Re: The great olive oil scam

[Guest guest]

Anyone familiar with this?

http://zeek.ca/4u/article.php?sid=165

" Some countries export more oil than they produce by using other,

sometimes harmful,

and occasionally fatal oils and

calling the product 'pure olive oil'. Don't think your country is

somehow exempt from these shenanigans with food oils, because it isn't.

I think everyone knows that extra virgin olive oil is the healthiest pourable

oil. It is sought

after by many who wish to avoid

the huge amounts of free radicals and several resultant degenerative

diseases that are promoted by other pourable oils. But I said

'theoretically' for good reason: a huge scam involving olive oil is

being perpetuated by industry, and until the government controls the

situation the fact is that although the olive oil in the supermarket may

be labeled extra virgin, there is no guarantee that it even contains

olive oil!

I kid you not. A recent study in Italy found that only 40% of the olive oil

brands labeled as

extra virgin actually met those standards.

Italy produces 400,000 tons of olive oil for consumption each year but

over 750,000 tons are sold. Where do you suppose the 350,000 extra tons

of extra extra virgin olive oil materialized from? Of course, it is made

up of the highly refined nut and seed oils that you are trying to avoid,

and sometimes even worse than that. It's not healthy, and it's even

occasionally deadly.

Over 20,000 people fell ill and 402 people died from the effects of the toxic

oil syndrome

that struck Spain in 1981. After several years, investigation eventually

revealed that the olive oil had been adulterated with industrial grade

rapeseed oil.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted an olive oil purity study in

1995 and

found that only 4 per cent of the 73 brands of olive oils tested proved

to be real, unadulterated olive oil. Most products were adulterated with

vegetable oils that have been shown to cause heart disease. Oils such as

canola, corn, cottonseed and soy oils were used with as little as only

10% olive oil in some products.

The BBC reported in 1994 that around 40% of olive oil on British supermarket

shelves is

adulterated with other less healthy and cheaper vegetable oils.

The Albanian Ministry of Food and Agriculture inspectors confiscated 3.5 tons of

adulterated olive

oil in 1996. Testing indicated that it contained 10% expired (rancid)

olive oil and 90% sunflower oil. The scammers were fortunately

apprehended.

Many shipments of olive oil originating from Spain contained a known carcinogen.

The shipments were

apprehended for several months by government authorities in the

receiving country before Spanish authorities reacted to their letters

and disallowed the export.

Shenanigans within the food oil industry are ongoing in Canada as well. Since

1997 the Food Inspection

Agency (CFIA) has been checking out olive oils to see if they are what

they are advertised and labeled as. Joe Di Lecce, a food specialist with

the CFIA, says we found oils that consisted mainly of vegetable oils

other than olive oil,’ during inspections. Some had sunflower oil, some

had canola, some had pomace oil. Di Lecce has looked at 100 oils, and

found that 20 per cent are fake. "

War, the God That Failed

http://tinyurl.com/2npch

" They told just the same,

That just because a tyrant has the might

By force of arms to murder men downright

And burn down house and home and leave all flat

They call the man a captain, just for that.

But since an outlaw with his little band

Cannot bring half such mischief on the land

Or be the cause of so much harm and grief,

He only earns the title of a thief. "

--Geoffrey Chaucer, The Manciple's Tale