For Some, Choosing Olive Oil Is All in The Numbers

Summary

The author received an invi­ta­tion to attend a con­fer­ence in Malaga next sum­mer from the Oleocanthal Society of Spain, but has declined, express­ing skep­ti­cism about the focus on the health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil based on phe­no­lic pro­files. The author crit­i­cizes the empha­sis on chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions over sen­sory expe­ri­ences in deter­min­ing the value of olive oil, argu­ing that con­sumers are still con­fused about how to choose high-qual­ity oils despite grow­ing aware­ness in the indus­try.

Last week, I received an invi­ta­tion from the Oleocanthal Society of Spain to attend a con­fer­ence in Malaga next sum­mer.

I prob­a­bly receive twenty pro­pos­als a year to attend such gath­er­ings of researchers, usu­ally with air­fare and expense accom­mo­da­tions. I sel­dom go.

Once in a while, I’ll open the con­fer­ence pro­gram attached to the invi­ta­tion to find that I’m already listed as a speaker on the sched­ule. And this is from sci­en­tists whose job is to estab­lish facts.

This one is called ​“Second Health Matters Convention on EVOO, Phenols, Fatty Acids and the Mediterranean Diet.” It might not be the most com­pelling title, but the hotel looks fine.

I get it that researchers have grant money they need to spend, and a few days of round­table dis­cus­sions on the Costa del Sol is bound to yield sci­en­tific break­throughs, but I’ll be pass­ing on this one, too.

The con­fer­ence coin­cides with a com­pe­ti­tion called the ​“The World’s Best Healthy extra vir­gin olive oil Contest” — another show­stop­per of a title.

The con­test ranks entries based on their con­tent of ​“bio­phe­nols, oleo­can­thal and fatty acids,” accord­ing to their web­site, in con­trast to the taste tests by sen­sory experts employed by most inter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tions, includ­ing the NYIOOC.

A few years ago, Boundary Bend — the Australian com­pany that has done a lot for our indus­try — was cir­cu­lat­ing press releases that their Cobram Estate brand had been named the ​“world’s health­i­est olive oil” by the Malaga con­test.

I went on record crit­i­ciz­ing Boundary Bend’s claim in an edi­to­r­ial that ques­tioned the notion that one extra vir­gin olive oil could be declared health­ier than another if it had more of a cer­tain phe­nol. Experts I con­sulted, includ­ing the guy who dis­cov­ered oleo­can­thal, agreed it was a reach.

Perhaps in response to my arti­cle, these well-mean­ing researchers, who I’m sure are just try­ing to draw atten­tion to the health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil, piv­oted from refer­ring to the awarded brand as the world’s health­i­est olive oil to the best healthy olive oil.

This year, the con­test received less than 50 entries, which means pro­duc­ers and the pub­lic care no more than I do about the event. But the con­fer­ence in Malaga, which will fea­ture the few dozen win­ners of the best what­ever com­pe­ti­tion, will cer­tainly bring together the camp within our indus­try that I’ll call the phen­at­ics.

These folks have been trum­pet­ing extra vir­gin olive oil as a func­tional food (which it cer­tainly is) and seem to share the belief that the phe­no­lic pro­file and med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties, as mea­sured in a lab, should be the focus when deter­min­ing the value for the con­sumer.

I won’t get into the chem­istry here because it bores me to tears. I sus­pect many con­sumers might feel the same.

Polyphenols are present in all extra vir­gin olive oils. Certain cul­ti­vars and pro­duc­tion vari­ables lead to higher lev­els of phe­nols. Still, we don’t know the opti­mal num­bers, and it might be that con­sum­ing mod­er­ate amounts often will have a more sig­nif­i­cant effect on health than get­ting a mega­dose occa­sion­ally.

But I’ve always been a lit­tle put off by their zealotry, which can read like an indict­ment:

“Tastings are essen­tial for EVOO, but they can­not be judged by a par­tial jury, which is one on which the palates and smells of those juries depend,” says the orga­nizer of the con­fer­ence José Amérigo, the same guy who invited me to attend.

“It is no use to the con­sumer who has dif­fer­ent tastes and smells. The only thing that guar­an­tees that an extra vir­gin olive oil is ben­e­fi­cial for the health of the con­sumer is the nutri­tional infor­ma­tion, which must be attached to the bot­tle.”

And then there was this:

“You can­not con­tinue to deceive the good faith of the extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­ers, you have to tell them the truth,” Amérigo admon­ishes. ​“And the truth is based on chem­istry, the other is peanuts.”

But Amérigo cer­tainly knows the real truth is that some­times good chem­istry tastes like peanuts.
Take Dr. Gundry, the Beverly Hills char­la­tan who is mak­ing a killing sell­ing high-phe­no­lic lam­pante oil that one expert called ​“the worst oil I have ever tasted.” If chem­istry is every­thing, give it to me straight and keep the motor oil.

Extra vir­gin olive oil should be an easy sell. For thou­sands of years, it has occu­pied the cor­ner­stone of the health­i­est dietary reg­i­mens while mak­ing any­thing it touches more deli­cious than it was before.

Yet con­sumers are still utterly bewil­dered and unin­formed on mat­ters of olive oil qual­ity. We’ve seen sus­tained inter­na­tional cam­paigns by thou­sands of pro­duc­ers and stake­hold­ers to clear the air by focussing on how high-qual­ity olive oil should taste.

Extra vir­gin olive oil is, by its very def­i­n­i­tion, fruity, bit­ter and pun­gent. Bitterness and pun­gency are direct indi­ca­tions of the pres­ence of phe­nols. Consumers are slowly warm­ing up to more bit­ter oils, as they already have for choco­late, beer and cof­fee, where some bit­ter­ness is rec­og­nized as an indi­ca­tion of qual­ity.

Beyond that, EVOOs are clas­si­fied as del­i­cate, medium inten­sity, or robust — which are help­ful sug­ges­tions when choos­ing an oil for a par­tic­u­lar culi­nary appli­ca­tion.

The phen­at­ics don’t want to hear all of that. They seem to think the best way to add value is through a sum­mary of chem­i­cal com­po­si­tions — as if that will dis­pel the con­fu­sion that abounds.

There are regions, ter­roirs, cul­ti­vars and pro­cess­ing tech­niques that yield oils with unique sen­sory and chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics. The diver­sity of extra vir­gin olive oils world­wide is pre­cious, and we must cel­e­brate and pro­tect them all.

Our indus­try is still work­ing to fix a sul­lied rep­u­ta­tion earned through cen­turies of dis­hon­esty and deceit when the ​“extra vir­gin” on the label rarely reflected what was inside. Of course, we could get away with it for so long because con­sumers never knew how to taste olive oil for them­selves to deter­mine qual­ity.

Through edu­ca­tional ini­tia­tives and an army of ambas­sadors, we’re finally see­ing a grow­ing under­stand­ing among con­sumers that choos­ing extra vir­gin olive oil isn’t rocket sci­ence.

Wait until they’re asked to read a run­down of phe­no­lic com­pounds. Ask them to trust what the label says with­out any way of ver­i­fy­ing it, just like in the old days.

Unless they have a lab in their pantry.