Is your olive oil the real deal?

This morning, I came across an interesting bit of reporting from The L.A. Times: Come fall, the USDA is going to start rolling out standards to help make sure consumers are really getting the olive oil they think they’re paying for–100% olive oil. The measure comes from the fact that in recent years, a number of brands have been caught watering down their product with cheaper canola, safflower, or peanut oils.

The story described a recent incident in Connecticut, where residents were calling in reporting feeling sick, only to learn that their extra virgin olive oil had been mixed with peanut oil. The callers, of course, had been allergic. To thicken the stew, I remember reading a great article in The New Yorker about this exact sort of thing (at the time, 2007, established brands like Bertolli were even called into question).

The U.S. is a prime market for this kind of fraud because up until now, we typically haven’t had a clear definition of what olive oil is. (There are a few exceptions: California, Oregon, and Connecticut have their own rules for this; New York and New Jersey are expected to follow suit in the coming months.)

This fall, it looks like things can really change. The FDA’s setting up guidelines and rigorous tests for freshness and purity, and is basing those standards on the rules established by the International Olive Council in Madrid. The one catch? Going through the process isn’t mandatory for a company.

To make sure you’re getting a brand that opted into this (and, luckily, it sounds like a lot of them are eager to do so), start looking for a federal seal of approval on the label, probably by early 2011.

I’m also a big believer in what you can learn with a little research. For every suspect company, there are always about 100 truly great ones (especially when you look at smaller, really quality-conscious producers). Case-in-point: I found this ConsumerResearch.com round up of reviews really useful. I couldn’t get to the Consumer Reports study the site mentioned, but that one seems to have done a fair amount of lab analyses (Whole Foods and Colavita came out big winners).

Lastly, while we’re on the subject (and because I couldn’t resist), here’s a fantastic-looking and healthful Bechamel sauce from the Martha Rose Shulman’s Recipes for Health in The New York Times. The sauce, according to Shulman, keeps things light by using olive oil in lieu of butter, a practice common in Provence.