Last night while watching the January 3, 2016 “60 Minutes” show one of the feature stories was on the diluting of olive oil in Italy. They have Italian food police that do nothing but test the oils, much like I guess our FDA does in the US. I had heard from a friend that the Italian Olive Oil was not always what it claims but the story really confirmed it. It seems that they use seed oils like sunflower oil and put colorings and other chemicals in it to fool us. The story said that one of the most popular brands in the US, they wouldn’t name the brand, was mostly diluted. It seems like everywhere we turn someone is trying to mess with our food. They even sell it in Italy so we aren’t the only ones fooled. My daughter-in-law and I have started buying more pure lard that we get from our local farmers, where we buy our local meats. At least we know they aren’t putting bad fillers in it and the animals are raised without antibiotics and inappropriate feeds. Hopefully that is an answer for some of us, even though it requires an extra trip to the farmers market. We are very lucky to have a small local market that is open year round and always have really good meats and fresh eggs and veggies when they can. This is my first post in 2016 so I am wishing everyone a healthy 2016. HAPPY NEW YEAR