Research into the health benefits of avocado oil lags behind studies of other oils, such as olive and seed oil. fcafotodigital/Getty Images hide title toggle title fcafotodigital/Getty Images Avocado oil is having a moment. Scan the supermarket aisles and you’ll find packaged products like chips, salad dressings, and mayonnaise, all boasting that they’re made with
Research into the health benefits of avocado oil lags behind studies of other oils, such as olive and seed oil.
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Avocado oil is having a moment. Scan the supermarket aisles and you’ll find packaged products like chips, salad dressings, and mayonnaise, all boasting that they’re made with avocado oil. But a new study finds that consumers who pay more for these foods probably aren’t getting what they think they’re buying.
And at a time when consumer interest in avocado oil is growing due to perceived health benefits, the findings add to evidence of widespread fraud in the industry.
“If you buy avocado oil products, there’s a good chance you’re not getting what you pay for,” says Selina Wang, a professor of food science at the University of California, Davis, and lead author of the study, which appears in the journal. Applied food research.
In the study, Wang and his colleagues purchased 54 products that included avocado oil as the only oil used and subjected them to chemical analysis. The vast majority (89%) showed signs of having been adulterated with other, cheaper oils, such as soybean oil. She says one sample appeared to contain basically no avocado oil. And the price did not correlate with the authenticity of the oil. (UC Davis has published the full list of tested products and results.)
For comparison, the researchers also tested 20 different packaged foods made with olive oil, and only one appeared to show signs of adulteration.
“So this is largely a problem with the avocado oil product,” Wang says.
It’s not just about packaged foods
She says the findings were disappointing, but not surprising given her previous research. In 2020 and 2023, it published studies that found that most commercially bottled avocado oils were rancid, meaning they had begun to oxidize, or were adulterated with other oils.
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Since then, a number of new packaged food products labeled as being made with avocado oil have hit the market. That made him curious about the authenticity of the oil in them, he says, because “I didn’t think we had that much avocado oil to go around.”
She says the new findings are especially discouraging because avocado oil and products made with it are typically significantly more expensive than those made with olive oil and other vegetable oils.
The health halo of avocado oil
One reason behind the growing interest in avocado oil and products made from it is that it is often considered a healthier alternative to seed oils, such as canola, soybean and safflower, says Sarah Berry, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, who has studied the interaction between dietary fats and health. Many nutrition researchers say seed oils have been unfairly maligned.
Berry says that while avocado oil is a healthy option, “what I struggle with the most is the health halo that’s been given to it.”
She says there is a lot of research showing the health benefits of eating avocados, but there isn’t much direct evidence on avocado oil.
On the other hand, “we have decades of data showing that extra virgin olive oil is healthy. We have decades of data showing that most seed oils are healthy, whether it’s canola oil, sunflower seed oil or soybean oil,” Berry says.
Given all that, Berry says she finds it difficult to justify paying a markup for products made with avocado oil.
Teresa Fung, associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, agrees. “I’d rather eat avocado,” he says.
Incentives to adulterate
Of course, avocados themselves can be expensive and don’t produce much oil, says Wayne Adams, CEO of the Adams Group, which refines avocado oil in the United States and sells it under the Marianne’s brand. That’s one of the main reasons why avocado oil tends to be so expensive. Meanwhile, seed oils are much cheaper.
“You just find people who look at the economic difference and see the incentive to adulterate,” Wayne says. He would like to see more regulatory action on the issue of adulterated oil in the industry. Ultimately, he says, that would help his business not be undermined by cheaters.
The adulteration of premium cooking oils to maximize profits has been going on for decades, says Eric Decker, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst whose research focuses on fats and oils.
“For a time, olive oil was adulterated with hazelnut oil because their fatty acid compositions were very similar,” Decker notes. “But then wholesale hazelnuts became very expensive.”
Decker, Adams and Wang say it is unclear where in the supply chain the adulteration may be taking place. But Wang says he hopes his findings will help spur the industry to act.
In fact, Wang first made headlines a decade and a half ago with a study that found that many imported extra virgin olive oils did not meet quality and purity standards. Those findings brought attention to the problem, and since then, evidence indicates there have been many improvements in the olive industry, Wang says.
In a statement to NPR, board members of the Avocado Oil Manufacturers Association (Enrique García Gavira, Miraj Shah and Lia Bijnsdorp) said the international group was founded last year precisely to address these authenticity challenges in its young and fast-growing industry.
“We are learning from olive oil, which faced similar problems until the creation of an international council and shared standards helped restore consumer confidence,” the group said. “Avocado oil must follow the same path, and that path is already underway.”
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