Flickr user nycblondieandbrownie
The next time you’re sinking into a pit of panicky despair over the sheer amount of options in the condiment aisle at C-Town, don’t bother trying to pick out the best olive oil—chances are it’s cut with street-grade junk anyway, just like that dimebag of oregano you accidentally procured in seventh grade.
Olive oil, along with staples like milk, orange juice and coffee are amongst the grocery items most likely to be fake, according a Journal of Food Science analysis of a new database tracking food fraud. That olive oil you’re slathering all over your healthy salad is probably cut with cheap, crappy vegetable oil, the kind that’s sold by the gallon in stained plastic tubs on the bottom shelf. While olive oil in particular has a long and sordid history (one European anti-fraud investigator told The New Yorker that adulterated olive oil profits have been “comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,”), only recently has a database for searching any and all foods been made public.
Step right this way to test out your favorite groceries, learning fun facts along the way (for example, your goat cheese is probably tainted with cow cheese and your apple juice probably has synthetic malic acid with beet sugar thrown in)! The only way to ensure the safety of your food is to become one of these annoying people instead. [via Fork in the Road]
Olive oil stories... 