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Not all olive oil is as pure as it seems; here’s the lowdown on discerning the fine from the fake.
Even before Rachael Ray coined her perky catch phrase “EVOO,” extra virgin olive oil’s popularity was skyrocketing. The international olive oil industry has become bigger and more profitable than the wine industry, according to Armando Manni of Manni Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The figures support his assertion – according to the International Olive Oil Council, the US imported 90,000 metric tons of EVOO in 1990. By 2006 that figure had risen to 240,000 metric tons.
Nowhere is the industry’s growth more apparent than in the restaurant and retail sector. At the Four Seasons Silicon Valley, executive chef Alessandro Cartumini treats oil with a reverence usually reserved for a fine wine or liqueur: his menu at Quattro offers a variety of Manni olive oils for three dollars a pour. Shelves in the olive oil aisles of Whole Foods Markets are packed full with bottles, while customers at Draeger’s gourmet markets can select from over 70 olive oils.
How to Choose Olive Oil
So which oil to choose? Do you buy the brand that claims to have won awards, or the oil that hails from the most alluring locale? Perhaps the bottle with the bonus pouring spout, the one that’s an olive-y green, or the sleek glass flask that matches your Method dish soap dispenser? Those who judge an olive oil by its bottle, take note: heat and UV rays break down some of the oil’s healthful properties, so don’t display it on the counter. Stash it instead in a cool, dark place away from the stove.
At the recently opened The Olive Bar in Campbell, customers can sample up to 16 EVOO varietals. Proprietor Ed De Soto was a food broker for years, but wasn’t educated about olive oil until a year ago. “I had olive oil in my garage for two to three years. I thought rancid was a flavor,” he recalls.
Olive Oil Polyphenols
“Rancid products are pathogens and sources of free radicals,” says Mike Bradley, president of Veronica Foods, the De Sotos’ supplier. Free radicals contribute to aging, heart disease and cancer – things that polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in good quality, well-stored olive oil, should fight and protect against. Polyphenols are a relatively recent discovery – in the past, the focus of olive oil’s health benefits was on how its monounsaturated fats help lower LDL, the bad cholesterol, without lowering HDL, the good one.
Manni, who sells to some of the finest restaurants in the world, including Napa’s The French Laundry, is manic about polyphenols. He works with the University of Florence to analyze the best time to harvest his olives, pours his oils into 3.4oz bottles of dark, UV-filtering glass, and tops them with inert gas to protect these antioxidants. Polyphenol levels of 250mg per liter are considered high; Manni’s oils contain levels as high as 450mg per liter. These meticulously produced oils cost over $300 for 10 bottles.
Veronica Foods, which produces Delizia olive oil, holds its oil in stainless steel tanks to minimize exposure and deterioration. The De Sotos then transfer the oil into stainless steel drums, and dispense it in dark glass bottles. Ken Manley, the head gourmet buyer for Draeger’s, lauds such methods. “The oil lasts so much longer. You can taste the difference.”
While dark glass is better for the oil, many producers insist on using transparent bottles, often considered more visually appealing. “We buy some clear bottles because they sell quickly,” says Manley. “I’ve talked a dozen companies into changing their packaging to the dark bottle, but it’s a double-edged sword, because producers want to show off their oil color.”
Olive Oil Fakes and Fraud
This, despite the fact that color not only has no bearing on the oil’s flavor, but can even be the sign of an inferior product. Some producers crush olives with leaves to make the oil greener. Bradley says with soybean oil fetching 40 cents a pound, compared with five dollars a pound for olive oil, unscrupulous producers may blend olive oil with soybean oil and green dye.
So, unless you want to take home an extra virgin oil that’s about as virginal as Paris Hilton, be sure to read the label carefully. “Citrus Olive Oil produced in Italy” tells you nothing. Ideally, the olives were crushed with citrus, but it could just as well be older Italian oil infused with citrus to disguise the rancid taste. Or Tunisian olive oil blended with citrus flavoring and bottled in Italy. “It’s legal to put ‘Product of Italy’ if it’s the last country of handling,” explains Patty Darragh, executive director of the California Olive Oil Council (COOC).
Bradley also warns buyers to be wary of misleading labeling such as “pure olive oil” and “light.” These products can consist of as little as five percent virgin oil, with the rest consisting of refined, inferior oil. As a result, the polyphenol levels are miniscule.
“A lot of imported oils are mislabeled or adulterated,” cautions Darragh. “Currently there are no federal standards for imported oils, so it’s buyer beware.”
The word “handpicked” on a label implies a superior, artisan product. Handpicked olives cost more ($500 per ton, versus $80 to $120 per ton for those picked by machine) and are better than the machines, which “bat the heck out of olives,” according to Albert Katz, whose Katz & Company makes the award-winning Rock Hill olive oil. But handpicking doesn’t guarantee good oil. “You can handpick and still screw up your olives if you don’t press right away,” he says.
While deceptive labeling is common Bradley insists, “These frauds are on the periphery. What’s hurting the industry is the ridiculously low standards and lack of understanding by the public, which includes the retailers.”
How to Buy Olive Oil
A good olive oil label should read like that of a fine wine: “Abbae de Queiles, 0.1 percent acidity, organic Arbequina olives, harvested November 2006,” with additional details such as “grown in the Navarra region of Spain, crushed within two hours of picking.”
When you get past the bottling and labeling, be sure to taste the oil. The peppery tasting EVOOs tend to be higher in polyphenols. Just like wine, other variables can affect antioxidant levels and flavor, including terroir (climate, soil and altitude), dry farming, harvesting and storage, says Bradley.
Once you get your chosen EVOO home, use it within a couple of months. “If you don’t have use-by dates, you get a false sense of how long the product will last,” said Manley.
“A lot of olive oils are just sitting in a warehouse, but they need to be consumed within two years,” agrees Darragh.
While there may be varying levels of quality, Bradley is adamant that good olive oil shouldn’t be too hard to find. “If your trees are healthy, you pick it on time at its peak of ripeness and you crush it in a timely fashion, it’s hard to make bad olive oil.”
**I wrote this article for Volume 7, Issue 19 of Silicon Valley’s The Wave Magazine, which no longer exists.
Check out the Olive Oil Flavor Guide in Chapter 9 of my book, Nature's Palette: A Food Journey.
To learn more about whole foods, see my post, Eat Like a Human, Not a Machine.