(NaturalNews) Olive oil is a kitchen staple that's touted for its myriad of health benefits. It's considered a major component of the Mediterranean diet, and its monounsaturated fatty acids are heralded for being a healthy source of dietary fat. Countless studies have examined the potential health benefits of olive oil, uncovering many advantages to its consumption. It's been associated with reduced heart disease and stroke risk, protecting against depression, preventing breast cancer and promoting healthy cholesterol levels.

All in all, olive oil is pretty great – if you can actually manage to find it! While your local grocery store likely has rows upon rows of golden-hued oils boasting the "olive oil" label, that doesn't mean that's actually what you're buying, nor does it guarantee any sort of quality. Fraud in the olive oil industry is actually quite commonplace these days, as sad as that may be. Like everything else that's mass-produced, good olive oil has all but gone the way of the dodo bird.

In January of 2016, CBS News even reported on the overwhelming fraudulence permeating the industry. Olive oils imported from Italy are particularly subject to being fake – now that the Italian mafia has taken over. CBS News reports that Italians call it the "Agromafia," and  it's making about $16 billion annually.

Guy Campanile, an Italian-American, created a documentary on the great olive oil hoax. Campanile says that when you see real, true extra-virgin olive oil that doesn't contain any additives, it's truly extraordinary. "You know, when you see it there [in Italy], it's this almost luminescent green," he explained. "It looks like nothing you've seen before, and tastes like nothing you've tasted before."

By the time it reaches American shores, most olive oil is no longer what it once was; improper storage and tampering often lead to a loss of quality. According to Campanile, the most common form of olive oil fraud is actually mixing Italian extra-virgin oil with other, inferior olive oils that are cheaper and lower in quality. Sometimes, it's not even olive oil at all.

Findings from the Olive Center, located at the University of California at Davis, also suggest that most olive oils are not what they purport to be. The report, authored by a number of respected professionals, examined a variety of best-selling olive oil brands to see how they matched up against a number of testing protocols for extra-virgin olive oil. Both chemistry and sensory testing techniques were used.

In their executive summary, the researchers note that while there are many quality brands of olive oil available for purchase, many of the largest imported brand names have a quality level that is inconsistent at best. The researchers also stated that most of the top olive oil brands they looked at frequently failed to meet the international standards set for extra virgin olive oil.