Why We Cook With Real Oil — Not Just What the Label Says

If you've spent any time trying to eat cleaner, you've probably learned to scan ingredient labels for seed oils — canola, soybean, corn, "vegetable oil blend." It's become second nature for a lot of health-conscious shoppers. And increasingly, "made with avocado oil" has become the label that tells you you're safe. It sounds premium. It sounds like the alternative you've been looking for.

Except a lot of the time, it isn't true.

The Study That Changed the Conversation

Earlier this year, researchers at UC Davis — led by food scientist Dr. Selina Wang — set out to test something simple: when a packaged food lists avocado oil as its only oil ingredient, is that actually what's inside?

The results were not reassuring. Nearly 9 out of 10 processed foods labeled with avocado oil turned out to have an oil composition inconsistent with authentic avocado oil — meaning what was actually in the product didn't match what the label claimed. Olive oil products, by contrast, held up: almost every one tested was authentic.

Broken down by category, the numbers get even more specific:

• 93% of avocado oil chip samples tested were inconsistent with authentic avocado oil
• 71% of avocado oil mayonnaise samples were inconsistent
• 100% of avocado oil salad dressing samples were inconsistent

In other words, if a bag of chips or a jar of dressing on your shelf says "made with avocado oil," the odds that it's telling the truth are not great.

It's Not Just a Lab Finding Anymore

This isn't a quiet academic result sitting in a journal somewhere. The findings have already prompted real scrutiny: investigations and inquiries have named specific national brands — including products from Chosen Foods, Trader Joe's private label, Walmart's Bettergoods line, Siete Foods, and Jackson's — as being examined over whether their avocado oil claims hold up. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an industry-wide investigation into companies marketing products as "made with avocado oil," citing concerns about undisclosed seed oils hiding behind that label.

To be clear — an investigation isn't a verdict, and none of this means every brand named acted in bad faith. Oil authenticity testing is genuinely difficult, and supply chains are long. But the pattern is hard to ignore: when a study finds that almost 9 out of 10 products fail an authenticity check, it tells you something structural is going on, not just a handful of bad actors.

Why This Doesn't Surprise Us

We've built Maple Meal Prep around cooking with olive oil, avocado oil, and grass-fed butter or ghee — never seed oils like canola, soybean, corn, or vague "vegetable oil" blends. We didn't do that because a label told us to. We did it because we're the ones buying the oil, pouring it into the pan, and putting it into your container.

That's really the whole difference. A packaged food company is trusting its suppliers, its suppliers' suppliers, and a label printed months before the product hits a shelf. We're not doing that kind of trusting-at-a-distance — we're cooking your food ourselves, in our own kitchen, with oils we chose and can vouch for directly.

When you're trying to eat clean, the honest truth is that ingredient labels can only tell you so much. Sourcing matters. Who's actually doing the cooking matters. That's the gap we're trying to close with every meal we make.

The Takeaway

The UC Davis findings are a good reminder that "better-for-you" claims on packaging deserve a second look — not out of cynicism, but because supply chains are long and labels don't always keep up with them. For us, it's reinforcement of something we already believed: the most reliable way to know what's in your food is to know who made it.

That's what we're here for.