I finally read the whole label on my 'light' olive oil

I was making a salad dressing last week and grabbed my usual bottle of 'light tasting' olive oil. For some reason, I turned it around and read the full label, not just the front. It said 'a blend of refined olive oils and virgin olive oil'. I looked up what 'refined' meant and found out it's heavily processed with heat and chemicals, stripping most of the good stuff out. I'd been paying extra for a healthy oil that wasn't much better than plain vegetable oil. Has anyone else been fooled by the word 'light' on an oil label?

4 comments

4 Comments

john_fisher1mo ago

So when you looked up the refining process, did you find any actual rules about how much virgin oil has to be in a "light" blend to use that name?

max_brown3mo ago

Totally fell for that one too. For years I thought "light" meant lower in calories or fat, like with other foods. Reading the small print on my own bottle was a real eye opener about how much the good stuff gets processed out.

lucash533mo ago

My local grocery store has an entire aisle labeled "healthy choices" that's just packed with stuff like this. I mean, they put "light" or "natural" on the front in huge letters, but the actual ingredients are a chemistry project. It feels like you need a degree just to buy olive oil or yogurt now. Maybe it's just me, but I've started to ignore all the fancy words on the front and only look at the tiny print on the back. The marketing is so loud it drowns out the real facts.

amy_craig283mo ago

Ugh, tell me about it. I saw a loaf of bread the other day that said "artisan ancient grain" in giant script. Turned it over and the first ingredient was just plain old white flour, followed by like three different kinds of sugar. It's all just theater. I spent five minutes in the chip aisle once because "veggie straws" sounded okay, but the back of the bag was just potato starch and food coloring. Makes you feel like a detective for basic stuff.