Tag: olive oil

Science wants morons back

Is it just us, or has science pulled a Sandra Dee, all showing up to NASCAR in black vinyl, heels and teased hair while putting out a cigarette? First, they presented evidence that supports letting pregnant women drink, even going so far to say that binging doesn’t really hurt your child. And now? Salad doesn’t work without fatty-fatty-fat-fat salad dressing.

Researchers at Purdue University found that fats in salad dressing increase the amount of carotenoids — or nutrient compounds like lycopene and beta-carotene — absorbed into the blood stream. Without sufficient fats, the good parts just pass right through you.

Or, because we never pass up the opportunity to make an analogy: your insides are the wall of a barn. If you just throw salad at that wall without a thick enough dressing, it just slides right off. But with a thick, creamy layer of Hidden Valley ranch, it sticks to your barn, which will now have better eyesight. (We grew up in the suburbs and, consequently, do not know how barns work.)

This is all well and good, but you do realize, science, that there is no winning morons back, right? They’re still mad about the whole evolution thing and how you wouldn’t go all the way with them at the drive-in.

You get what you paid for

Virgin? Extra virgin? Or something else entirely? You never know what you’re really getting when you open a bottle of “100% extra virgin” olive oil, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is hoping to change that with new standards for the green-gold oil set to roll out this fall.

The new rules come at a time when olive oil demand is surging. Americans bought 79 million gallons in 2008, up from 47 million gallons a decade earlier, the paper reported.

There are no federal rules that define “virgin” or “extra virgin” olive oil, Vito S. Polito, professor of plant sciences at UC Davis and co-chairman of the school’s Olive Center, a research group. As a result, he said, “the U.S. has been a dumping ground for cheap olive oil for years.”

Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Assn., said most of the olive oil on U.S. store shelves is legit, but his group alerts the FDA when problems occur.

“We’ve petitioned the FDA to create a standard of identity, which would define in black and white what olive oil is and is not,” said Bauer. “They never acted on the petition.”

Curiosity: if you get a cheap knockoff of extra virgin olive oil, does it still retain that extra virgin title? Or does it become olive oil of the night?