Texas Is Investigating Your Avocado Oil Chips
Artemis makes an organic, 100% grass-fed and regeneratively raised beef stick infused with heart and liver, slow-fermented for 12 hours, and third-party tested for contaminants. The last batch sold out, and the new one just landed.
What Texas did
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued Civil Investigative Demands to Siete Foods, Primal Kitchen, and Chosen Foods, forcing them to hand over documents and answer questions under oath before the state decides whether to sue.
“Consumers should not have to worry if they are being deceived by labels when trying to choose healthier options at the grocery store,” Paxton said. His office says more companies will get the same order.
Why all the hype around avocado oil?
Avocado oil is pressed from the fruit’s flesh, not the pit. It’s mostly monounsaturated fat, the same family as olive oil, and it holds up at frying temperatures. That’s why it became the swap for canola and sunflower in chips, mayo, and dressings.
It’s also expensive. Bulk refined avocado oil runs about $3.65 to $4.35 a pound. Soybean and canola run about $1.30 to $1.85. A supplier who cuts avocado oil with soybean oil can pocket the difference, and a bag of chips won’t taste different.
If the bag secretly has the oil you switched away from, you paid 2 or 3 dollars extra for nothing.
The study behind the subpoenas
On July 15, a UC Davis food scientist named Selina Wang published a test in the journal Applied Food Research. Her lab bought 27 products that list avocado oil as their only oil (chips, mayonnaise, salad dressings) from California stores and online, 2 production lots each. That’s 54 samples.
Every oil has a chemical fingerprint: its mix of fatty acids and sterols. Soybean oil doesn’t look like avocado oil under that test, no matter how it’s fried or blended. Wang gave each sample a 10% margin for growing region and avocado variety.
48 of the 54 failed anyway. That’s 89%. Chips were worst at 93%. Mayonnaise hit 71%. Salad dressings hit 100%.
Wang ran the same test on 20 products that list olive oil as their only oil. 1 failed.
“Consumers are increasingly paying a premium for products made with avocado oil or olive oil,” Wang said. “They deserve to get what they pay for.”
Wang says the cheating probably starts upstream. Most food companies buy oil through brokers or from several suppliers at once. Cut oil can pass through a couple of layers before it reaches a fryer, and a chip maker who never tests its oil would never find out.
Critics say the test rules are new and too tight. Real avocado oil varies by type and region so some “fails” may still be real, but they admit there are serious cases of fraud happening.
What the companies say
Chosen Foods disputes the findings: “We never add seed oils of any kind.” It argues the test doesn’t account for how mayo and dressings are made.
Primal Kitchen wasn’t named in the study (results were anonymized), but founder Mark Sisson said the brand uses 100% avocado oil and that its suppliers run third-party lab tests. Siete and Utz haven’t commented. Campbell’s doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
None of the 5 companies has pulled a product.
Bottom Line
Read the full ingredient list. If canola, sunflower, corn, or soybean oil shows up anywhere alongside “avocado oil,” you’re definitely not getting a pure product.
Prefer products with beef tallow or ghee.
Keep your receipts for Boulder Canyon Avocado Oil chips and Kettle Brand Avocado Oil chips. If either suit settles, the refund goes to people who can prove they bought the bag.
Treat a cheap bottle as a warning sign. Avocado oil costs 3 to 10 times what soybean oil costs to make, and an honest bottle is priced like it.
Artemis beef sticks are crafted in small batches and shipped straight from the fermentation chamber. The freshest (and cleanest) beef stick you'll ever eat.
No seed oils, dyes, binders or fillers. 0g added sugar. Third-party tested for heavy metals, pesticides, plastic chemicals, PFAS and allergens (peanut, soy, gluten).
Whole Food Nutrition at the Highest Quality.
Run, don't walk, to get your hands on this batch before it sells out! 20% off your first order with code STACK20 (discount applies at checkout)
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