New Book on Olive Oil Industry Presses for Change

According to a December 7, 2011, New York Times book review, a new tome by freelance writer Tom Mueller has claimed that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in America “is, to some degree, fraudulent.” Based on an August 13, 2007, New Yorker article, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil apparently aims “to demonstrate the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and to teach readers how to sniff out the good stuff.” To this end, Mueller reportedly explains how unscrupulous suppliers “frequently adulterate olive oil with low-grade vegetable oils and add artificial coloring,” resulting in “a urine-colored and musty butter substitute.”

But aside from such “alarming” statistics, Times critic Dwight Garner ultimately found the prose too “unctuous” for his taste. “The Food and Drug Administration considers this adulteration a low priority. Grody olive oil is not killing anyone. We’re talking about a first-world problem here,” Garner concluded. Additional details about Mueller’s work on olive oil appear in Issue 227 of this Update.