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Comment by plesner | Hacker News Reader

Incorporating old rancid stock is obviously bad. But besides that -- how bad is this if people don't actually care? The danger of saturated fats is being increasingly questioned[1] and evidence for the health benefits of antioxidants is scarce[2]. If it's just a matter of taste and people like the taste just fine then how bad is this really compared to other cost-cutting measures companies use?

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-co...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioxidant#Relation_to_diet

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Olive oil cut with soybean oil can have serious effects for people with allergies to soy.

http://www.paleohacks.com/oil/reason-for-adverse-reaction-to...

Likewise people with allergies to nut oils can have extreme adverse reactions and die. It's not just fraud, it's dangerous for the people eating it.

I thought that was the reason for the "May contain traces of X" warnings on many foods.

i would agree allergies are the biggest concern

But for anyone else..

i cook 95% of my meals, and evoo, extra virgin olive oil, is in all of them

i tried lots of different brands and styles and just sort organically went with the one with that left my body feeling and functioning in a way i preferred

anecdotally, i would say when i've cooked with other oils some had a sort of unsettlingly inert quality to them in regard to my body

i tried cooking with some nut oils for a while and they seemed to pass through my body unabsorbed

the same effect when i did try some other evoos

i thought little of it and was just happy with the brand i eventually settled on

when this study came out a while ago, i was surprised this shit is allowed, but unsurprised by the offending labels

my 'absorbtion theory' lacks any significant scientific rigor, but one annoying counterexample: the inconsistent evoo results; could be explained by the frustrating results of this investigation

Any time you have food being labeled as something it is not, I think that's a very serious problem, regardless of any health benefits or taste. Is fraud OK if people don't know (almost everyone) and/or don't care (probably some) they're being deceived?

Part of me feels this is less objectionable than other fraud.

If customers pay a premium for olive oil, even though they don't know enough to tell the difference, I feel like the joke's on them. This is hard to justify, maybe I'm just a bad person.

As a corollary, if someone told me I had been duped in some similar way (eg. my bourbon is not actually from Kentucky) I'd question/blame my own judgement. Why do I pay for something when I can't even tell there's a difference?

Allergies are a separate matter, and I bet relevant labeling laws apply equally much, whatever you call the oil.

Many of us are a bit dumb when we start trying to be discriminating in the food and drink we consume. We won't get far in our culinary education if we're duped like this.

Absolutely. Yet in some cases perhaps we're so easily duped only because what we're learning to distinguish is not such a strong signal; it could be an education in overfitting.

https://xkcd.com/915/

Mislabeling - other than the obvious false advertising aspects - could be a problem for people with strict diets due to allergies or other health issues.

In a sense, it doesn't matter. So long as folks are liking the taste of what they are buying (or lack of strong taste, depending), it doesn't matter if it is real olive oil or not.

On the other hand, I find it detestable that they are getting swindled. I'd much rather the person know they are buying an oil mix and be able to choose between mixes, and know that accounts for the flavor of their premium oil. I know folks are going to buy "premium" products that really aren't anyway, but the contents should at least be honest.

In addition, if this practice carries over to other products, it could cause issues with food allergies and intolerances.

I don't think 2 ways different plant oils might not differ much in their health properties suffices to conclude that the only difference between oils is taste. PUFA content and resistance to heat degradation (conferred by the antioxidants in genuine EVOO) come to mind. Neither of those is supported by an incontrovertible mound of evidence either, but it seems to me that there is enough of a possibility that this food choice can impact health that the consumer should be provided enough information to make their own decision -- or at least not lied to about what they're eating.

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