| Abstract: |
While the so-called "Agromafia" just recently got its 15 minutes of primetime fame here in America, olive oil fraud is nothing new: A 2010 study by the University of California, Davis tested 19 popular olive oil brands — including big names like Bertolli and Colavita — sold in the U.S., using chemical and taste tests to find that nearly 70 percent of the bottles labeled "extra-virgin" didn’t meet the parameters to be labelled as such. (Even Rachael Ray, the Food Network star credited with bringing the acronym "EVOO" into the popular vernacular, was found to be hawking mislabelled extra-virgin oil.) The results of that 2010 study spurred a class-action lawsuit against several of the companies who were mislabeling their olive oil, and later that year the USDA finally introduced strict guidelines for the labeling of different olive oil grades; until then, it had basically been a free-for-all, with any company free to label its product as "extra-virgin" without consequence. But according to 60 Minutes, most of the EVOO that can be purchased in the average American supermarket today — as much as 80 percent, the report suggested — doesn’t fit the legal criteria; much of it is said to be diluted with cheaper olive oils from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, and sometimes it's even a cheaper product like sunflower oil that's been colored and scented. |
