How to spot the most common fake foods

Olive Oil

You buy the most elegant bottle on the grocery store shelf. You know—the one with the Brunswick green glass, gold paper wrappings, and ornately scripted label. It’s not in the middle of the shelves—it’s at the top (a trick you’ve read more than once in a favorite magazine)—so it’s supposed to be more authentic. But is it? Perhaps. But the odds aren’t in your favor.Olive oil is one of the most adulterated foods in grocery stores and restaurants today. Indeed, one series of studies with olive oil samples from the five top-selling U.S. grocery brands found that 73 percent of the samples failed to meet the standards of the International Olive Council (IOC). Olive oil manufacturers may cut their expensive extra-virgin olive oil with an inferior olive oil, or worse another type of oil altogether (soybean or sunflower oil, for example).