Science & Technology - Posted by Pat Bailey-UC Davis on Monday, September 24, 2012 10:26 - 4 Comments 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Subpar olive oil sneaks by chemical tests
"It is now clear that even olive oils that prove to be substandard according to sensory tests can slip past existing chemical protocols," says Dan Flynn, executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center. (Credit: "olive oil factory" via Shutterstock)
UC DAVIS (US) — A new study of olive oil sold to the food industry recommends some samples be reclassified as inedible “lamp oil,” and reports that 10 percent are adulterated with a cheaper oil, like canola.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Almost all the samples of olive oils sold to restaurants and food-service establishments passed federal chemistry tests.
Based on their overall findings, however, the University of California, Davis, researchers recommend that the restaurant and food-service sectors enhance their quality-control protocols for olive oil by including more effective tests outlined in the report.
Straight from the Source
The researchers also recommend that the US Department of Agriculture include the more effective tests in US standards for extra-virgin olive oil.
“Results of this study make it very clear that efforts to control the quality of olive oils served in restaurants and other food-service operations will likely fail if they are based only on the most commonly used chemical analyses,” says Dan Flynn, executive director of the UC Davis Olive Center and a co-author of the study.
“It is now clear that even olive oils that prove to be substandard according to sensory tests can slip past existing chemical protocols,” he says.
Flynn notes that the findings were consistent with the results from the Olive Center’s reviews of olive oils sold in California supermarkets, reported in 2010 and 2011.
Selina Wang, research director of the UC Davis Olive Center, and Edwin Frankel, the center’s senior scientific adviser and one of the world’s leading authorities on food oils and related compounds, conducted the study.
The researchers evaluated 21 olive oil brands sold to restaurants and food-service operations, including 15 marketed as “extra virgin,” the premium grade for olive oil. The other six olive oils were not labeled as extra virgin.
All of the olive oil samples were sent to the Australian National Oils Laboratory for sensory and chemical testing, and to sensory panels in Spain and Italy. Chemical tests are used to analyze the chemical makeup of the oils, while sensory tests evaluate the flavor, aroma, and texture of the oils.
All of the analyses were conducted as “blind” tests, in which the laboratory and sensory reviewers did not know the brand name or country of origin of the oils they were evaluating.
Results from the chemical and sensory tests indicated that:
- All but one of the oils marketed as extra virgin passed commonly used USDA chemistry standards for quality.
- Despite this, nine (60 percent) of the samples failed the USDA sensory standards for extra virgin, criteria that are rarely used by food distributors for quality control.
- The most common sensory defects were flavors and aromas described as rancid, fusty or muddy, and musty. Some of the oils tested were so defective that the sensory panelists classified them as lamp oil, considered by USDA standards to be unfit for human consumption without further refining.
- These nine oils also failed to pass the chemical tests for the compound diacylglycerol, a standard adopted by the Australian Olive Association for extra virgin.
- Chemical purity tests indicated that one of the 15 samples labeled as extra virgin and one of the six samples not labeled as extra virgin had been adulterated with cheap, refined canola oil.
- The researchers advised that these findings indicate that further research is needed to develop faster, more accurate, and less expensive tests and to develop innovative packaging that will extend olive oil freshness.
Source: UC Davis
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4 Comments
Phyllis Heard
kimbee
15 samples?!! That is not sufficient size to come to any conclusion!
Cris Sleightholm
So, all those very very expensive olive oils that supermarkets carry are probably only good for lamp oil? How is a body to know what they are buying and if it is worth the $$$$$?
Analysis has shown black seed oil to contain 100 components including vitamins A, B1 and B2, 15 amino acids including 9 essential amino acids, proteins, zinc, selenium, omega 3, 6 and 9 and thymoquinone. Thymoquinone has been the centre of study for many of the research papers written about the pharmaceutical properties of the plant.
UC Davis have finally invested in Mass Spectrometry, a technology that has been available in the rest of the Olive oil world for a considerable time. It surprises me in a country the size of the US that is arguably a world leader in food technology that testing for oil adulteration and the health of an oil has taken so long and that UC Davis defer to very new Australian Voluntary Standards then publish research without conducting robust research of their own. Also of concern to me as an olive grower UC DAVIS published sensory research without having purchased this vital technology. Now Ms Wang has Mass Spectrometry testing at her disposal she may begin to find out that sensory testing is fallible and expensive with sensory panelists often having undeclared conflicts of interest. Sensory panels may confirm but not always what Mass Spectrometry will objectively show her. High polyphenols and alpha tocopherols make for a healthy, long lasting centrifuge extracted or hydraulically pressed oil and testing for these and certifying levels at Harvest should be mandatory for all producers as “freshness” is not a guarantee of quality or shelflife of a 1 or 2 times malaxed unrefined oil if it is low in polyphenols and antioxidants. A question for Dr Frankel and Ms Wang to answer is: Is adulteration with a refined stable canola oil less harmful than an oxidising or rancid extra virgin olive oil with undetermined safe levels of pesticides and fungicide residues? Mass Spectrometry will also give the UC Davis laboratory staff the opportunity to test for pesticide and fungicide residue which should be an essential safety requirement for any unrefined edible oil.