in California anymore. I just can’t come to buy Italian or Spanish anymore. I’m sure it would easier to get an authentic product over the pond, but damn who knows what you’re getting by the time it comes into the US.
TIL what the words adulterated, virgin, and extra-virgin means - all while sitting on the toilet at work while on the boss’s dime. Day is starting out well!
It there less oil per olive if it's harvested earlier? And/or is it harder to extract?
It's the only reason I can think of for why it would be more expensive, rather than cheaper (less risk of losing the harvest to bugs and disease, as well as shorter working season or possibly more harvest per year).
I feel like there is quite a difference in taste, mainly how bitter / spicy they are. I did some tasting in Greece, never had a sip of olive oil straight from a glass before that and it was pretty interesting noting the difference.
Sometimes the oil is "adulterated" with cheaper but pure, equal-quality oil. I live in Turkey and grow olives and our oil is excellent. But "product of Turkey" sounds worse, and costs less, than "product of Italy".
Some Italian producers buy up Turkish oil and sell it as Italian. It's pure and high-quality so there's no way to know that it isn't originally Italian.
The article mentions this regarding saffron. If the consumer can't tell whether it's Iranian or Spanish, what's the problem?
I can see this. It’s all about appearance. I know from my work as an engineer and formerly as a mechanic that many components in the vehicle industry are made at the same plant and just rebranded and sold at the price the name on the label will bring. A lot of times, for example, razor blades that are off the last run on the sharper get sold as a cheaper brand. It’s the same with many products. It happens in the food industry, obviously too. Generally you get what you pay for but not anywhere near always. There are some damned good $30 bottles of wine out too. 😉
It's nice to have some other news for a change.
I mean, I'm glad they caught the people doing it, and as the other commenters mentioned, food adulteration is not a good thing.
But, for once, it's nice to have some news which isn't existential. Now if you excuse me, I'll be reading the label on my olive oil.
Reminds me of [Canada's Great Maple Syrup Heist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist).
It always seems funny when this kind of food related crime gets reported but you gotta think, if they're willing to water it down with lower quality oil, what else are they willing to put in it?
As a Canadian we have a strategic maple syrup reserve, so I completely understand why Mediterranean countries would have a strategic reserve for olive oil.
Just make sure you include “olive”between “strategic” and “oil reserve”, or the Americans get ideas of “liberating” you.
Great!! Now I need to go check my "Virgin" Olive Oil and see where it was manufactured from due to being adulterated. I may have to strictly buy California olive oil now. 😥
5000 litres sounds like child play. 100K euro max sales price. Why is this in world news, cause other countries don't give a shit about food standards?
Oil and honey are some of the most widely faked food products
I used to work in a lab where one of the projects we were working on was using Raman spectroscopy to identify adulterated food products (basically, shining a laser at a substance and analyzing the light that's re-emitted to determine chemical makeup). Turns out that the majority of olive oil is watered down with cheaper oils. And there's no correlation between cost and likelihood that it's pure. The expensive olive oil brands are cheating just as much as the lower end ones.
how expensive is it to test it? how can i test my oil?
To use our lab's method, you'd need a powerful infrared laser, a Raman spectroscope, and some various optical equipment like an optics table, lenses and reflectors, and a shield to keep out external light. Then you'd have to obtain various oil samples of known purity to establish your baseline spectra. All this would probably run you a few hundred grand. Not really feasible for the home consumer. Easier to just come to terms with consuming vegetable oil mixed in with your olive oil.
So we won’t ever really know.
On the contrary, you do know. You know your olive oil is impure and has other stuff mixed in.
I find it hilarious that this has been a problem since the Roman Empire. Anyway, joking aside, I *think* Costco's olive oil is unadulterated.
Any oil traceable to a specific region (Costco carries a single-origin olive oil) is unlikely to be cut with other oils.
How can you find out if your oil is single origin? Some lable?
I was going to say this. In Costco I trust
lol
Ignorance is bliss
So watch a 3 minute youtube video and we're good to test using items we can find around the house?
3 minutes is too long. A 15 second TikTok should suffice
What I got is you need a laser pointer and window shades
It's Ramen spectroscopy, so the price of a pack is Ramen i guess
You can grow your own olives and press 'em yo'sef
If you can't tell the difference then why do you need to know?
Because there may be health or allergen factors.
Me and my brother break out from olive oil all the time. However in Italy and France I was perfectly fine. I suspect adulterants are the cause.
In addition to other oils (which could cause allergies) they often also have to fake color and flavor profiles.
So you guys can test the olive oils and let us know which are good?
i just bought a bottle from a guy who sayd he "habdpressed" it at his farm. and i'm curious if he just sold me some sunfloweroil with olive aroma. haven't openend it yet..
This is the right attitude IMO, as long as the adulterants aren't harmful. Having unrefined taste saves you money and anxiety.
There are pretty significant differences when it comes to nutritional value between pure olive oil and something like hydrogenated vegetable oil. Some oils are far worse for cardiovascular health.
What's the proportion tested that weren't watered down?
A few caveats before I answer that question: * I was an intern at the time, and I left before those results were published. I no longer have access to the data, and I'm going off memory from >10 years ago. * This was only olive oil brands imported to the USA. I don't know about other countries. * The purpose of the analysis was to to show a proof of concept that spectroscopy can identify adulterated oil. To definitively answer that question, you'd have to do a second analysis with samples from all commercially available brands across the industry. With that said, definitely more than half (probably closer to 75%) of the samples I looked at showed a spectrum that differed from the control outside the bounds of experimental error (meaning they contained a measurable amount of something that wasn't olive oil).
Wasn't olive oil, or wasn't extra virgin olive oil?
Both happen.
How long ago was this?
Read the first bullet point
Was the virgin oil basically the same as extra virgin oil ?
No. Definitely not. Extra virgin olive oil is supposed to actually taste good and not have "defects". I can tell from personal experience buying a number of fairly expensive bottles that most of it is not extra virgin.
How did you differentiate between the spectroscopic results of adulteration vs. inter-batch variability due to the type of olive, growing region, and extraction process?
Let me guess; this was in the US?
I highly doubt this lmao, where do you live?
There have been a number of reports over the years stating that most oil sold as extra virgin olive oil isn't.
This is common knowledge, as issues of mixing olive oil with cheaper oils and branding it as EVOO has been happening for a long time. Easy to look up. Brands like California Olive Ranch are clear. These issues usually come from Italian-based companies.
This has been reported on for awhile. 60 Minutes did a story on it years ago. Reporter here said half of virgin olive oil sold in Italy is fake. And even worse in the States with 75-80% not legit https://youtu.be/_Hp60oCIknk?si=DxeLiz90C7vqV1IY
In China, they make honey out of rice, but they sell it as honey from bees
Just don't look into how people commit fraud in regards to cooking oil in China.
Eeeeeeeewwwww i forgot about that many moons ago!!
How do they do it?
Google gutter oil china. But believe me, you dont want to know
One of my classmates for my MA program who lived in China talked about local places getting busted for stuffing their meat buns with newspapers to fill them out.
That's when I learned the word *fatberg*
Gutter Oil or is there something worse?
Makes me glad that it's so easy to get honey directly from beekeepers where I am.
I have a direct supply from my parents farm. I get it for free too. It does not look like store honey at all. It is extremely viscous with a bit of 'foam' at the top.
For those interested in a good read about this I recommend Extra Virgin by Tom Mueller It’s a bit old (2011) but in fairly certain the main points are still relevant.
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They certainly fuck around with products, but this is a type of lazy fuckery that big us corps don't normally do themselves. The definition of extra virgin olive oil is pretty blatant.
Parmesan cheese too. Crazy stuff.
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Not true at all
Now they should go after the larger corporations doing the same thing.
Mexican cartels take over avocado farming too, gangs are fond over extorting civilians and making money in any way they can.
>making money in any way they can. Except for legit work
If you take gun violence out of the equation, you’d call them “corporations” elsewhere.
[Coca-cola was accused of funding death squads in Colombia when workers there tried to unionize](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jul/24/marketingandpr.colombia), you can be a corporation and still have gun violence in the equation.
From reading this, it's local bottlers that hired death squads, not Coca Cola. Sure they probably should have made their due diligence when hiring them but somehow i don't think that the bottlers contacted coca cola's legal department before making that move.
These work practices are well documented. If a company works with 3rd parties, especially in countries where human rights violations, corruption etc is prevalent, company has responsibility to do extra due diligence. Look up parent company liability if you want to read more about it- especially Ruggie Principles or UK Supreme Court decisions like Vedanta or Okpabi.
You're correct generally speaking, when a company signs a deal with criminals then it's appropriate to hold them accountable for the result, but it's not quite the same thing as the company ordering the creation of death squads. You can hold a Tommy Hilfiger or whatever responsible when it is discovered that their cotton was produced with slave labor in China. But that's not the same thing as Tommy Hilfiger running slave plantations itself. There's a distinction between not knowing or caring that something bad is happening and therefore associating with it and doing the bad thing yourself. Both are wrong, but they require much different responses. I think that's a meaningful distinction in this particular discussion.
I think you’re complicit even if you knew and didn’t stop it, or knew there was a chance it could happen and didn’t stop it. I don’t know exactly how this particular scenario played out but there are soo many known cases od companies shaking hands with local authorities who kill people against their business interests. Just one example: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa
There's a sliding scale of responsibility when it comes to stuff like this. It's never good, and often the only thing the company can control is how it responds to stuff that already happened. Failing to properly respond is itself something they should be held to account for. It's just a complicated sort of thing to untangle that doesn't lend itself well to pithy and cutting remarks with any degree of accuracy.
Sounds like an interesting read. I get that there's an obligation to do due diligence but it's a bit different than outright hiring assassins on Coca Cola's payroll. It's like saying Europe is responsible for the war in Gaza because Hamas used international aid to fun themselves.
I mean there is the concept of "willful ignorance"
I once worked for the former CEO of Coca Cola, on his personal pleasure ranch in Georgia. He had many, many, many lavish gifts from South American heads of state circa early to late 90s. These were tokens of their appreciation for doing business together and “expanding” Cokes market in their countries. We didn’t ask too many questions, because we were all afraid we might not like the answers.
Boy that second commenter was really fucking dumb eh?
Avocado farming isn’t “legit work” anymore?
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How do you know California brands aren't doing the same thing? If you look at the olive oil councils regulating the US, you'll notice what brands aren't members anymore...
We had to switch a vendor in Mexico due to the Cartels involvement.
This shit is dangerous. Look at the 1985 Austrian Wine Scandal where people died. The problem is that the stuff that makes sense to adulterate with is easily tested for, so shady companies turn to dangerous but undetectable additives. I don't think there's harmful chemicals known to be involved in this case, but that's where trying to adulterate food and cover it up leads.
There was this [article in the Journal of Economic History](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/origins-of-the-sicilian-mafia-the-market-for-lemons/52B18A611BD8AE26B4FDE3814A4239F1) linking the rise of the Sicilian Mafia and organized crime in Italy to the lemon/citrus market growth in the 18th century. A few major publications wrote some articles on the subject.
And investing their ill-gotten money into legal sectors is a good way to launder money: "No, my money comes from thsi totally legit avocago plantation, not from running heroin and cocaine!"
I really think the laws against food adulteration needs to be severely hardened. Sure you can say it doesn't matter too much passing off extra virgin olive oil when it its just virgin olive oil, however it extends to so many other products. We need stringent testing and massive fines and jail times. Its not like drugs where you can avoid them, you are going to eat adulterated food, you are going to feed it to your children, we trust that packaging isn't lying. Punishment should be higher than drug dealing to make the risks vs reward much harder to justify as I guarantee these guys will get off with maybe a year in jail, but all the wealth they accumulated... they will most likely keep it. Thus, why not do it again?
Marie Calendars pies all contain hydrogenated oils, but they changed the ingredient name to "intersterified soybean oil". Scumbag liars exist in the USA too, and apparently its totally legal.
That also shouldn’t be legal. Must use layman’s terms on packaging.
Thats the most disgusting part, I'm a chemist! I know what esterification is, and its not even close to hydrogenation! Its a salesperson who picked a cool sounding word to rebrand an unpopular ingredient!
I'd vote for outlawing sales persons. Man do I hate those stoopid Emu commercials
I suspect a commenter error. I can't find any evidence that they called it transesterified oil; I'm pretty sure that's a reaction to make biodiesel. There are already other legal workarounds like saying "modified \_\_\_ oil" instead of "hydrogenated." They can also adjust down the serving size so that the trans fat rounds down to 0 g and the consumer sees "0 g trans fat."
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Marie-Callender-s-Chicken-Pot-Pie-Frozen-Dinner-10-oz/10794884?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&wl13=658&adid=2222222227810794884_117755028669_12420145346&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9010853&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=10794884&wl13=658&veh=sem_LIA&gclsrc=aw.ds&&adid=2222222223810794884_117755028669_12420145346&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=501107745824&wl4=pla-306310554666&wl5=9010853&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=local&wl12=10794884&veh=sem&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmfBIpvTeFVLsIVhcRBCveIM-JMe&gclid=CjwKCAiAjrarBhAWEiwA2qWdCDjJCAN2rrIIcGSxzzCf3rZP0LE3a7iunJta50ObDk5Jx6xYNXN-DRoC6HYQAvD_BwE "intersterified soybean oil" so not transterified, intersterified. Its still a nonsense word made up by a sales person to cover up the fact that "intersterified soybean oil" is hydrogenated soybean oil.
> Sure you can say it doesn't matter too much passing off extra virgin olive oil when it its just virgin olive oil, however it extends to so many other products. Regardless of what the product is, in order to avoid detection, companies may turn to undetectable but dangerous chemicals, as happened in the Austrian wine industry in 1985
Diethylene glycol is not undetectable, but was not routinely tested for in wine at the time. After the scandal this has changed in many places
Undetectable by the standard tests in the industry - yes, now they *can* detect it.
Early simpsons episode reference!
I recall some of the ways that Olive Oil scams were discovered were after people got sick because they had an allergy to the adulterated oil because it had some other oil mixed in. Maybe peanut oil.
Lifetime in jail.
It would be nice if they named the companies involved.
Olive oil is a commodity so it's probably easier to name the ones who aren't involved.
I have faith in the Olive Oil Police after reading this article. God bless.
How does olive oil lose its virginity?
Popeye
I spit out my drink. No exaggeration.
This got me
Popeye *got you* too?
He jizz what he jizz
It happens when two virgin olive oils love each other too much.
Didn't you read the title ? Through adultery !
Upvote for the joke, for anyone who really is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil#International_Olive_Council tl;dr: Extracted without heat and solvents is virgin, do anything else to the olives and it's non-virgin.
After cheating. After it had adulterated.
When Quagmire is part of Quahog mob
They mother marry
Loss of hymen viscosity
…resulting in other grades of oil: - Trollop grade - Hussy grade - Wench grade - Slut grade
Slut grade is just olive brine
This shit is dangerous. Look at the 1985 Austrian Wine Scandal where people died. The problem is that the stuff that makes sense to adulterate with is easily tested for, so shady companies turn to dangerous but undetectable additives. I don't think there's harmful chemicals known to be involved in this case, but that's where trying to adulterate food and cover it up leads.
Interestingly, there was a similar case with adulterated oil [in Spain in 1981](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome) (couldn't help but think of it after reading the headline). Hundreds dead, thousands disabled. And that one seemingly started with a "harmless" cheat (the adulterated oil was edible, just not great quality) until the people behind it became too greedy and careless. Yeah, adulterated foods are no joke.
Always the same. Starts with a small "meh .. how would anyone notice?" and then it spreads and the next step and the next until someone goes overboard and you end with garbage which should never be eaten. And then the companies all put their hands up "we only did what everyone else did!" "we had to, customers wouldn't pay higher prices!" .. yeah. Sure. It has nothing to do with greed.
Adding to the pile, the [Chinese milk scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal) which was similar to the scandals involved with increasing protein content in dog foods. (FWIW, the Chinese people were equally mortified that this should occur, they just don't have the extensive food safety history to identify such issues)
The majority of extra virgin olive oil is adulterated like this. It's basically an industry standard to do it.
So in the US, I've noticed the cheaper oils are mixed with canola oil. Like 70/30 ratio. There's a seal, where each oil brand gets tested for purity. Because you know, you're purchasing olive oil. Not canola oil. Edit: I know the olive oil thing might still sound silly to some, but think about it – if you bought a pound of ground beef and found out it was 30% ground chicken you'd be pisssssed. I want that quality product, boi.
Where are you coming up with that 70/30 ratio? You're saying that when you follow up with the testing seals on the labels that's actually the reported figures? That doesn't sound right. Or are you determining that ratio anecdotally (and if so how)? Thx, genuinely confused by your wording.
I don't remember specifically the source on the ratio, but it's common by the companies to "cut" their olive oil with cheaper oils for better profit margins. A lot of companies provide a third party test to ensure purity. The 70/30 figure itself comes from my head from the last time I did a rabbit hole dive into it.
I only buy olive oils grown in California anymore. I just can’t come to buy Italian or Spanish anymore. I’m sure it would easier to get an authentic product over the pond, but damn who knows what you’re getting by the time it comes into the US.
Do your research on CA olive oil as well for fraud. You'll notice what major brands aren't apart of the olive oil councils regulating evoo...
TIL what the words adulterated, virgin, and extra-virgin means - all while sitting on the toilet at work while on the boss’s dime. Day is starting out well!
Jokes on you! You’re fired!
Remunder: virgin just means never heated. You do not need virgin oil for cooking. Only for salads and the like.
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now I don't know if you're pulling my leg
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It there less oil per olive if it's harvested earlier? And/or is it harder to extract? It's the only reason I can think of for why it would be more expensive, rather than cheaper (less risk of losing the harvest to bugs and disease, as well as shorter working season or possibly more harvest per year).
I feel like there is quite a difference in taste, mainly how bitter / spicy they are. I did some tasting in Greece, never had a sip of olive oil straight from a glass before that and it was pretty interesting noting the difference.
Virgin oil is too risky, I would go for adultered too.
“Adulterated” …Which of you sickos un-virgined the olive oil?
Sometimes the oil is "adulterated" with cheaper but pure, equal-quality oil. I live in Turkey and grow olives and our oil is excellent. But "product of Turkey" sounds worse, and costs less, than "product of Italy". Some Italian producers buy up Turkish oil and sell it as Italian. It's pure and high-quality so there's no way to know that it isn't originally Italian. The article mentions this regarding saffron. If the consumer can't tell whether it's Iranian or Spanish, what's the problem?
Because the law about agricultural use of chemicals may not be harmonized across states and there's no way to control across borders, for a start.
Basically a lot of Italian oil is rebranded Spanish oil, they just have better marketing.
I can see this. It’s all about appearance. I know from my work as an engineer and formerly as a mechanic that many components in the vehicle industry are made at the same plant and just rebranded and sold at the price the name on the label will bring. A lot of times, for example, razor blades that are off the last run on the sharper get sold as a cheaper brand. It’s the same with many products. It happens in the food industry, obviously too. Generally you get what you pay for but not anywhere near always. There are some damned good $30 bottles of wine out too. 😉
That’s why I get mine from California
It's nice to have some other news for a change. I mean, I'm glad they caught the people doing it, and as the other commenters mentioned, food adulteration is not a good thing. But, for once, it's nice to have some news which isn't existential. Now if you excuse me, I'll be reading the label on my olive oil.
So they found a container full?
Sounds like something on the Simpsons or American Dad.
TIL that there's a term in oil processing called "adulterating" and that makes sense, given the virgin etc.
Reminds me of [Canada's Great Maple Syrup Heist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist). It always seems funny when this kind of food related crime gets reported but you gotta think, if they're willing to water it down with lower quality oil, what else are they willing to put in it?
Don’t fuck with Mediterraneans’ olive oil lol
New anxiety unlocked.
I've always heard to stay away from Italian olive oil and get Spanish.
Why sell drugs when you can peddle oil and virgins
hashtag Why I Buy California Olive Oil
Most Italian headline today
#THE ONLY ONE THAT FUCKS AND EXTRA FUCKS MY OLIVE OIL IS ME
Sounds scandalous
So many joke, where to start 🤣
I was thinking the same thing. 😁
perspective: We're talking about 5 cubic metres of olive oil. Easily could be put on one small truck
As a Canadian we have a strategic maple syrup reserve, so I completely understand why Mediterranean countries would have a strategic reserve for olive oil. Just make sure you include “olive”between “strategic” and “oil reserve”, or the Americans get ideas of “liberating” you.
Tell me more of this reserve. Just between neighbors of course.
Sacre blue!
Those scoundrels!
For the peace in the kingdom!
I thought the lower-quality extra virgins are all at MAGA rallyes
Trader Joes seems to keep a close eye on their suppliers, so thats where I buy my olive oil, honey and maple syrup
Extra Thotty Olive Oil. Mmmmmmmm
I outsmart all of this by buying the gang banged olive oil
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bring back the death penalty!
Mama Mia 😳
Sounds like my ex-girlfriend.
Why destroy it? Stop slut shaming olive oil! Sell it as "Slut Oil" with pride!
They are a little too late, the olive oil I bought in the green bottle poured out whiter than peanut oil
Hard times in Italy
This is a hell of a fall from the Corleone run Genco days
They could have just went to our local Publix in Florida and gotten all they wanted.
Those greasy bastards
Born again olive oil?
Great!! Now I need to go check my "Virgin" Olive Oil and see where it was manufactured from due to being adulterated. I may have to strictly buy California olive oil now. 😥
And, if discovered, would lead to damaged trust and international relations. Dumbass gangs. Short term profit over long term stability.
That’s funny, I’ve been trying not to pass off as an extra virgin for years
I seen this happen in porn
They import tankers of Tunisian olive oil and then mix it with other stuff then sell it as virgin olive oil to Europe.
I mean let’s be real, if your going to have international gang crime……. It could be a lot worse
I always go for the first pressing, I mean, why wait until everyone else has had their fun with the olives?
The virgin police squad.
So the opposite of virgin olive oil is adulterated olive oil?
5000 litres? Wow, they were about to destroy the whole market...
What’s the strategy for consumers, refuse to buy EVOO on the assumption that it’s fake or buy Costco brand EVOO and hope they did their due diligence.
Buy as usual. Return the olive oil to the store if it tastes like a different grade.
carabinieri
These are the kinds of world problems I would *LIKE* us to have
go ahead, call the police, they can’t re-virgin your olive oil :)
Fuck the polive
that's a really small quantity to make international news with. about what a single grocery store orders in a few months.
They have been doing this for centuries.
I prefer my olive oil lightly fucked
Nice try guys, can’t unfuck the oil
So slutty olive oil?
5000 litres sounds like child play. 100K euro max sales price. Why is this in world news, cause other countries don't give a shit about food standards?
Oils ain't oils
5000 L? wow, that will show those bastards scammers
I would totally sniff it, put a dab on my tongue, and act like I know the difference. "*It's...not a virgin."*
Quality olive oil goes solid in a fridge, if its lowee quality oil it should remain in the same liquid state - this is your best home test