9 ms·

Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations

106 points by adomasm3 3y ago

binarymax 3y ago
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.
- collaborative 3y ago
  I think supermarket oil is fine. The fake oil is mostly sold in discount shops like tk maxx and home bargains
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    How do you know?
    - collaborative 3y ago
      I mean, this might down vote me even further. But I am from Spain. I can taste it. I use olive oil on pretty much everything. I never ever use any oil other than extra virgin olive oil. Even for frying In fact, I can tell you that the 5 * oil sold in luxury bottles abroad is no better than the plain extra virgin. And that is where the fraud mostly exists (besides mixed oil in tk maxx). I have never been able to buy luxury oil outside of Spain. All the luxury bottles abroad contain normal oil. But I don't really care for luxury oil anyway. Normal extra virgin fulfills all my health and taste requirements At the end of the day, if this misunderstood awareness of "fake oil" benefits my fellow countrymen and helps them develop supply chains of verified, expensive higher grade oils (which are a waste of money in my view but nevermind) then I guess these campaigns are very good. People in Spain extremely rarely will use anything other than plain extra virgin. It's like eating caviar. And farmers really struggle to get a fair price, especially when selling bulk to foreign buyers
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    No, there are widespread problems with olive oil fraud.
  - devbent 3y ago
    Plenty of studies have been done by purchasing a large # of bottles from supermarkets and they've all shown half or more of olive oils are either fake or rancid.
- artursapek 3y ago
  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.
  - binarymax 3y ago
    Of course, I have a variety of oils depending on what I’m cooking. I use olive oil for low and slow stuff like sauces.
  - mp05 3y ago
    Though not quite as high as avocado or safflower, I presume you're aware that refined olive oils can have pretty high smoke points. But it surprises me how often I'll be at a friend's home and they grease up their frying pan with EVOO.
    - someotherperson 3y ago
      I exclusively use EVOO. Never had a problem, never had a complaint. But then again I don't exactly deep fry food so maybe that's where the issue is.
      - oven9342 3y ago
        yeah, for deep frying certain frozen food products, it might be better to reach temperatures above 170 °C, so the oil doesn't get too cold as you add the frozen food.
    - mk89 3y ago
      There can be two main reasons: 1. Their EVOO can reach temps ~200°C 2. They use medium temperatures on the frying pan (so they keep it at 180-200°C, or lower). This is especially true when you use pans with anti-stick coating, which literally break at high temperatures (it's even written in the instructions to avoid using the highest temperatures).
      - swores 3y ago
- hanniabu 3y ago
  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.
  - binarymax 3y ago
    Sorry to hear that. Not sure where you’re located but check out the supplier I mentioned, it’s definitely pure. https://folivers.com/ https://folivers.com/
    - hanniabu 3y ago
      Thanks, good to have for emergencies although it looks like they're all flavors and don't have it plain.
      - binarymax 3y ago
        They certainly do! In the ‘single varietal’ section: https://folivers.com/product-category/single-varietal-evoo/ https://folivers.com/product-category/single-varietal-evoo/ I usually get the Hojiblanca but seems that variety is unavailable online. Also to be clear, I have no affiliation.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - dheera 3y ago
    > The real stuff is extremely hard to find I buy stuff like this https://barianioliveoil.com/ https://barianioliveoil.com/ and this https://shop.sekahills.com/Products/Olive-Oil https://shop.sekahills.com/Products/Olive-Oil These are both California olive oils, available at my local Whole Foods, and indicate clearly the harvest date. They taste far better than the mass produced brands. Are they not the real thing? Please enlighten me. If price isn't an issue which olive oil should I get if I like bold flavor?
- Reason077 3y ago
  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!
  - pteraspidomorph 3y ago
    The internet is good when it works. Mine has been out for a week. Motherf-ing Altice...
    - dadoum 3y ago
      Oh so Altice also exists there? SFR in France is now legendary for all of its problems. My parents paid for a fiber subscription for years before understanding that it wasn't using the fiber since it wasn't working, and when they did know, SFR sent us technicians to try to fix the problem. Each one of them came, and got to the same conclusion: "Oh, it doesn't work, I (the technician) should call someone in SFR and come back next week", and then proceeded to not come back the next week. 10 times. 10 technicians came and told me the same thing; even one of them told me that "Just switch to another provider it's not probably going to be resolved"
      - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
        SFR was their first mistake, alas.
  - re 3y ago
    > a 50 litre barrel ... At least a year's supply for them That's an unfathomable amount of olive oil to me! To finish off the barrel within a year between the two of them, they'd each have to be consuming 68 mL (4.6 tablespoons) of olive oil daily, providing 62 grams of fat.
- kurthr 3y ago
  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.
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    A nice way to achieve that is to get cheap “salad oil”, which is a blend of olive oil and some other oil. GEM is a common brand where I live. Usually it’s in a bigger container. Chances are, the light olive oil is the same thing, but 3x more.
    - kurthr 3y ago
      Are you saying that most light olive oil isn't olive oil? I guess it's possible, but there's profit without doing that too. All the research I've heard (eg 80% fake) is for EVOO. I guess it could be like the subway fake tunafish scandal (debunked?)*. You can get a lot more oil out of olives after the first press, but you don't get the flavor or smell, and it's certainly a lot cheaper to make Seems like there's more money in suing a reputable producer for an allergic reaction than cutting $5-10/liter extra light olive oil with $3-5/liter corn/soy/peanut/canola. That's gonna kill somebody! * https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/judge-in-subway-case-admonishes-embarrassed-fake-tuna-lawyer https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/judge-in-subway-cas...
      - Spooky23 3y ago
        It’s a commodity that has been counterfeited for centuries.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  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.
mikeodds 3y ago
“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_adulteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adult...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- anthk 3y ago
  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.
  - switch007 3y ago
    (I think by "mediatic" you mean high-profile / highly controversial etc)
    - anthk 3y ago
      Yes, highly controversial and the scandal it's still infamous on every media and press. Mediatic in my language (and almost by extension it could in English by adapting Romance roots) means something widespread in media but as highly broadcasted over and over because of being scandalous/controversial.
      - switch007 3y ago
        Mediatic isn't a word in English currently (not according to the Oxford Dictionary at least). But let's make it happen ! ;)
teekert 3y ago
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/ 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?
stork19 3y ago
How exactly is spectroscopy a nuclear innovation?
- ch4s3 3y ago
  The light hits the nucleus of an atom and bounces back to the instrument.
- EMCymatics 3y ago
  They buried the techniques in a few places. Laser induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) https://appliedspectra.com/technology/libs.html https://appliedspectra.com/technology/libs.html Laser ablation molecular istopic spectroscopy (LAMIS) https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ja/c5ja00310e 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-of-nuclear-techniques-for-authentication-of-foods-with-high-value-labelling-claims-d52042 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 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 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_ring-down_spectroscopy https://www.picarro.com/environmental/support/literature/measuring_co_ch4_co2_h2o_simultaneously_using_new_crds_technology 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.
programd 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  The answer is company ending fines but western governments don’t have the stomach for punishing companies on behalf of consumers.
  - Teever 3y ago
    Agreed. There needs to be some way for consumers to easily have products tested and significant fines issued against retailers that are found to be selling counterfeit items. If the consumer gets a cut of that fineabd it's greater than the cost of the product testing then there will be an economic incentive for someone to go after this problem and the people who profit off of it.
  - thworp 3y ago
    Can you please give some examples of non-western governments fining companies on behalf of customers?
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  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?
  - j-bos 3y ago
    Maybe, but the taste wasn't rancid.
zzz999 3y ago
They can't even ensure we eat the type of fish we order... Food fraud is huge

106 points by adomasm3 3y ago

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.

collaborative 3y ago
I think supermarket oil is fine. The fake oil is mostly sold in discount shops like tk maxx and home bargains
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  How do you know?
  - collaborative 3y ago
    I mean, this might down vote me even further. But I am from Spain. I can taste it. I use olive oil on pretty much everything. I never ever use any oil other than extra virgin olive oil. Even for frying In fact, I can tell you that the 5 * oil sold in luxury bottles abroad is no better than the plain extra virgin. And that is where the fraud mostly exists (besides mixed oil in tk maxx). I have never been able to buy luxury oil outside of Spain. All the luxury bottles abroad contain normal oil. But I don't really care for luxury oil anyway. Normal extra virgin fulfills all my health and taste requirements At the end of the day, if this misunderstood awareness of "fake oil" benefits my fellow countrymen and helps them develop supply chains of verified, expensive higher grade oils (which are a waste of money in my view but nevermind) then I guess these campaigns are very good. People in Spain extremely rarely will use anything other than plain extra virgin. It's like eating caviar. And farmers really struggle to get a fair price, especially when selling bulk to foreign buyers
- colechristensen 3y ago
  No, there are widespread problems with olive oil fraud.
- devbent 3y ago
  Plenty of studies have been done by purchasing a large # of bottles from supermarkets and they've all shown half or more of olive oils are either fake or rancid.
artursapek 3y ago
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.
- binarymax 3y ago
  Of course, I have a variety of oils depending on what I’m cooking. I use olive oil for low and slow stuff like sauces.
- mp05 3y ago
  Though not quite as high as avocado or safflower, I presume you're aware that refined olive oils can have pretty high smoke points. But it surprises me how often I'll be at a friend's home and they grease up their frying pan with EVOO.
  - someotherperson 3y ago
    I exclusively use EVOO. Never had a problem, never had a complaint. But then again I don't exactly deep fry food so maybe that's where the issue is.
    - oven9342 3y ago
      yeah, for deep frying certain frozen food products, it might be better to reach temperatures above 170 °C, so the oil doesn't get too cold as you add the frozen food.
  - mk89 3y ago
    There can be two main reasons: 1. Their EVOO can reach temps ~200°C 2. They use medium temperatures on the frying pan (so they keep it at 180-200°C, or lower). This is especially true when you use pans with anti-stick coating, which literally break at high temperatures (it's even written in the instructions to avoid using the highest temperatures).
    - swores 3y ago
hanniabu 3y ago
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.
- binarymax 3y ago
  Sorry to hear that. Not sure where you’re located but check out the supplier I mentioned, it’s definitely pure. https://folivers.com/ https://folivers.com/
  - hanniabu 3y ago
    Thanks, good to have for emergencies although it looks like they're all flavors and don't have it plain.
    - binarymax 3y ago
      They certainly do! In the ‘single varietal’ section: https://folivers.com/product-category/single-varietal-evoo/ https://folivers.com/product-category/single-varietal-evoo/ I usually get the Hojiblanca but seems that variety is unavailable online. Also to be clear, I have no affiliation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- dheera 3y ago
  > The real stuff is extremely hard to find I buy stuff like this https://barianioliveoil.com/ https://barianioliveoil.com/ and this https://shop.sekahills.com/Products/Olive-Oil https://shop.sekahills.com/Products/Olive-Oil These are both California olive oils, available at my local Whole Foods, and indicate clearly the harvest date. They taste far better than the mass produced brands. Are they not the real thing? Please enlighten me. If price isn't an issue which olive oil should I get if I like bold flavor?
Reason077 3y ago
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!
- pteraspidomorph 3y ago
  The internet is good when it works. Mine has been out for a week. Motherf-ing Altice...
  - dadoum 3y ago
    Oh so Altice also exists there? SFR in France is now legendary for all of its problems. My parents paid for a fiber subscription for years before understanding that it wasn't using the fiber since it wasn't working, and when they did know, SFR sent us technicians to try to fix the problem. Each one of them came, and got to the same conclusion: "Oh, it doesn't work, I (the technician) should call someone in SFR and come back next week", and then proceeded to not come back the next week. 10 times. 10 technicians came and told me the same thing; even one of them told me that "Just switch to another provider it's not probably going to be resolved"
    - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
      SFR was their first mistake, alas.
- re 3y ago
  > a 50 litre barrel ... At least a year's supply for them That's an unfathomable amount of olive oil to me! To finish off the barrel within a year between the two of them, they'd each have to be consuming 68 mL (4.6 tablespoons) of olive oil daily, providing 62 grams of fat.
kurthr 3y ago
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.
- Spooky23 3y ago
  A nice way to achieve that is to get cheap “salad oil”, which is a blend of olive oil and some other oil. GEM is a common brand where I live. Usually it’s in a bigger container. Chances are, the light olive oil is the same thing, but 3x more.
  - kurthr 3y ago
    Are you saying that most light olive oil isn't olive oil? I guess it's possible, but there's profit without doing that too. All the research I've heard (eg 80% fake) is for EVOO. I guess it could be like the subway fake tunafish scandal (debunked?)*. You can get a lot more oil out of olives after the first press, but you don't get the flavor or smell, and it's certainly a lot cheaper to make Seems like there's more money in suing a reputable producer for an allergic reaction than cutting $5-10/liter extra light olive oil with $3-5/liter corn/soy/peanut/canola. That's gonna kill somebody! * https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/judge-in-subway-case-admonishes-embarrassed-fake-tuna-lawyer https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/judge-in-subway-cas...
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      It’s a commodity that has been counterfeited for centuries.
rootusrootus 3y ago
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.

mikeodds 3y ago

“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_adulteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adult...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anthk 3y ago
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.
- switch007 3y ago
  (I think by "mediatic" you mean high-profile / highly controversial etc)
  - anthk 3y ago
    Yes, highly controversial and the scandal it's still infamous on every media and press. Mediatic in my language (and almost by extension it could in English by adapting Romance roots) means something widespread in media but as highly broadcasted over and over because of being scandalous/controversial.
    - switch007 3y ago
      Mediatic isn't a word in English currently (not according to the Oxford Dictionary at least). But let's make it happen ! ;)

teekert 3y ago

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/ 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?

stork19 3y ago

How exactly is spectroscopy a nuclear innovation?

ch4s3 3y ago
The light hits the nucleus of an atom and bounces back to the instrument.
EMCymatics 3y ago
They buried the techniques in a few places. Laser induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) https://appliedspectra.com/technology/libs.html https://appliedspectra.com/technology/libs.html Laser ablation molecular istopic spectroscopy (LAMIS) https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ja/c5ja00310e 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-of-nuclear-techniques-for-authentication-of-foods-with-high-value-labelling-claims-d52042 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 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 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_ring-down_spectroscopy https://www.picarro.com/environmental/support/literature/measuring_co_ch4_co2_h2o_simultaneously_using_new_crds_technology 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.

programd 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
The answer is company ending fines but western governments don’t have the stomach for punishing companies on behalf of consumers.
- Teever 3y ago
  Agreed. There needs to be some way for consumers to easily have products tested and significant fines issued against retailers that are found to be selling counterfeit items. If the consumer gets a cut of that fineabd it's greater than the cost of the product testing then there will be an economic incentive for someone to go after this problem and the people who profit off of it.
- thworp 3y ago
  Can you please give some examples of non-western governments fining companies on behalf of customers?
rootusrootus 3y ago
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?
- j-bos 3y ago
  Maybe, but the taste wasn't rancid.

zzz999 3y ago

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