[HN Gopher] Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations
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Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations
Author : adomasm3
Score : 82 points
Date : 2024-03-03 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.iaea.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.iaea.org)
| binarymax wrote:
| I've come to peace with not being sure whether the olive oil I
| use for cooking is really what they say it is on the bottle.
|
| But I also buy really real oil from a nice local supplier (F.
| Oliver's) to use on salads and bread.
|
| It's pretty obvious the difference. The latter is so good. It
| costs about double the supermarket stuff, but it's for a
| different purpose and I use it more sparingly.
|
| I admit it would be nice if all olive oil tasted this good...but
| it's something I gave up obsessing about a couple years ago.
| collaborative wrote:
| I think supermarket oil is fine. The fake oil is mostly sold in
| discount shops like tk maxx and home bargains
| umanwizard wrote:
| How do you know?
| colechristensen wrote:
| No, there are widespread problems with olive oil fraud.
| devbent wrote:
| Plenty of studies have been done by purchasing a large # of
| bottles from supermarkets and they've all shown half or more
| of olive oils are either fake or rancid.
| artursapek wrote:
| olive oil isn't even particularly great for cooking because of
| its low smoke point. avocado oil or beef/duck tallow are a good
| choice.
| binarymax wrote:
| Of course, I have a variety of oils depending on what I'm
| cooking. I use olive oil for low and slow stuff like sauces.
| mp05 wrote:
| Though not quite as high as avocado or safflower, I presume
| you're aware that refined olive oils can have pretty high
| smoke points. But it surprises me how often I'll be at a
| friend's home and they grease up their frying pan with EVOO.
| someotherperson wrote:
| I exclusively use EVOO. Never had a problem, never had a
| complaint. But then again I don't exactly deep fry food so
| maybe that's where the issue is.
| oven9342 wrote:
| yeah, for deep frying certain frozen food products, it
| might be better to reach temperatures above 170 degC, so
| the oil doesn't get too cold as you add the frozen food.
| mk89 wrote:
| There can be two main reasons:
|
| 1. Their EVOO can reach temps ~200degC
|
| 2. They use medium temperatures on the frying pan (so they
| keep it at 180-200degC, or lower). This is especially true
| when you use pans with anti-stick coating, which literally
| break at high temperatures (it's even written in the
| instructions to avoid using the highest temperatures).
| swores wrote:
| Yeah, for something like lightly frying some mushrooms,
| or caramelising onions (though butter is imo tastier for
| the latter) there's no reason not to use EVOO other than
| that it still won't be the cheapest option, but cooking
| won't get rid of all of its health benefits nor taste. I
| suppose maybe there's a case (I don't know if this has
| been studied or just people with differing anecdotes?)
| for cheaper than EV olive oil being as good as EV when
| using it for cooking over a certain temperature? I don't
| know.
| funklute wrote:
| That's not the whole story though. Often, what is more
| important is how stable the oil is below the smoke point.
| There's a pretty decent video on this by Adam Ragusea:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_aFHrzSBrM
| goostavos wrote:
| What the heck are you talking about? Olive oil is perfectly
| fine for cooking. Not everything needs high temp and fast
| searing. The smoke point of olive oil is plenty high for tons
| of sauteing applications.
| artursapek wrote:
| I know that. I'm just saying, rather than buying cheap
| olive oil for cooking which is probably very impure and
| diluted with cheap vegetable oil, there are other oils
| which one can purchase which aren't imitated with frauds as
| often and which have higher smoke points.
| oven9342 wrote:
| Olive oil is great for cooking as long as you keep it below
| its temperature, 170 degrees celsius. I use a fancy IR
| thermometer because I'm a nerd.
|
| "during frying olive oil behavior is usually equal or
| superior to that of refined vegetable oils" https://ift.onlin
| elibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1541-433...
|
| "olive oil, independently of its category label, is clearly
| resistant to degradation under domestic frying conditions
| (170 degC). Among the olive oil categories, the extra-virgin
| PDO olive oil was more resistant under the conditions of this
| study" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
| S02786...
| NavinF wrote:
| > I use a fancy IR thermometer
|
| This is useless for taking absolute measurements like 170C.
| You have to calibrate the oil/pan's emissivity using a
| normal thermometer
| Aloisius wrote:
| Duck fat's smoke point is actually rather close to olive
| oil's. Actually, a low-acid extra virgin or virgin will have
| a higher smoke point. Also refined olive oil, of course, not
| that many people buy it.
| bsder wrote:
| Who cooks everything north of 400F?
|
| I saute in butter all the time which has a smoke point of
| 350F or less. I adjust my cooking temperature to suit the
| dish.
|
| If my pan is so hot that the olive oil is smoking, I'm
| probably burning the hell out of whatever I'm cooking.
| devbent wrote:
| > Who cooks everything north of 400F?
|
| Depends on the cuisine. If I'm wok frying something as hot
| as possible is a good starting point!
|
| Also if I'm going to throw 2lb of protein on a pan I need
| it as hot as I can get it so the temp doesn't drop down to
| nothing after the meat is added.
| bsder wrote:
| Won't you be using peanut or soybean oil for a wok?
|
| And "wok hei" relies on _explicitly igniting_ the oil to
| burn it, which renders the whole discussion moot.
|
| If I'm trying to keep a pan hot in the face of 2 pounds
| of cold, watery protein, I either need something like a
| mass of cast iron, an induction system or a gallon of
| oil.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Not everybody has the luxury of "coming to peace" with it. I
| have an extremely strict diet due to food insensitivies and
| olive oil is the only way I can get fat in my diet. Bad olive
| oil is cut with other oils and literally makes me sick.
|
| The real stuff is extremely hard to find and now I stock up
| with a year's worth because the last place I sourced it from
| went out of business and took q while to find another location.
| binarymax wrote:
| Sorry to hear that. Not sure where you're located but check
| out the supplier I mentioned, it's definitely pure.
|
| https://folivers.com/
| hanniabu wrote:
| Thanks, good to have for emergencies although it looks like
| they're all flavors and don't have it plain.
| binarymax wrote:
| They certainly do! In the 'single varietal' section:
|
| https://folivers.com/product-category/single-varietal-
| evoo/
|
| I usually get the Hojiblanca but seems that variety is
| unavailable online.
|
| Also to be clear, I have no affiliation.
| dheera wrote:
| > The real stuff is extremely hard to find
|
| I buy stuff like this
|
| https://barianioliveoil.com/
|
| and this
|
| https://shop.sekahills.com/Products/Olive-Oil
|
| These are both California olive oils, available at my local
| Whole Foods, and indicate clearly the harvest date. They
| taste far better than the mass produced brands. Are they not
| the real thing? Please enlighten me. If price isn't an issue
| which olive oil should I get if I like bold flavor?
| balderdash wrote:
| you might also try Costco if you are in the US. Anecdotally,
| a friend of mine is a supplier for Costco on the
| food/beverage side, and told me that they did more diligence
| than all their other customers combined.
|
| EDIT: you might also just try going direct to small
| suppliers, a lot wineries also make olive oil
|
| https://winecountrytable.com/travel/other-activities/six-
| son...
| trimistermota wrote:
| If its okay, may i ask what exact sensitivity do you have?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Olive oil is commonly cut with other oils to the point that
| you have repeatedly run into health problems as a result of
| food fraud? I knew it was common, but that is basically at
| the point of routine.
| programd wrote:
| It's worse then just health problems. People have died as a
| result of olive oil being cut with phenylamine, most
| notoriously in Sapin in 1981. An estimated 2100 people
| died. The survivors were still protesting as of a couple of
| years ago.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fake-olive-oil-
| scandal-...
| NavinF wrote:
| Why would anyone cut olive oil with with phenylamine? The
| former is dirt cheap. Wikipedia comes in clutch and
| reveals the root cause:
|
| "Spanish regulations of the time allowed imports of
| rapeseed oil only for industrial use, and only if it has
| been denatured with aniline to prevent use as food"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_oil_syndrome
|
| The article goes on to reveal that the deaths were likely
| caused by something else:
|
| "The WHO has since then tried to recreate the poisoning
| in laboratory animals with less-than-satisfactory
| results"
|
| "when these three substances were given to laboratory
| animals, OOPAP was not acutely toxic, PAP was toxic only
| after injection, but not after oral administration, and
| OPAP was toxic only after injection of high doses.[3]
| Therefore, none of these three substances is thought to
| cause TOS.[3] Similar results were obtained after
| administration of fatty acid anilides"
| trollbridge wrote:
| If you can make it to Corning, CA, which is in the heart of
| California's olive country, you can stop by the Olive Pit and
| not only buy a variety of olive oils (many locally produced),
| but they also allow samples.
|
| They do sell online as well but I haven't tried that option.
| Reason077 wrote:
| I have a friend who moved to Portugal and acquired ~15 olive
| trees with the farmhouse he purchased. (And also oranges,
| lemons, pomegranates, plums, and grape vines). All for less
| than the price of a small flat in London.
|
| It took him and his girlfriend a few days of work, but they
| harvested all the olives by hand (using rakes and nets), took
| them to a local olive mill and for around EUR50 (flat fee for
| any amount of olives up to a certain batch size) got back a
| 50-litre barrel filled with some of the most delicious extra
| virgin olive oil I've ever tasted. At least a year's supply for
| them.
|
| Fast fibre internet there too despite being in the countryside.
| I don't think he's coming back!
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| The internet is good when it works. Mine has been out for a
| week. Motherf-ing Altice...
| dadoum wrote:
| Oh so Altice also exists there? SFR in France is now
| legendary for all of its problems.
|
| My parents paid for a fiber subscription for years before
| understanding that it wasn't using the fiber since it
| wasn't working, and when they did know, SFR sent us
| technicians to try to fix the problem. Each one of them
| came, and got to the same conclusion: "Oh, it doesn't work,
| I (the technician) should call someone in SFR and come back
| next week", and then proceeded to not come back the next
| week. 10 times. 10 technicians came and told me the same
| thing; even one of them told me that "Just switch to
| another provider it's not probably going to be resolved"
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| SFR was their first mistake, alas.
| re wrote:
| > a 50 litre barrel ... At least a year's supply for them
|
| That's an unfathomable amount of olive oil to me! To finish
| off the barrel within a year between the two of them, they'd
| each have to be consuming 68 mL (4.6 tablespoons) of olive
| oil daily, providing 62 grams of fat.
| kurthr wrote:
| Yeah, there's olive oil for sprinkling on a salad or sauces
| where you're going to smell and taste it, and then there's
| cooking oil. I'd happily spend a fair bit on a small quantity
| of the former (Extra Virgin) from a local producer since it's
| going to go rancid quickly anyway, and get non-EVOO for
| cooking.
|
| I still use light olive oil since it's mono-unsaturated and a
| bit more healthy, but it also just lasts longer in a liter+
| jug. I wouldn't want to have the bottle open for more than a
| few months, you can smell the oxidation. It doesn't seem like
| the counterfeiting is as bad for the moderate cost and
| processed version either.
|
| That said, last I was at WholePaycheck they _ONLY_ had EVOO and
| a huge shelf of it, too. Gotta go to the regular store for the
| light stuff.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| [delayed]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I buy only California olive oil, no imports, because the
| regulation is a lot stronger. Costs more, but at least I know
| I'm getting the real thing.
| mikeodds wrote:
| "As of 2021, the most frequent type of adulteration of olive oil
| is that oil of lower quality is mixed into it.[24] Adulterated
| oil is usually no more serious than passing off inferior, but
| safe, products as superior olive oil, however in 1981 almost 700
| people died, it is believed, as a consequence of consuming
| rapeseed (canola) oil adulterated with aniline intended for use
| as an industrial lubricant, but sold as olive oil in Spain (see
| toxic oil syndrome)."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adult...
| anthk wrote:
| Spaniard here. That case was so mediatic that no one tried to
| sell canola oil for the consumers. And of course the controls
| on that skyrocketed.
| switch007 wrote:
| (I think by "mediatic" you mean high-profile / highly
| controversial etc)
| masfuerte wrote:
| Poisonous oil seems to have been invented as a cover-up. The
| geographical distribution of the suspect oil was far wider than
| the geographical distribution of the sickness, and some of the
| victims were positive they had not used the oil. Much of the
| evidence cited in the official investigation has been shown to
| have been fabricated.
|
| Poisoning by organophosphates on tomatoes is a much better fit
| for the facts.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/aug/25/research.h...
| teekert wrote:
| Since some time I was noticing that my Olive oil for cooking was
| "sticky" and when frying stuff sticks more to my pans.
|
| I switched to this: https://theflowerfarm.nl/ (oh, it's Dutch
| only apparently.) Anyway, it's good stuff, palm oil free, plant
| based, and fries very will in my metal pans, much less sticky.
|
| I was wondering, I noticed that my Olive oil is "processed oil"
| now, I swear it was just pure olive oil in the past. Could this
| be it, fake low quality oil?
| stork19 wrote:
| How exactly is spectroscopy a nuclear innovation?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The light hits the nucleus of an atom and bounces back to the
| instrument.
| programd wrote:
| There's a great book about the history of olive oil which devotes
| a whole chapter to modern olive oil fraud, enabled in part by
| regulatory capture of labelling legislation by the olive oil
| industry.
|
| "Extra Virginity - The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil"
| by Tom Mueller
| j-bos wrote:
| This heartening to hear and needed for other oils. We bought some
| Chosen avocado oil in the grocery store and it smoked on a low
| heat skillet. Avocado oil smokes at 500 F so clearly there was
| hardly any avocado oil in the bottle.
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