Olive Oil Fraud? Who knew.

As the parent of a child who has developed food allergies to peanuts, treenuts, soy and dairy, we have had to undertake a strict regimen of what foods we buy, cook with and bring into the house. And eating out? Well forget about that.

One of the things we like to cook with is olive oil, given its rich in good fats and generally one of the healthier oils you can eat. Imagine my surprise on finding out that it’s fairly common for the extra virgin olive oil being exported from Sicily and other parts of the Mediterranean being anything but. It turns out olive oil is routinely cut with refined nut and vegetable oils in the interest of profit.

In 1995, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) testing olive oils for purity, conducted a study. Only 4 per cent of the 73 brands of olive oils tested proved to be pure olive oil. Most products were adulterated with vegetable oils, which have been shown to cause, not prevent heart disease. Oils such as canola, corn, cottonseed and soy oils were used with as little as only 10% olive oil in some products.

This is a huge problem for us given that Arlo is allergic to nut oils and soy oil. But it also explains why Arlo would occasionally break out hives on his face during dinner for no discernible reason when eating completely “safe” foods. We had cooked with “extra virgin olive oil”.

While the news of the Italian mafia deep-sixing toxic waste into the Mediterranean is obviously distressing, this level of fraud, while it may seem relatively innocuous, poses huge health risks to people with serious food allergies. Eating by trusting the labeling was challenging enough; now it’s just getting absurd.

Links:

NPR 1, NPR 2, New Yorker, Dr. Weil

Related posts:

1. Food allergies update
2. Arlo visits the ER
3. Where’s the beef?
4. Good times