ABSTRACT
Analysis and Authentication Franca Angerosa*, Christine Campestre**, Lucia Giansante* * CRA-Istituto Sperimentale per la Elaiotecnica, Viale Petruzzi, 65013 Città Sant’Angelo (PE) – ITALY, ** Dipartimento di Scienze del Farmaco, Università degli Studi G. D’Annunzio, Via dei Vestini, 31, 66100 Chieti - ITALY
Introduction Olive oil, differently from most vegetable oils, is obtained by means of some technological operations which have the purpose to liberate the oil droplets from the cells of olive flesh. Due to its mechanical extraction, it is a natural juice and preserves its unique composition and its delicate aroma, and therefore can be consumed without further treatments. However, a refining process is necessary for making edible lampante virgin olive oils. Lampante oils cannot be directly consumed because of the presence of organoleptic defects or because chemical-physical constants exceeding the limits established by International Organizations. Consumers are becoming continuously more aware of potential health and therapeutic benefits of virgin olive oils and their choice is oils of high quality which preserve unchanged the aromatic compounds and the natural elements that give the typical taste and flavor. Because of the steady increasing demand and its high cost of production virgin olive oil demands a higher price than other vegetable oils. erefore, there is a great temptation to mix it with less expensive vegetable oils and olive residue oils. On the other hand even refined olive oils, due to high mono-unsaturated fatty acids content and other properties, often have prices higher than those of olive residue oil or seed oils. us, there are attempts to partially or totally substitute both virgin and refined olive oils with pomace oil, seed oils, or synthetic products prepared from olive oil fatty acids recovered as by-products in the refining process. e substitution or adulteration of food products with a cheap ingredient is not only an economic fraud, but may also have severe health implications to consumers. Such is the case of the Spanish toxic oil syndrome (TOS), resulting from the consumption of aniline-denaturated rapeseed oil that involved more than 20,000 people (World Health Organization, 1992; Wood et al., 1994; Gelpi et al., 2002). erefore, there is always a need to protect consumers through effective and clear regulations that assure uniformity of definitions, labelling rules, instrumental tech-
niques and methodologies, limits, and identity characteristics in all countries. At the moment Codex Alimentarius, European Commission (EC), and International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) generally give the same limits for the olive oil identity characteristics. However, there are some differences between EC regulations and IOOC Trade Standards due to the fact that this last organization must take into account characteristics of all olive oils and pomace oils produced by all IOOC members. ese characteristics can be different from those of European Union countries because of different cultivars and climate conditions. In the last 20 years a great analytical effort was made from food chemists and many gas chromatographic, high pressure liquid chromatographic, and spectrometric methodologies were developed to evidence possible frauds. Several analytical approaches are currently included in regulations of the European Community, the Draft of Codex Alimentarius Standards, and the International Olive Oil Trade Standards. e application of new reliable analytical approaches had, as a consequence, a reduction of adulteration, but there are still problems with sophisticated practices. ese are the addition of: i) hazelnut oil; ii) olive oils subjected to forbidden deodorization in mild conditions; iii) olive oil obtained by second centrifugation of olive pastes (remolido). e evaluation of quality and the checking genuineness of olive oils is made on the basis of analytical data of a number of parameters which must be within limit values established by the European Commission (EC Reg No 2568/1991 and its latest amendment EC Reg No 1989/2003), the Codex Alimentarius Norm (Codex Alimentarius Commission Draft, 2003) and the IOOC Trade Standards (International Olive Oil Council Trade Standards, 2003). e methods generally applied can be divided into two groups: i) methods adopted by national and international organizations such as IOOC, Codex Alimentarius, and the European Commission; ii) methods not evaluated by standardizing bodies, but proposed by researchers, which are either used to support nonconclusive results of official analyses, when sophisticated adulterations have to be evidenced, or to obtain a rapid and a more complete evaluation of olive oil quality.
