
The Adulteration of Italian Olive Oil - acdanger
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/24/opinion/food-chains-extra-virgin-suicide.html?_r=0
======
busterarm
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 alive.

What should also be pointed out is that many Americans seem to have
smell/taste quality standards of EVOO completely backwards. An olive oil of
desirable quality should have a strong flavor; bitter and peppery.

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.

~~~
seivan
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.

~~~
marios
Interesting. AFAIK, it depends on the oils and from what you're telling me on
the countries too. For instance, olive oil that stings in Greece is a no-no.
Tell a greek that the olive oil you get in other european countries stings you
in the throat and he'll most likely tell you you're getting ripped off,
especially when you also take into account the price.

------
Stratoscope
What do I see when I get to this page?

An olive skull and crossbones with EXTRA VIRGIN SUICIDE.

Let me scroll down so I can see more!

I hit the down arrow. Nothing happens.

I try the Page Down key. Nothing happens.

Ah, yes, I know, the keyboard doesn't always work on every website. I'll just
use the scroll bar!

Hmm... No scroll bar.

Wait! Over on the right, there's a box with a triangle in it, pointing up.

It almost looks like the top arrow in a scroll bar. That's not the direction I
wanted to go, but it looks like a clicky thing, so I'll try it.

Yay! The up arrow scrolls right! And I can click the up arrow again and it
scrolls right again.

And now there's a left arrow angle bracket over on the left that scrolls left
when I click it.

Why is one an angle bracket and the other a triangle?

Why does one point left and the other up?

This Must Mean Something.

But never mind that, at least now I understand that this page doesn't go up
and down, it goes left and right, and I have a way to navigate it.

Hmm... Left and right? Maybe I can try the left and right keys? Yes indeedy,
they work!

I feel like such a computer expert now.

~~~
jsolson
My experience: "Hey, there are a bunch of dots at the bottom, just like my
iPhone. The left one is lit up. I'll try tapping right. Oh, neat."

Honestly never even noticed the giant right arrow on the right side.

My wife (who didn't see me navigating about), within ~2 seconds of looking at
the page, said she'd tap the giant arrow to go to the next page.

While I think they could certainly have done better, I don't think it's as bad
as you're making it out to be.

My biggest complaint is that on mobile the pages snap in rather than sliding
in as you swipe.

~~~
Stratoscope
You're probably right, I was over-dramatizing it a bit. On a touch device I
would have probably figured it out sooner too, and it didn't really take me
that long to figure it out on the desktop browser.

Anyway, I figured out why I wasn't seeing a proper right arrow. It's a bug in
their CSS. They're using this sprite sheet:

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/01/13/food-
ch...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/01/13/food-chain-
olive/74ba3337612371882a1c848ec4747ca84c394795/spritesheet@2x.png)

This has the left and right arrow symbols at the bottom right. The left arrow
is working correctly, but for the right arrow the specificity of their
selectors is a bit messed up. The right arrow has a background-position that
should select the bottom right corner of the sprite sheet, but this particular
rule is getting overriden by a background: in a more specific selector that
makes it use the top left corner (0 0) instead. And that top left corner
happens to include the top of the fork-chicken's tail, which was looking like
an up arrow to me.

I guess the moral of the story is if you're going to do this kind of fancy
presentation, there are a lot of things that can go wrong!

------
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.)

~~~
rosser
_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...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050617065306.htm)

~~~
crazygringo
EVOO already has a low smoke point as far as oils are concerned, processed
soy/canola/corn/etc. oil all have significantly higher smoke points.

I can't imagine a scenario where a manufacturer would be adulterating EVOO
with another oil that has a _lower_ smoke point -- there just aren't any that
would be make economic sense, as far as I know.

~~~
busterarm
sunflower and safflower oils, the two most commonly substituted oils for olive
oil (as far as counterfeiting goes), have a similar or _much lower_ smoke
point than olive oil in an unrefined state. 225F, in fact. That's almost 100
degrees lower than olive oil.

~~~
crazygringo
If they used _unrefined_ sunflower or safflower oil, then your olive oil would
wind up with a lot of flavor of those oils, since unrefined oil is very
flavorful. They would seem like horrible choices for adulteration, since it
would be so obvious. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but do you have a source on
that? I'm genuinely curious.

On the other hand, _refined_ sunflower and safflower oil have _higher_ smoke
points than EVOO, and the flavor loss due to refining would let them blend in.

~~~
busterarm
What? Safflower oil is flavorless. As for sources, there've been various
articles about olive oil adulteration over the years...including one really
long one from a few years ago that was popular on most aggregator sites -
think it was also an NYT article.

------
pg
Why doesn't the article name the brands that cheat? Or at least list some that
don't?

~~~
ericabiz
There have been several articles about this previously, and even a book (I'm
probably more aware of this than many HN readers since I follow several food
blogs.) Here are some lists of what to buy and not buy:

[http://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-fake-extra-
virgin-o...](http://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-fake-extra-virgin-olive-
oil-brands-1460894373)

[http://articles.courant.com/2012-09-10/business/hc-ls-
consum...](http://articles.courant.com/2012-09-10/business/hc-ls-consumer-
reports-olive-oil-20120908_1_california-olive-ranch-olive-oil-extra-virgin)

Trader Joe's and Costco were two that consistently came out on top. (For what
it's worth, I've been buying the Costco organic EVOO and it's been great. I'm
a supertaster and can--fortunately or unfortunately--taste the difference.)

~~~
SonicSoul
what are some food blogs you can recommend?

also, is lifehacker becoming the next about.com? seems like anyone and
everyone can write for it, and i found their content to be pretty cheap these
days

------
GolfyMcG
Content of the article itself aside, I think this is a very well designed
piece of online content. Very easy to follow and way better than some wall of
text article you'd expect to see!

~~~
mef
For me, I'd much rather read the "wall of text". I found myself wanting more
depth and detail about the story.

------
pentolaccia
We have been producing organic olive oil for some years with my family.. And i
can tell you that everybody in this industry knows about this shit

Adulteration of olive oil is one of the many shamefull thing that affect my
country. Is one of those stories that politicians face "the italian way" =
they don't do a heck till something really bad happens (like people dying)

We had this topic on news for years now.. News tv show Report talked about it
with an investigation aired on Primetime on national broadcast tv in 2002..
(If you understand italian is worth watching)
[http://www.report.rai.it/dl/Report/puntata/ContentItem-17eec...](http://www.report.rai.it/dl/Report/puntata/ContentItem-17eecee5-475b-44cb-9839-0177ef27d2b0.html?refresh_ce)

Yet after more than 10years we still know that this shit is still going on..

It's such a shame cos not only exporting fake olive oil damages the whole
industry but also because you spread a Twisted culture on olive oil.

Like many says.. It s like wine. I ve been drinking high quality olive oil for
all my life and when i get to taste some industrial "so called" extravirgin
olive oil i feel like i have to throw up.

But if you think about it, olive oil adulteration it's even more important
than wine, since health factors are much more at stake. We hear nutritionist
say "use olive oil cos is good for your health " and they are right.. It's
damn good. Some study says it's like a natural antibiotic... So you go and buy
it.. But guess what If you stumble upon adulterated olive oil you get no
nutritional benefits and instead you swallow far more dangerous stuff hidden
in It like chems.

That's a subtle deception.. And "hell yea" is made in Italy :-(.

So my advice is be selective when you buy extra virgin olive oil from our
country (but also spain, greece and france).

------
InclinedPlane
As a random plug, I'll say that I really enjoy Lucero brand olive oil from
California ([http://www.lucerooliveoil.com/](http://www.lucerooliveoil.com/)).
There's pretty much no question their oil is what they say it is, you can even
tour their groves and facilities if you end up in the area. And their stuff is
great, I wish I could afford to keep stocked in their oil for all manner of
cooking.

------
dragon1st
This is an example of both very good information and also good design.

~~~
CharlesW
Really? I didn't personally find that the extremely simple graphics enhanced
my understanding of the short and shallow paragraphs of text. It almost felt
like just-pre-Idiocracy media spoon-feeding.

~~~
Stratoscope
Well, I learned that the Carabinieri dangle from helicopters with machine
guns, and charge in with flamethrowers and tanks! All with a giant bottle of
olive oil in their crosshairs.

------
coldcode
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?

~~~
maxerickson
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).

~~~
dsrguru
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.

~~~
maxerickson
I cook eggs in butter. Eggs in olive oil isn't something I enjoy. And people
really are looking for neutral flavors (how else is 'extra light olive oil' a
thing?).

I'm not really aware of any reason to prefer monounsaturated fats vs
polyunsaturated fats (and other oils beat olive oil on unsaturated vs
saturated).

~~~
dsrguru
Consuming monounsaturated fat is good for you. Consuming polyunsaturated fat,
with the exception of omega-3, is not.

My understanding is that the polyunsaturated fat in virtually all vegetable
oils are omega-6 fatty acids, which we consume way too much of relative to
omega-3 fatty acids (which are also technically polyunsaturated but which are
not present in any significant quantity in such cooking oils), and the huge
quantities of omega-6 that almost everyone consumes is believed to increase
our risk of numerous diseases, including cancer. Monounsaturated fat, the
primary beneficial constituent of so-called Mediterranean diets, and
especially the specific monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, is protective
against cancer, reduces LDL (bad cholesterol), and possibly raises HDL (good
cholesterol).

------
tibbon
Because of this stuff, I only buy my oil at this point from makers who I
personally have a connection with, and I know are selling 100% legitimate
stuff (a good friend's family has an organic olive grove and press in Sicily,
so I buy from that mostly now).

I'm constantly saddened by the fact that more countries don't enforce food
labeling regulation, either internally or for import. The US alone could
probably fix this problem really fast by banning the import of mislabeled food
products with high penalties for the import of poorly labeled ones.

~~~
busterarm
We've always had problems with labeling on food products where demand is
vastly ahead of supply. The olive oil situation isn't nearly as bad as the
honey situation.

------
rikelmens
Superior EVOO qualities:

1) high (≥76%) oleic acid content (for oxidative stability); olives from
different cultivars and regions can vary from 55-83% oleic acid)

2) low peroxide value (<9, and preferably <6 meq/kg)

3) high (≥350 mg/kg) total phenolics, assayed using caffeic acid equivalents,
and

4) harvested not more than 12 months ago

This one is a great candidate:
[http://amphoranueva.com/store/index.php?p=product&id=182](http://amphoranueva.com/store/index.php?p=product&id=182)
Veronica Foods - highly trusted (and my only) source of EVOO.

------
tzury
Here is a simple method testing whether the bottle in your kitchen is pure
olive oil, or a "mixed" one.

Take the bottle and put it in the refrigerator for 24-36 hours.

If the oil solidifies, it’s monounsaturated and is olive oil.

If the oil remains a liquid, it is polyunsaturated and is NOT olive oil.

This is not a scientific test, meaning, some fake will pass this, however,
polyunsaturated results == fake / mixed.

------
ballard
UC Davis and other labs will do adulteration testing including genetic
testing.

[http://anlab.ucdavis.edu/olives](http://anlab.ucdavis.edu/olives)

[http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/usda-new-
tests...](http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-basics/usda-new-tests-for-
olive-oil-adulteration/34664)

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

~~~
busterarm
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.

------
serge2k
Cool slideshow, nice example of a modern webpage.

But is this really what passes for journalism at the NYT now?

~~~
magicalist
No, it's what passes for the web-equivalent of the newspaper graphic.

------
pistolario
I can't believe it! All around the world people buying "italian" oil, when the
best is the spanish oil, with similar price, more quality and less fraud.

------
jeffgreco
Something about the placement of this cigar...
[http://i.snag.gy/MiSuO.jpg](http://i.snag.gy/MiSuO.jpg)

------
calroc
_Hacker_ News?

~~~
jayvanguard
They hacked the olive oil distribution.

