These days, it’s not surprising when we learn that what we eat is not exactly what we thought it was. Consumers are getting used to a little subterfuge on their plates.
A list of revelations:
Bottles of “balsamic” vinegar line the grocery store shelves filled with wine vinegar flavored with herbs and caramel. For the most part, there’s nothing authentic about them.
The green blob accompanying your sushi is most likely colored horseradish masquerading as wasabi.
And surprise! Some of those beloved plastic bottles we tote from car to work to gym hold little more than tap water.
There’s more: bad spinach, suspicious beef and hidden trans fats. Lately, it seems our food is out to get us.
What’s next, soybean oil in your olive oil bottle?
Uh, maybe.
An article on olive oil fraud by Tom Mueller in the Aug. 13 New Yorker magazine will have everyone who reads it looking askance at their bottles of golden oil. Is it really heart-healthy olive oil, the cornerstone of the highly touted Mediterranean diet? And more importantly, how can a buyer be sure?
Mueller writes of criminal rings in Italy and other countries that add soybean and other oils to olive oil. The racketeers have also been caught bottling inferior olive oil, labeling it extra-virgin, then shipping it around the world. Some is so low-grade that it could be used as lamp oil.
He also notes that last year federal marshals seized about 23,000 gallons of olive oil from a New Jersey warehouse because most of it was soybean oil. That case is pending.
“A lot of people were shocked by the article, but I was not,” said Patricia Darragh, director of the California Olive Oil Council. “I have tasted a lot of bad olive oil.”
But bad olive oil and adulterated olive oil are different things. One is a matter of taste, the other of fraud.
The council was quick to issue a press release touting the authenticity of California olive oil and noting the rigorous testing that proves it.
“A lot of exporters think Americans have unsophisticated palates so they won’t know the difference if they refine bad oil to make it tasteless,” she said.
The food chain
Darragh’s comment is opinion, but there are two real situations conspiring to make Americans more susceptible to olive oil fraud.
Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture has standards about grading olive oil. There are characteristics in color, chemical makeup and taste that help classify olive oil as extra-virgin or something else. In the European Union, these standards, complete with chemical descriptions, govern what can be printed on labels.
The FDA, however, does have laws that require truth in labeling. If the bottle says it’s olive oil, it has to be olive oil.
Because adulterated olive oil is not likely to harm anyone, there is no pressure to institute systematic testing of imports, said Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association in Neptune, N.J.
Right now, the government is focused on policing tainted food from China and Mexico. According to a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, FDA inspectors have refused entry to 1,330 Mexican food shipments since July 2006.
“It is frustrating,” said Bauer, whose group, like the California council, has petitioned the government to develop standards and implement more regular testing of olive oil imports.
Even without federal standards, Bauer said, his organization doesn’t find the problems that Mueller wrote about.
Bauer’s group does random testing of olive oils, sending samples to European labs accredited by the International Olive Oil Council. Suspicious findings are reported to the FDA.
“Based on our tests, though, consumers really have nothing to worry about,” Bauer said.
Vigo Importing Co. of Tampa imports olive oil from Tunisia, Spain and Argentina and blends them to make its extra-virgin product. General manager Sam Ciccarello said that each shipment Vigo receives comes with a certificate of analysis, but the company also has the oil tested by an independent lab.
“We segregate the oil and don’t blend it until we know what it is,” he said. “We are highly motivated to make sure our products are labeled properly.”
Vigo blends the imported oils to match a flavor and chemical profile so that every bottle of its extra-virgin olive oil has the same properties and taste.
However, “the owners here know these things happen,” he said about olive oil fraud.
When Vigo personnel see an olive oil being sold for a particularly low price, they wonder.
Another big oil
Since 1980, the consumption of olive oil in the United States has skyrocketed.
Part of the reason is the research that shows that the monounsaturated oil is good for the heart in small amounts and as a replacement for other fats. TV cooking shows that sing the praises of its good taste is another, and a third is Americans’ love affair with all things Italian. Many consumers might be surprised to know that their olive oil comes from Africa, South America or European countries other than Italy. Spain is the world’s largest olive oil producer.
In 1980, Americans consumed about 32,000 tons of olive oil. By 2005, that number had grown to 259,000 tons.
Olive oil is markedly more expensive than vegetable oil, about five times more than corn oil and three times higher than other vegetable oils. Because of the price, there has always been an undercurrent about how genuine it is.
That’s why, Bauer and Darragh maintain, federal guidelines are needed to protect consumers.
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Assessing olive oils
Olive oil is different from other cooking oils in many ways. The most important differences to consumers and cooks are its heart-healthy properties and its taste — unlike vegetable oils, it has one.
It can be evaluated like wine, especially extra-virgin olive oil that comes from the first pressing of olives grown in one grove or region.
In these oils, terroir, the French term describing how weather, land and water affect crops grown in a specific place, becomes obvious. When smelled and tasted alone, you might find notes of newly mown grass, mint, nuts, bananas, green apples and, of course, olives.
These properties are especially prominent in olive oil that costs $25 or more a bottle. They are less noticeable in generic, grocery store olive oils, and that’s because the olives come from a variety of growers and possibly more than one country.
Some consumers buy expensive estate olive oils for finishing touches such as drizzling on tomatoes and use less-expensive, generic varieties for cooking.
Here are some ways to assess olive oil:
*Olive oil is really a fruit juice that should be consumed within two years of pressing and within 90 days of opening. Don’t buy more than you can use in about three months.
*Read the label. Italica oil ($5.99 for 17 ounces) states on its label that the olives are from the hills surrounding the city of Italica in southern Spain. (Even though the hurried shopper might assume Italica is from Italy.)
*If the company goes so far as to pinpoint the source of the olives, it’s likely true, said Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association. The manufacturers don’t want to harm their reputation and hurt sales of other products by making false claims, he said.
*Smell olive oil as you would wine. Pour a tablespoon into a clear glass and sniff. It should smell like olives, among other things.
*Last, taste the oil, sucking in a bit of air to oxygenate the flavors. Is it mild or is there an intense kick? Can you detect flavors that remind you of artichokes or bananas?
*Most important, do you like the taste? This is the oil you’ll be using to make salad dressings and saute vegetables. If it doesn’t pass your taste test, buy another brand next time you’re at the store. Or better, host an olive oil tasting and have each taster bring a bottle to sample. That’s a quick and economical way to find an olive oil you like.
— J.K.
