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Comment by rosser | Hacker News Reader

as far as I can tell, this really doesn't make any difference in the end

Unfortunately, that's not the case. When olive oil is adulterated with oils that have lower smoke points, and that adulterated oil is then used under heat, for cooking, the adulterant oils can break down and yield toxic compounds (e.g., aldehydes and hydroperoxids). [1]

EDIT: Also, as noted by a sibling comment, the Ω3:Ω6 ratios for some of the adulterant oils can be wildly different from olive oil, in sub-optimal, or even deleterious ways.

EDIT 2: And what about food allergies? Suppose someone with a hazelnut allergy buys hazelnut oil-adulterated olive oil (they're fairly similar in terms of fatty acid contents, so it's a somewhat common adulterant). Still think it doesn't make a difference?

(Also edited for tone.)

[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050617065306.ht...

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To quote an excerpt from that link:

" Virgin olive oil was, amongst all the oils studied, that which took longer to produce this type of compounds and produced a lower concentration of them."

I am going to assume (and hope) that that was an off-the-shelf sample, which includes the adulteration you are talking about. Unfortunately, there no further information available.

I think that means the opposite of what you think it means. That it takes virgin olive oils longer to produce fewer toxic compounds is a good thing.

EVOO already has a low smoke point as far as oils are concerned, processed soy/canola/corn/etc. oil all have significantly higher smoke points.

I can't imagine a scenario where a manufacturer would be adulterating EVOO with another oil that has a lower smoke point -- there just aren't any that would be make economic sense, as far as I know.

sunflower and safflower oils, the two most commonly substituted oils for olive oil (as far as counterfeiting goes), have a similar or _much lower_ smoke point than olive oil in an unrefined state. 225F, in fact. That's almost 100 degrees lower than olive oil.

If they used unrefined sunflower or safflower oil, then your olive oil would wind up with a lot of flavor of those oils, since unrefined oil is very flavorful. They would seem like horrible choices for adulteration, since it would be so obvious. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but do you have a source on that? I'm genuinely curious.

On the other hand, refined sunflower and safflower oil have higher smoke points than EVOO, and the flavor loss due to refining would let them blend in.

What? Safflower oil is flavorless. As for sources, there've been various articles about olive oil adulteration over the years...including one really long one from a few years ago that was popular on most aggregator sites - think it was also an NYT article.

The real issue, IMO, is the Ω3:Ω6 ratios. As someone who is trying to lower the amount of Ω6 in his diet, I can no longer trust olive oil

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