CHEESESLAVE

Last night I put two bottles of Adam’s Ranch olive oil in the fridge. One was “unfiltered” olive oil and one was “filtered”. I do not know what the difference is between filtered and unfiltered — I just thought I’d stick them both in there and see what they would do.

Well, the unfiltered turned solid (just like last time). And the filtered (which I never tested before) did not turn solid at all!

Hmph! So this tells me something. It tells me that this test is not accurate.

Adam’s Ranch olive oil comes from real local olive ranch. They grow their own olives. It has to be real!

So I am going to go talk to them at their booth at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and see what they say. Maybe they can explain this filtered vs. unfiltered business to me.

I think this comes back the same thing I keep finding with all food — you have to know the source. I mean literally know and trust them.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I happened to look in the fridge — the filtered Adams Ranch was rock solid. Guess it just took a little longer.

Last fall my sister told me that she had read an article in the New Yorker exposing the fact that most olive oils on the market are fake. I was shocked and horrified. I had been cooking with olive oil for years and using it to make my own salad dressing. I was trying to avoid trans fats.

When I first started eating a WAPF diet 6 months ago, one of the first things I did was buy real (WAPF approved) olive oil. One of the brands they recommend is Bariani. A little more expensive, but worth it considering it’s real! I also buy Adam’s Ranch at Rawesome, my local buying club.

And Sally Fallon says that, for making salad dressing, even if you use the finest, most expensive ingredients, it still comes out the same cost-wise as if you are buying ready-made salad dressings.

Yesterday I was listening to a lecture by Sally Fallon (an mp3 from the WAPF 2007 conference). She said that you can tell if your olive oil is real by putting it in the fridge. If it turns hard, it’s real. If not, it’s fake.

Last night I put 3 bottles of olive oil in the fridge. One was my bottle of Adam’s Ranch unrefined olive oil. I also put in a bottle of Santini from Trader Joe’s and a bottle of Fillippo Berio I bought at Albertson’s. Both of these are the olive oils I used to buy before I got into WAPF.

Guess what? The Adam’s Ranch is the real thing. And the other two — FAKE!

See how the Adam’s Ranch is hard and cream colored? You can turn it on its side and it is absolutely solid. The other two oils are totally liquid.

This really pisses me off! I cooked with that shit for years, thinking I was using a healthy oil. I was trying to avoid trans fats — and here I was ingesting them unknowingly.

And those douchebags at Filippo Berio have the nerve to put a page on their website about “Tradition”. It says:

When you buy Filippo Berio olive oils, you’re buying olive oil steeped in expert tradition — oils with the same flavor as those Filippo Berio produced over 150 years ago.

Today, these award-winning oils are made using the latest technology, but the traditional flavors remain — thanks to painstaking attention to detail and a deep commitment to excellence. Filippo Berio olive oils have been produced by our family-owned and operated business since the mid-1800s, with hands-on family direction and expertise to ensure unsurpassed quality and unequalled taste in every bottle.

Notice that it doesn’t say anywhere that this is 100% olive oil. It just says that the “flavors” are the same.

Which means they are adulterating the olive oil with cheap oils (vegetable and soy, most likely) and adding olive oil flavor.

Try it with your olive oil and post the results on your blog — comment if you do it. I want to compile a list of real and fake olive oils.