Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations

[programd]

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]

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.

[OccamsMirror]

The answer is company ending fines but western governments don’t have the stomach for punishing companies on behalf of consumers.

[rootusrootus]

That's interesting, I'd have expected the most likely oil to adulterate with would be soybean oil since it's pretty cheap, but the smoke point is still fairly high. Maybe your bottle was rancid, too?

[stork19]

How exactly is spectroscopy a nuclear innovation?

[ch4s3]

The light hits the nucleus of an atom and bounces back to the instrument.

[EMCymatics]

They buried the techniques in a few places.

Laser induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) https://appliedspectra.com/technology/libs.html

Laser ablation molecular istopic spectroscopy (LAMIS) https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ja/c5ja0...

Linked in the article is another article that elaborates

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-crp-implementation-...

*Enhancing Nuclear Analytical Techniques to Meet the Needs of Forensic Science’ (F11021)*

https://www.iaea.org/projects/crp/d52040

>This project will consider applications based on hand-held and portable devices including (but not limited to) ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), near infra-red (NIR) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometers and some bench-top laboratory instruments that have become ‘field’ transportable including laser induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS), laser ablation molecular isotopic spectrometry (LAMIS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry (MS) and multi-spectral imaging (MSI). This CRP is conducted jointly with the Nuclear Sciences Instrumentation Laboratory under CRP G42007.

*‘Field Deployable Analytical Methods to Assess the Authenticity, Safety and Quality of Food (D52040/G42007)*

https://www.iaea.org/projects/crp/f11021

>ion and neutron beam techniques for elemental and molecular analysis is well established and such services are available through a great number of laboratories in the IAEA Member States operating ion beam accelerator or research reactor centers

Isotope spectroscopy I knew of:

For carbon/water isotope determination with spectroscopy you can use cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) for gas state stable isotopes (water, CO, CO2, CH4). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_ring-down_spectroscopy https://www.picarro.com/environmental/support/literature/mea...

Picaro instrument is ok at precision, cleaning is not fun, and matrix effects suck. Laser lifetime leaves much to be desired.

[zzz999]

They can't even ensure we eat the type of fish we order... Food fraud is huge

[binarymax]

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.

[Reason077]

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 €50 (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!

[kurthr]

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.

[hanniabu]

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.

[rootusrootus]

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.

[artursapek]

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.

[collaborative]

I think supermarket oil is fine. The fake oil is mostly sold in discount shops like tk maxx and home bargains

[teekert]

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?

[mikeodds]

“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...

[masfuerte]

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...

[anthk]

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.