Friday, July 13, 2012

The Great Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Scam - Yesterdays Snake Oil Is Now Fake Oil

Source : http://rawsangha.com/2011/03/09/conscious-activist-4-counterfeit-olive-oil-in-every-home/

Globalization Hits an Olive Oil Skid

by Maurice Varon
Food Freedom News, 12 July 2012

We have been caught in tangle of lies, deception and secrecy about our food, with the good guys attacked for offering honest, healthy food, consumers criminally charged for trying to get good food for their kids, and the bad guys, backed up by the government, getting off scot-free.

Fake Food Watch says that between 50-80% of olive oil in the US is fake [and] the USDA is fully aware of this ongoing fraud, yet has failed for years to notify the public and has done precious little to deter the great olive oil hoax.

Some suggest the number may be higher (video). What is certain is that people who have been paying top dollar for imported olive oil have been roundly defrauded. Fake Food Watch suggests people should:

“…. buy California olive oils when feasible ….California produces, by and large, true extra-virgin olive oil,” commented olive oil consultant Alexandra Kicenik Devarenne on a recent America Test Kitchen broadcast. Ms. Devarenne added that the current California industry is not engaged in “the same race to the bottom to produce the cheapest EVOO. U.S. olive oil is produced mainly in California, with smaller volumes coming from Arizona and Texas.”

While it is extremely useful and important to know that “America’s great extra-virgin olive oil scam is fraud, plain and simple” and that “no one is protecting the American consumer, who is being duped and swindled while enriching the gilded coffers of olive oil crooks,” it might be even more relevant to know that at the international level, corporations have just come down with a ruling that could make sure that this sort of fraud is unstoppable.

R-Calf USA, the largest independent trade organization in the US, and one that serves the independent US cattlemen, just sent out a press release not realizing it was exposing an even darker side to the growing olive oil outrage.

“In its third recent effort to attack U.S. sovereignty by attempting to deny U.S. consumers important information about their food and the right of the U.S. to protect the health of its youth, the unelected, non-appointed members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued its final ruling today that upholds its earlier decision that the U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law violates international trade agreements.”

The WTO has ruled that the US doesn’t have the right to designate its food by Country of Origin. The WTO says that country that food comes from is to be none of anyone’s business. One might even say, “secret.” This advantages countries with the nastiest food, of course, for they can pull the slimy olive oil trick, labeling anything as though it were something costly. If this happened in China for example, and they were found out, how would their product be avoided in other countries? Clearly the USDA has done nothing and wouldn’t be reasonably expected to sudden care, and the FDA is busy charging organic coop owners with felonies from conspiracy to sell unpasteurized milk.

The companies producing the fake olive oil are the big names people have trusted and been paying high prices for: Filippo Berio, Bertolli, Pompeian, Calavita, Star, Carapelli, Newmans Own Organics, Mezzetta, Mazola, Rachael Ray, Great Value 100%, Safeway Select, 365 100% Italian (Whole Foods), and Bariani.
Found to be producing real olive oil are Kirkland Organic (Imported Costco), and a series of California companies: Carto Olive Oil (California), California Olive Ranch, Lucero (California) and McEvoy Ranch Organic (California).

So, if one is revolted at being tricked by mobsters in Europe and wants to buy real olive oil here, with the COOL ruling, that could become impossible since knowing what country the food originated from is now hidden from the public by international trade agreement.

Fake Food Watch ended their article with: “One more suggestion: complain to the USDA. Complain loudly and complain often.”

But, the USDA is not just being sluggish or inattentive. It is seriously compromised as an agency, having funded the production of genetically engineered corn to sterilize humans, deregulated the planting of GMOs even after vociferous warnings from scientists that they are contributing to high rates of infertility and spontaneous miscarriages and still births in our farm animals, have created a new pathogen never seen before that affects both plants animals, and threatens the collapse of agriculture in the US.

Historically, the USDA has been responsible for a laundry list of injustices, such as grossly discriminating against black farmers in terms of loans and help, paying its agents bonuses for foreclosing on farms, denying crop insurance claims of farmers in the Southwest who had purchased millions in drought insurance and are experiencing one of the worst droughts in US history, etc. (Please see Playing the HAARP Nicely for ways to fix the drought that are not being used.)

No, this is not the time to rely on a corrupt USDA, certainly not for a situation it knew about and did nothing to stop. But also not for a story that gets bigger the more one looks at that oil and wonders what is going on. While there is no question that the oils sold in the US are not olive oil, the question arises, are any or all of the oils using GMO (genetically modified organisms)? One wonders, since in the US, almost all of our oils – canola oil, soy oil, corn oil and cottonseed oil – contain GMOs, were our very cheap and also toxic oils shipped to Europe and repackaged as olive oil and shipped back for a great profit?

We have been caught in tangle of lies, deception and secrecy about our food, with the good guys attacked for offering honest, healthy food, consumers criminally charged for trying to get good food for their kids, and the bad guys, backed up by the government, getting off scot-free.

To read the entire article, please click on the link provided below:

Food Freedom News

Conscious Activist #4 - Counterfeit Olive Oil in Every Home