
But how can you tell if your olive oil is fake or not? Does the refrigerator test really work? What about the oil lamp test?
These tests are often touted as the solution for determining if your olive oil is fake, but actually they have flawed outcomes that can easily mislead you. There’s only one sure-fire way to know if your olive oil is real.
Journalist Tom Mueller broke the story about how more than 70% of the extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) sold in the world is fake (cut with cheaper oils) in his best-selling book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil. He exposed there is no business more slippery than the olive oil business.
And, you might remember when 60 Minutes’s presented”AgroMafia”, where they exposed Mafia food fraud extending into agricultural products, especially olive oil. As one EU official remarked, “It’s comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks”.
Ever since, we olive oil lovers everywhere have been seeking authentic, 100% real olive oil.
Here is the original GOOD EVOO list and also the BAD EVOO list.
How to Tell if Your Olive Oil is Fake:
The Taste Test
Some of us have been persuaded that we can taste the difference between real olive oil and fake olive oil. But apparently, no… we can’t.
When given a variety of real and fake olive oils to test, even the self-proclaimed taste-testing experts were miserable failures.
Tom Mueller conducted a blind tasting of extra virgin olive oils a few years ago for a national newspaper that wanted “the truth on expensive olive oil”:
We had a dozen oils, and a panel consisting of an importer, an Italian deli owner and a couple of eminent foodies: the results were so embarrassing and confusing the piece was never published. The importer went into a fugue after he was informed that he’d pronounced his own premium product “disgusting”; the deli owner chose a bottle of highly dubious “Italian extra virgin” as his favourite (it had cost £1.99 at the discount store TK Maxx); and both the foodies gave a thumbs-up to Unilever’s much-derided Bertolli brand. (source)
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Jackie
You posted half an article???
Jacqueline
Hi, Jackie, Hmm..
No, I am seeing the whole article. Use this link: https://deeprootsathome.com/one-way-to-distinguish-100-real-vs-fake-olive-oil/
It is working fine for me and for others. ~J
Jennifer;)
Hi Jacque! I’ve reread the following article several times, and I think see what the previous commenter meant. I don’t see the ‘one way to tell if my olive oil is fake”. I clicked on the link from your very helpful Italian O.O. post, which links back to this one. I don’t…maybe I’m missing something. What is the one way to tell if my oil is fake? Thanks!
Jacqueline
Hi, Jennifer!
Basically, the header “How to Avoid Fake EVOO: Get To Know Your Farmer” and this sentence should clear it up: “..So, buy locally from those you feel you can trust, and you can know your olive oil is 100% authentic.”
Hope you are all well! Enjoy your Memorial Day!
Jacque