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Here's another article on it with a less extreme headline: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-of-us-are-blissfully-ignorant-about-how-much-rancid-olive-oi

Here's another article on it with a less extreme headline: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-of-us-are-blissfully-ignorant-about-how-much-rancid-olive-oil-we-use/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-of-us-are-blissfull... They say that most olive oil isn't "fake", just lower quality than labelled. However in taste tests, American consumers can't distinguish the higher quality oil, and actually prefer the lower quality stuff. >Rancidity, for example, isn’t generally a sought after quality in edible products. And yet, when it comes to olive oil in the U.S., people like it. Why? Partly, because rancid olive oil is less bitter than the good stuff. But also, likely because it’s what many of us know and grew up with. It’s what we think olive oil is supposed to taste like Of course fraudulent labelling is wrong. But if consumers actually prefer it, then it doesn't seem so bad.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Rancidity, vomit flavour people sometimes call it, is seemingly a key flavour in USA chocolate. I wonder if there's a parallel reason or if the 'gone off' flavour of chocolate -- that was initially down to poor milk transportation -- has influenced the local palette wrt other foods.
- Stratoscope 10y ago
  It's not rancidity, it's butyric acid, the source of "the Hershey flavor": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275566 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_bar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_bar
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    I heard about it first at a lecture by an industrial chemist working for Cadbury. He explained it as being a hangover from milk going off during delivery. Colloquially at least off milk is said to have gone rancid. There were samples ... a memorable experience! The addition of butyric acid of supposed to mimic the past flavour without the use of off milk.
yaantc 10y ago
> ...is less bitter than the good stuff Bitterness matters here IMHO. One old anecdote: when I was in the US about 15 years ago, I was very surprised to see an Italian brand I knew with labels like "regular", "strong", "extra strong" or so. There was no such thing in France. And then from tasting I understood: the extra strong was the olive oil I knew, the others were distinctly less bitter. So more filtered. The irony is that olive oil, for the truly oil part, is not particularly good --- it doesn't have all what our body needs. Colza oil is a good complement BTW. What's good in the olive oil are the olive tanins (I may be doing frenglish there...), which are bitter. And compared to Europe the US has a sweet tooth, so I guess that the bitterness was not so popular. So just filter it ;) You loose what made the olive oil popular (at the time at least), but sales wise I guess it worked better. Marketing at work. Don't know if it has changed?
Digory 10y ago
Right. It's more fair to say Americans buy really bad olive oil. But the standards for olive oil are usually somewhat subjective taste and visual standards. It's fair to say Kraft makes a lousy block of cheddar. But it'd a bit over the top for research funded by the West Country Farmhouse Cheese Board to say Kraft is "adulterated."

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

Rancidity, vomit flavour people sometimes call it, is seemingly a key flavour in USA chocolate. I wonder if there's a parallel reason or if the 'gone off' flavour of chocolate -- that was initially down to poor milk transportation -- has influenced the local palette wrt other foods.

Stratoscope 10y ago
It's not rancidity, it's butyric acid, the source of "the Hershey flavor": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7275566 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_bar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_bar
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I heard about it first at a lecture by an industrial chemist working for Cadbury. He explained it as being a hangover from milk going off during delivery. Colloquially at least off milk is said to have gone rancid. There were samples ... a memorable experience! The addition of butyric acid of supposed to mimic the past flavour without the use of off milk.

yaantc 10y ago

> ...is less bitter than the good stuff Bitterness matters here IMHO. One old anecdote: when I was in the US about 15 years ago, I was very surprised to see an Italian brand I knew with labels like "regular", "strong", "extra strong" or so. There was no such thing in France. And then from tasting I understood: the extra strong was the olive oil I knew, the others were distinctly less bitter. So more filtered. The irony is that olive oil, for the truly oil part, is not particularly good --- it doesn't have all what our body needs. Colza oil is a good complement BTW. What's good in the olive oil are the olive tanins (I may be doing frenglish there...), which are bitter. And compared to Europe the US has a sweet tooth, so I guess that the bitterness was not so popular. So just filter it ;) You loose what made the olive oil popular (at the time at least), but sales wise I guess it worked better. Marketing at work. Don't know if it has changed?

Digory 10y ago

Right. It's more fair to say Americans buy really bad olive oil. But the standards for olive oil are usually somewhat subjective taste and visual standards. It's fair to say Kraft makes a lousy block of cheddar. But it'd a bit over the top for research funded by the West Country Farmhouse Cheese Board to say Kraft is "adulterated."