But you don't use that much oil as a condiment. I think most oil is used for frying, or other high temperature applications.
Traditional Mediterranean cooking uses olive oil for everything, and at high temperatures, to be honest, I think it is a waste as you don't get its characteristic taste. We once did a fondue with extra virgin olive oil (we usually use cheaper oil for that, but that's the only thing we had left), and we got essentially none of the taste.
I would imagine much like "truffle oil" - you can take a concentrated extract and add it to a neutral oil to get the same flavor. If it stays high for long enough I have to imagine someone will release a competing product.
Olive oil has a lower smoke point than cheaper oils so faking olive oil has been pretty easy.. I don't actually buy Italian olive oil since anyone who is faking oil internationally would be pretty crazy to make less by selling it as Spanish or Greek olive oil.
Perhaps, but unlike truffle oil, which people eat for the flavor (and prestige/faux prestige), many people choose olive oil for health reasons. If you make some other kind of oil taste like olive oil, those people would not buy it.
As far as I know those 'health reasons' are mostly propaganda and come from the new-agey sort of faux health circles. Correct me if I'm wrong I don't know much about the health of various oils this is just the impression I have gotten.
The ratios of different types of fats in oils (e.g., saturated vs unsaturated, mono- vs polyunsaturated, etc) do have different metabolic processes and effects, that's not any kind of new-agey or faux health stuff.
The level of impact of such things is definitely still actively studied, but some fats do generally seem worse for you to consume than others.
Now, anyone arguing eating a bottle of olive oil a week will cure your cancer is obviously full of it, but choosing different oils because of ratios of saturated fats and what not isn't entirely new-agey fluff.
Olive oil is substantially better than many other seed oil alternatives in terms of omega 6 content (too much omega 6 appears to be a problem, especially given how little omega 3 we get in the modern diet) [1] [2]. Extra virgin olive oil also has crazy high phenolic content for an oil, and polyphenols are well studied in their many beneficial impacts on health.
Oh aside from "Dr. Fabio"'s blog these are some great sources about the health benefits of olive oil. Good to know, ill have to keep eating it;)
I am somewhat shocked though to see such strong opinions about the health benefits of olive oil or the lack thereof. Here I thought it was just a tasty oil.
Just so you know, the burden of proof lies with the person making a claim, in this case you, claiming the health benefits of olive oil are 'propaganda'. If you think you don't know enough to make a claim, that's fine, you can always a nice neutral question, like: What are the health benefits of olive oil?
The notion that olive oil is one of the healthier fat options has abundant coverage in science and health media as well as peer reviewed research. This is widely know to people who are interested in healthy diet and lifestyle stuff. The claim that it's all propaganda requires a stronger burden of proof IMO.
If someone shouts "1+1=2 is propaganda!", the burden of proof should be on them even though almost everyone they meet will not have gone through the mathematical proof that 1+1=2 themselves (a 360 page proof, not an easy task). We're all just taking someone else's word for it + using our own common sense. We can find many other examples, but the gist is if something is well established in society, not just from cultural institutions but from educational and scientific ones as well, a claim that society is lying to us for whatever reason has the much stronger burden of proof.
Traditional Mediterranean cooking uses olive oil for everything, and at high temperatures, to be honest, I think it is a waste as you don't get its characteristic taste. We once did a fondue with extra virgin olive oil (we usually use cheaper oil for that, but that's the only thing we had left), and we got essentially none of the taste.