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re US Is A Dumping Ground For Crappy, Dangerous Olive Oil - The Consumerist
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 21:17:24 -0400
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From: Ridgely Evers <rce () evers org> Date: July 7, 2010 7:43:58 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] US Is A Dumping Ground For Crappy, Dangerous Olive Oil - The Consumerist
Dave, Who knew you were a foodie? Twenty years ago (while I was knee-deep in developing QuickBooks), I imported the first olive trees to be brought to the US in the 20th Century. I brought them in from an 800-year-old grove outside of Lucca, in Tuscany. Like most (all?) entrepreneurial activities, I had no idea how hard it was going to be to grow the trees, make oil, and sell it successfully. I'll leave out the in-between steps, but suffice to say that we're now doing great -- read about it at www.DaVero.com. Along the way, though, I ran head-on into the problem of adulterated olive oil, and more. Along with three other intrepid pioneers I founded the California Olive Oil Council and began, among other things, to lobby the USDA and FDA to put rules in place here that reflected those common in every other developed country in the world. It's only taken them 20 years to do it. The changes will be palpable, in both the olfactory and financial senses of the word. It should make it much harder for importers to bring in the adulterated oils that have littered our shelves, which will cause prices to rise. That's good news for those of us who are producing oil here. It won't have as much of an impact as one might expect, though, because the term 'extra virgin' is a measure of non-badness, not goodness. To be classified as extra virgin, an olive oil must have been produced by purely mechanical means (no chemistry); been kept at a temperature of 27C or less (heat degrades it); have free oleic acid of less then 0.8% (all fats are essentially all acid; it's the oleic acid that's the issue), and have no 'defects' (rancidity, mustiness, etc). In other words, there can't be anything wrong with it. But we'll still be getting inferior oils here, because not only has the US been a dumping ground for adulterated olive oil; it's also been where producers send their old oils that have stopped selling in Europe because they no longer have good flavor. Simply put, olive oil flavors drop off after the first 18 months or so. So most Americans still won't know what olive oil tastes like when it's good. Still, it's a great start. Best, --Ridge ----------------------- Ridgely Evers DaVero Farms www.DaVero.com On 2010-07-07, at 4:15 PM, Dave Farber wrote:http://consumerist.com/2010/07/us-is-a-dumping-ground-for-crappy-dangerous-olive-oil.html ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- re US Is A Dumping Ground For Crappy, Dangerous Olive Oil - The Consumerist Dave Farber (Jul 08)