Some olive oils are lying about their virginity.

Your olive oil might claim to be virgin - but is it? 

There are four levels of virgin in olive oil, the lowest of which isn’t meant for consumption. It’s often used in making soap. It’s the extra virgin olive oils that are supposed to meet the high standards of taste - but an independent study by the University of California found a lot of the most popular brands are frauds and failed the extra virgin test. 

It’s hard to know for sure - but California olive oil is a good place to start. Those generally performed a little better than the extra virgins from Argentina, Greece, Chile, and Italy. The two brands at the top of their game were McEvoy Ranch and Trader Joe’s California Estate.