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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the new-snake-oil? dept.

Study finds 82 percent of avocado oil rancid or mixed with other oils:

Consumer demand is rising for all things avocado, including oil made from the fruit. Avocado oil is a great source of vitamins, minerals and the type of fats associated with reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. But according to new research from food science experts at the University of California, Davis, the vast majority of avocado oil sold in the U.S. is of poor quality, mislabeled or adulterated with other oils.

In the country's first extensive study of commercial avocado oil quality and purity, UC Davis researchers report that at least 82 percent of test samples were either stale before expiration date or mixed with other oils. In three cases, bottles labeled as "pure" or "extra virgin" avocado oil contained near 100 percent soybean oil, an oil commonly used in processed foods that's much less expensive to produce.

Journal Reference:
Hilary S. Green, Selina C. Wang. First report on quality and purity evaluations of avocado oil sold in the US [open], Food Control (DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2020.107328)

Why put avocado oil in the bottle when you can use soybean oil instead and pocket the extra profit?


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday June 17 2020, @09:02PM (6 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday June 17 2020, @09:02PM (#1009286) Journal

    if only you had some sort of effective regulation [foodregulation.gov.au] that could stop mis-labelling and prosecute fraud,

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:54PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:54PM (#1009322)

    That's assuming it's caught. In some cases the only issue with the product is that it's not from the region it claims to be from and in others it's a completely different product, but there's 350 tons of olive oil entering the US every year, which is an extremely large amount to try and monitor. Yes, you can conduct randomized sampling, but if the product was mislabeled by region rather than the actual characteristics of the product, that can be virtually impossible to identify as fake.

    Ultimately, shy of taste testing it and demanding a refund from the retailer if it doesn't taste right, there isn't much that can be done. But, being willing to pay the proper cost of the product and then demanding that the quality match the price should help. Or, you can always try to buy from sources that are listed as less prestigious / not subject to mafia control and hope the market corrects.

    • (Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday June 18 2020, @02:14AM (3 children)

      by drussell (2678) on Thursday June 18 2020, @02:14AM (#1009391) Journal

      but there's 350 tons of olive oil entering the US every year,

      That can't be right....

      You must be off by several orders of magnitude.

      350,000 tons, or 350,000,000 tons or something, perhaps, but I guarantee it is way more than 350 tons imported every year!

      That doesn't even make sense. I use at least 15-20L per year, just myself! What's the average density?

      • (Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:10AM (1 child)

        by driverless (4770) on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:10AM (#1009406)

        I use at least 15-20L per year, just myself!

        Well there's your problem, it's meant for cooking, not as a hair care product.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:32PM (#1009801)

        You must be off by several orders of magnitude.

        350,000 tons, or 350,000,000 tons or something, perhaps, but I guarantee it is way more than 350 tons imported every year!

        That doesn't even make sense. I use at least 15-20L per year, just myself! What's the average density?

        Oil is less dense than water but not significantly less, about 900g per litre or so. For back of the envelope calculations just go with the usual "1 cubic metre is 1 tonne"; one pallet will be about 1 tonne and one tanker truck will hold about 50 tonnes.

        Anyway the correct import figure for the United States seems to be ~350,000 tonnes/year.

        This website has year over year import totals for olive oil [internationaloliveoil.org] (see section 3) which annoyingly doesn't seem to say what unit any of the numbers in their tables are but it does appear to be tonnes: I was able to find elsewhere that the US imported about $1.5 billion in olive oil in 2018 [trendeconomy.com] and the bulk commodity price of olive oil seems to be on the order of $5000/tonne, which seems to put 350,000 tonnes in the right ballpark.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:07AM

      by driverless (4770) on Thursday June 18 2020, @03:07AM (#1009403)

      The gummint does bugger-all (Australian technical term for "very little") testing, but then consumer organisations like CHOICE [choice.com.au] pick up the slack, they regularly run tests of products showing how much, or little, they comply with the regs. One recurring one has been sunscreen, for which most stuff rated SPF50 and above isn't, so they've been re-running tests for awhile on those. Eventually if they show up bad enough problems there'll often be a law change to enforce quality requirements.