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Melissa McEwen
This blog is about the intersection between evolutionary biology and food. But also about practical applications, sustainable agriculture, and general tasty things. I originally started eating this way to heal from chronic health problems and...it worked!
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My Diet: Good, local, whole foods. Mostly meat, fish, and vegetables with some traditional whole grains and legumes.
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Like a virgin
UC-Davis's Olive Oil Chemistry Lab—turns out there is such a thing—says it has discovered that more than two-thirds of random samples of imported extra-virgin olive oil are rancid or adulterated with lesser oils. "It's like we have our own CSI: Olive Oil lab here," chemist Charles Shoemaker told NPR, and given the scale of the crime he has seemingly uncovered, his words seem entirely appropriate. Here's NPR on the "mounting concern over truth-in-olive-oil-labeling," as well as the possibility that California's olive growers could have biased Shoemaker's study.
That's why I'm always extra careful with oils, but at most restaurants this is a luxury. I usually ask for things to be cooked in butter, since it's fairly obvious when it's rancid. The last thing anyone needs is rancid PUFAs or corn oil. This is one issue where I'd like to see extra scruntiny in the food system, either from the government or a private certification system. It's going to be hard to consumers to discern the quality of an oil given that most can't visit Italy and nobody has a lipid lab in their kitchen.
Do you buy your fruit oils from a good supplier? Let me know in the comments!
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Whole Health Source has a
Whole Health Source has a post, called Olive Oil Buyer's Guide. Search it (can't post here).
The Buon Ialia market in New
The Buon Ialia market in New York (Chelsea Market) has dozens of olive oils, and make sure they are all 100% good, and allow you to try many of them in the store. Excellent stuff !
As a dual-citizen and someone
As a dual-citizen and someone who has spent the majority of summers in Greece (averaging 1.5 months a year) I gravitated towards this website for high-quality Greek olive oil: http://www.greekoliveoils.com/ I cook mostly with pastured butter, coconut, and palm oils, but I use the Greek olive oils from this site on my salads and in some low-temp. cooking from time to time. I haven't had them lab-tested, but the site offers up some lab data and their products have all the relevant EU certs for PDO and Bio-dynamic, etc. Obviously I'm biased, but I've found the Italian and Spanish olive oils you find in most retail stores to be a cruel joke, especially when you compare them to what real, "extra-virgin" cold-pressed olive oil from family-owned groves in Greece actually looks and tastes like. The color is very deep green and the antioxidant contents are through the roof. I'm sure that there are just as many unscrupulous Greek exporters (maybe more) of olive oil as there are Italian and Spanish one, but, in my estimation, the cultural pressure to keep olive oil pure and "sacred" seems to be much stronger in Greek culture.
How do you tell that olive
How do you tell that olive oil is rancid?
Step 1. Build a chemistry lab
Step 1. Build a chemistry lab in your house
Step 2. Perform analytical titration.
See, it's super simple!!!!
In all seriousness, it would be kind of cool to get a tasting kit with various oils of varying rancidity to taste (not swallow!). I bet it's possible to train your tongue to ID them, but it's a fairly subtle difference in taste from a slightly rancid oil because olive oil has so many other flavors. You could do a tasting based on the oils listed in the UC Davis report.
This is a huge problem around
This is a huge problem around the world, but Bariani and Chaffin Family Orchards have good brands.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller - "More sophisticated scams, like Domenico Ribatti's, typically take place at high-tech refineries, where the oil is doctored with substances like hazelnut oil and deodorized lampante olive oil, which are extremely difficult to detect by chemical analysis. "
http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/food/oliveoil/index.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12571726
There's a article from a few
There's a article from a few years ago in the New Yorker about olive oil politics in Italy and the Mediterranean in general.
To summarize, olive oil fraud is also a huge problem in Italy and even massive and various attempts at government intervention haven't done much to improve the situation.
I use coconut oil.
I use coconut oil.
I'm not as faithful about
I'm not as faithful about buying my olive oil here as I ought to be, but the Queen Creek Olive Mill in Queen Creek, AZ is where I have ordered in the past. I actually visited this farm a year ago and took a tour of their mill and processing plant. They talked a lot about how what you wrote about today - that not all olive oils are what they say they are and what they're cracked up to be.
I highly recommend ordering from them. queencreekolivemill.com
And I swear I don't work for them or anything. I just know they're a great company with a top notch product.
I've noticed that since I
I've noticed that since I basically went Paleo (I'm no purist, but I definitely follow the MDA's 80/20 principle), I have a very attuned taste to oil.
I can eat a fried food and basically tell if it's canola, soy, corn, peanut, coconut, olive, butter etc.
And I can tell within a single bite whether it's rancid or not.
But maybe that's just me...
I live in northern
I live in northern California--the Bay Area. I purchase Bariani olive oil at their Farmers Market stand.
The New Yorker magazine did an expose/story about [imported] olive oil a few years ago. (You can go to their website to read it, if you are interested.) In a nutshell: Pretty much all of the OOs out of Spain is not 100% olive oil. Also, many of the OOs from Italy, are not 100%,too. The reason is because the suppliers cannot keep up with the [global] demand. After I read that New Yorker article, I stopped purchasing OO from overseas; I only get Bariani's--it is very good.
Dammit! What to buy, where to
Dammit! What to buy, where to buy..
I buy mine at the farmer
I buy mine at the farmer market. There are a few Italian shops there that import olive oil from Italy. I'm pretty sure mine is legit (or, I hope so). It taste very good and strong (very olive-ish) so I don't think it's diluted. I have looked around and I have not find a better option.
I buy all mine from Trader
I buy all mine from Trader Joe's. I haven't sent it to a lab, but it tastes fresh to me. I'm pretty picky with olive oil and have noticed terribly rancid olive oil when cooking/eating at friends houses.