No Standards for Virgins or Extra Virgins in USA
I found this today on AOL News/Slashfood and it is a subject – long time readers will know – of interest to me. Ever since I read the article on The Olive Oil Scandal in The New Yorker I have been a religious reader of labels. I have discovered that in most of the US stores, the olive oil, virgin, extra virgin or otherwise is a blend of oils from Turkey, Spain, maybe even a South American country. To get olive oil from one country, I go to specialty shops. I have not seen one single bottle of my very favorite – Palestinian olive oil – and I wonder if it is even exported. I always bought it from my friends overseas; someone would bring in gallons and gallons of it and it was always so fresh tasting, and so tasty. It smelled so good you were tempted to eat a spoonful! No, no, I didn’t. The smell is unforgettable, and nothing I have tried in the US comes close. I can’t even find any California olive oil in the local stores!
Virgin? Extra virgin? Or something else entirely?
You never know what you’re really getting when you open a bottle of “100% extra virgin” olive oil, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is hoping to change that with new standards for the green-gold oil set to roll out this fall, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The new rules come at a time when olive oil demand is surging. Americans bought 79 million gallons in 2008, up from 47 million gallons a decade earlier, the paper reported.
There are no federal rules that define “virgin” or “extra virgin” olive oil, Vito S. Polito, professor of plant sciences at UC Davis and co-chairman of the school’s Olive Center, a research group, told the Times. As a result, he said, “the U.S. has been a dumping ground for cheap olive oil for years.”
Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Assn., said most of the olive oil on U.S. store shelves is legit, but his group alerts the FDA when problems occur.
Bauer told the Times 3 to 4 percent of the 200 to 300 samples his group tests each year are unadulterated or mislabeled, meaning they’re not as pure as they say they are or they’ve been combined with another type of oil.
“We’ve petitioned the FDA to create a standard of identity, which would define in black and white what olive oil is and is not,” Bauer told the Times. “They never acted on the petition.”
A spokesperson for the FDA told the Times that the agency does not regularly test olive oils for “adulteration,” but relies on information from the public or other groups.
The voluntary regulations being rolled out this fall set parameters for freshness and purity, fatty acid levels and ultraviolet light absorption, which can tell how fresh the oil is. USDA experts will also conduct tasting reviews, the Times reported.
Some worry that the regulations will be meaningless until they’re mandatory.
“It’s like saying you have to stop at stop signs, but there are no cops at the corner,” Paul Vossen, a University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor for Sonoma County, told the paper. “Standards are a good start, but enforcement is important.”
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I don’t think you can even get it here in Kuwait (though I haven’t looked). A friend in Saudi gave me some of their family’s ‘gallons’ which came from their olive trees. It was fantastic. The smell, as you describe, was wonderful.
Hope you find a supplier… Ask at the Arab shops.
Sorry. I should have mentioned that he’s Palestinian and that the trees are in Palestine… Saudi’s olive tree haven’t got a chance 🙂
totally agree about the Palestinian Olive Oil! it’s so luscious you would want to smell it and rub it in ur hands! i usually wait till it’s almost Ramadhan time when they bring the tanks from Palestine and they sell it by the bottle… i always insist on having some with the residue and i buy a lot of bottles to last me for a year and i buy for my family as well… nothing like a lovely za’tar mixed with seriously good olive oil!!!
and it’s just to precious to waste in cooking.. if i am making pasta i would fry my garlic with a bit of water and then when i am done with the dish and it’s assembled i would add a dash of that heavenly O.O. … the taste is WOW…
If we could i would buy you a tank and send it over to you in the USA but i think they have regulations against importing fruits and vegetables from abroad? let me know if it’s not and i will send you a tank… it’s around this time 😉
LOL, Bu Yousef, my ‘dealer’ was Kuwaiti, with Palestinian friends! That’s where I fell in love with Palestinian olive oil. And I have asked – and bought – at the Arab shops here, but so far only Lebanese and Turkish are available pure. I would really love to find Palestinian. 🙂
Oh Danderma, stop! Stop! You’re killing me! And isn’t it almost Ramadan? Where do you find people selling it by the gallon? Oh, the thought of za’tar mixed with the olive oil . . . No, I would never waste in in cooking, except alio oglio, my very favorite pasta. 🙂
They have rules against fruits and vegetables, but processed foods – and olive oil is processed – are OK, so you can bring it when you come visit, but you will probably have to hand carry it. LOOLLL, that makes it REALLY expensive!
[…] Olive Oil Update My good friend BitJockey located two sources which will ship Palestinian Olive Oil directly to me, Woooo HOOOOOO! Thank you Bit […]
I’d bring you some, but I highly doubt they will allow me to hand carry it with all the new security measures, no liquids rule!
Oh Chirp, you are welcome even without Palestinian Olive Oil. 😀 I thought I would bring back some Yemeni honey for my daughter in law, but then I remembered I couldn’t. I hate these new rules!