Wake Up World  May 27 2014

“Throughout Europe there are large scale facilities that pump this stuff out. According to the book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, these 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.” ~ D Alban

You’d have to live in a cave to not have heard about the health benefits of olive oil. It’s a monounsaturated fat that is a major component of the Mediterranean diet and is believed to be a factor why people in that area of the world are some of the healthiest and long-lived.

Olive oil has been used medicinally for over 5,000 years. Its health benefits are legendary. It has been found to boost the immune system, increase bone density, prevent cancer, strokes, and heart disease, lower blood pressure, and reduce your risk of diabetes. And if that isn’t enough, it seems that olive oil can improve memory and increase overall cognitive function. A large study on 6,000 women over the age of 65 found that women who consumed the highest amount of monounsaturated fats, which can be found in olive oil, had better patterns of cognitive scores over time. (1)

I recommend it as one of the two vegetable oils that are truly healthy and that everyone should have in their kitchen, along with coconut oil…

But now it looks like the olive oil you trusted to provide you with health benefits might be a fake! Is nothing sacred anymore? My first thoughts were…

How do you make fake olive oil? Who is doing this? Why are they doing it?

Olive Oil Is Big Business

Working backwards, it’s pretty easy to guess the “why”. There is money to be made in olive oil forgery. The US alone spends 1.5 billion dollars a year on olive oil. It might not seem worth the effort to make fake oil, but in one Italian bust alone, authorities broke up a criminal gang sitting on $8 million worth of fake oil!

The “who” might be surprising… Continue reading →