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After five decades of inaction, the Food and Drug Administration revoked the authorization of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food on July 3, 2024. The additive bromine, used to stabilize fruit flavorings in beverages and sodas, has toxic effects and has already been banned in many places, including California, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. What was the agency’s excuse for its 50 years in limbo? The FDA insisted it was “waiting for more safety data.” Right. Consumer advocates called the FDA’s ban on brominated vegetable oil in food “a victory for public health.” Still, digging deeper, it is indisputable...

New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression. Specifically, the scientists found pronounced effects of the oil on the hypothalamus, where a number of critical processes take place. “The hypothalamus regulates body weight via your metabolism, maintains body temperature, is critical for reproduction and physical growth as well as your response to stress,” “The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it’s good for you is...

According to the book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, illicit manufacturers slap an Italian flag and the name of an imaginary producer on the label and dump this stuff on the US market, where consumers are easy pickings. But consumers in the US aren’t the only victims. Studies done in Australia and New Zealand found that half of their Mediterranean imports were fake, too. Anywhere olive oil is in demand is a possible target. How do you fake olive oil? Olive oil can be diluted with poor quality oils or sometimes there is no real...

The term "extra-virgin olive oil" means the olive oil has been made from crushed olives and is not refined in any way by chemical solvents or high heat… "In the past, the technology that had been used had been used really by the Romans, you grounded the olives with stone mills [and] you crushed them with presses." One olive oil producer told Mueller that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in the United States is, in some ways, adulterated.

CARMEL VALLEY, Calif. – Extra virgin, light, with lemon, unfiltered, cold-pressed: the variety of olive oil on most supermarket shelves is dazzling. But what does it all mean? These terms might be common currency among foodies and the farmer's market crowd, but they have never been enforceable, or legally defined in the United States — until now. The U.S. Department of Agriculture in April adopted scientifically verifiable standards for nomenclature such as "virgin" or "extra virgin," with extra virgin considered the highest quality because it has the best flavor. (snip) "It will put an end to marketing terms that are...

Federal agents who raided a Clifton warehouse Thursday weren't looking for the typical heroin mill or pile of laundered money. They were after a more slippery stash. The agents seized about 22,700 gallons of oil after the Food and Drug Administration found that the Hermes and San Giovanni brands had been substituting soybean oil for some of their extra virgin and pomace olive oil. Olive oil is approximately five or six times more expensive than soybean oil, according to the FDA, which estimated the profit of the swap at $105,600. "We will not permit New Jersey consumers to be defrauded,"...

FRAUD. It's associated with identity theft and bouncing cheques, but apparently it is also rife in the olive oil industry. Fake olive oil is an international issue, especially in Italy, the world's leading importer, consumer and exporter of olive oil. Australia the largest consumer of olive oil per capita outside the Mediterranean is not immune. Olive oil is more valuable than other vegetable oils, but is costly and time-consuming to produce. It is also easy to adulterate, or fake. In February last year US federal officials seized about 61,000 litres of what was supposed to be extra-virgin olive oil and...

It's the age-old story, lying about virginity... Hey, get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking about olive oil. Olive oil is one of the few oils that can be consumed in its crude form without refining. Pure olive oil retains its natural antioxidants and essential fatty acids. The problem is, more olive oil is being consumed today than is being produced, so time-saving and cost-cutting measures are being employed. Technically speaking, to be labeled extra-virgin, olive oil must be made from 100% olives. The olives are picked by hand and transported in well-aerated containers and then processed within...

Bob Pitts knows doughnuts. He fried his first one in 1961 at the original Dunkin' Donuts shop in Quincy, Mass. Just by looking at the lumps and cracks on a misshapen doughnut, he can tell if the frying oil is too cool or the batter too warm. But Mr. Pitts, the company's doughnut specialist, cannot find a way to make one that tastes good without using partially hydrogenated oil, now considered the worst fat in the American diet. An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated...

From Oregon to Oklahoma, farmers have started planting canola in earnest, rotating the yellow-flowered crop that could blossom into a replacement for artery-clogging trans fats found in myriad junk foods, such as cookies, cakes and pies. The amount of canola being grown in the U.S. has increased dramatically in the last two decades or so, with 1.7 million acres planted in 2012. Some of it is growing in areas such as Oklahoma, which for generations has been dominated by wheat and cattle operations. …

Tests Show U.S. Failure to Block Contamination From Gene-Altered Varieties Much of the U.S. supply of ordinary crop seeds has become contaminated with strands of engineered DNA, suggesting that current methods for segregating gene-altered seed plants from traditional varieties are failing, according to a pilot study released yesterday. More than two-thirds of 36 conventional corn, soy and canola seed batches contained traces of DNA from genetically engineered crop varieties in lab tests commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based advocacy group. The actual amount of foreign DNA present in U.S. seeds appears to be small, and most engineered...