And you thought Halliburton was corrupt. Now check out that other oil industry — the olive oil industry.
That business is among the most crooked, most rife with fraud of any in the food world. Bottom line: Everything you know about olive oil is wrong. It’s apparently so bad, you can’t even be sure that you’re getting actual olive oil inside your bottle of olive oil.
The surprising truth is laid bare in the book “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil” by Tom Mueller, released this month. The author, an American now living in Italy, spent months investigating the oil biz, which has had problems with corruption going back to the very first written mention of the foodstuff — a 24th-century B.C. cuneiform tablet that notes the king’s fraud squad was checking on olive mills.
“I was sitting in a dark bar with an undercover cop in Italy, and he was telling me about deals being cut with high-level politicians and millions of dollars in EU subsidies being misappropriated,” Mueller says. “He was speaking in this hushed tone, and I had to laugh, because this was not black-market plutonium or drugs, this was olive oil.”
It’s no joke. Olive oil is one of the world’s oldest, most valuable commodities and is prized for its health benefits. The problem? It’s almost completely unregulated in this country. No one is checking that what’s in that bottle is what the label promises. The FDA has better things to do.
The most common scams involve doctoring it with chemicals, selling low-grade oil as extra-virgin or even substituting something like rapeseed oil that’s been processed to change its flavor.
These phony oils not only taste worse, they probably deliver none of the antioxidant-rich, heart-healthy benefits real olive oil does.
So how do you avoid the scams and make sure you’re buying the real stuff? Mueller’s biggest tip is to purchase your oil from a store that checks the source of its products and has adequate quality control. He recommends the Filling Station at Chelsea Market or Eataly.
Beyond that, you can examine the label. Mueller clues us in on what it may tell us — or be hiding from us.
1 PRICE TAG
Real olive oil is expensive to produce, and generally the price of a bottle will reflect that. But that’s not to say that an inexpensive brand can’t be good or that a pricey one is always quality. So use common sense. If you’re paying $9 for a gallon at the corner bodega, it’s probably not the good stuff. Most of the oils at Eataly, for example, are about $20 and up.
2 EXTRA-VIRGIN
“Extra-virgin no longer means anything,” says Mueller. Lower-grade oil is often sold with the label, despite there being a clear definition of what constitutes “extra-virgin.” “It requires both a chemical and sensory component,” Mueller says. “The chemical component says it’s been freshly and properly made. The sensory component says it cannot have any bad smells or tastes, and it must have perceptual fruitiness. In America, you can sell anything you want as extra-virgin. It may well be made from olives, but it could be badly and cheaply made.” When in doubt, resort to the smell test. It should smell fresh and fruity, without any hints of mustiness.
3 COLD-PRESSED
“This is a nonsense term,” Mueller says. “You can’t press olives in the cold and get any oil at all. Most oil is extracted at at least 80 degrees.”
4 EXTRA-LIGHT
“It just means it’s heavily refined. It’s not any lighter in calories,” he says. “It’s the same number of calories as any olive oil.”
5 PURE
“Pure is just a way of saying refined, which means the oil has been processed at very high heat with chemicals,” Mueller says. “It’s changed the chemical structure of the oil, and it’s a lot less pure than before it was refined.”
6 HARVEST DATE
Not many labels document the date when the oil was produced — it’s not required — but if it does, chances are you’re getting a fresh oil. And for God’s sake, Mueller says, use your oil immediately. Don’t hoard it like fine wine. With each passing day, the oil degrades and grows musty. Keep a bottle no more than a year.
7 MADE IN ITALY
Just because the label says “Made in Italy” doesn’t mean that it was actually made in Italy. It could have just been packed there. “That’s not illegal, but to me it’s the sign of a low moral bar,” Mueller says. You can research an oil producer online to see if it’s located in Italy. Colavita (about $25 for a 17-ounce bottle), for example, guarantees that it’s produced in Italy and that its label is accurate. Italy has historically produced the best oils, but other regions are catching up. Mueller recommends California’s Corto Olive.
reed.tucker@nypost.com