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Comment by ryan606 | Hacker News Reader

This was a very interesting 60 Minutes piece last night, but also very frustrating. They tested three brands of EVOO sold in the US, and found two were complete fakes, but didn't tell viewers which ones not to buy. How does this provide any actionable information to the public? At least tell us what we should be looking out for.

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In Brazil there are tv shows that do this kind of testing, but then they don't go on to mention the brands/companies that fail whatever it is that they test. It is indeed frustrating. What the hell is the show for, then? "Hey, some businesses are dishonest, we just found out, with footage to prove it, but sorry, we can't tell you which ones." I hate it.

They would get sued for libel, and they would lose because these taste tests are not valid evidence in US court.

I suspect the problem is somewhat overstated - to me it sounded like the tasters believed the olive oils were lower-grade, but without a rigorous definition of what that is it's hard to say how big the problem is.

Personally, I buy the lower-grade EVOO for sautéing. I'm going to be disappointed if it's really just olive oil with chlorophyll added, but at the same time I'm not looking for high-grade stuff when I buy a $10 bottle of oil. It would be a waste for what I'm doing with it.

In the US, isn't it up to the accuser to prove libel, not the defendant to prove that what they said was true?

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