You may have heard by now that the olive oil in your kitchen cupboard may be an impostor. After a 2010 report found that 69 percent of imported olive oil in the U.S. failed to meet international standards, thousands of news stories were published, often incorrectly describing the presence of “fake” olive oils in grocery stores. Shoppers everywhere have been terrorized since, afraid that the olive oils on aisle nine may as well be Louis Vuitton bags from New York City’s Canal Street.

The hysteria recently led Congress to assign a new job to the Food and Drug Administration: sampling imported olive oil to see whether it’s adulterated or fraudulently labeled. That testing and any new regulations that result will probably go a long way in filtering out low-quality oils from grocery shelves. But there’s something that not even the mighty FDA can fix: most of us don’t know the difference between a high- and low-quality olive oil.

Though there’s a long history of scandal in the olive oil world, the problem in the U.S. for consumers is less about oil that isn’t made from olives, and more about olive oil that doesn’t meet the quality standards declared on its label. But since most people in the U.S. can’t tell fusty and musty from pungent and fruity, low-quality olive oil masquerading as extra virgin is a hard problem to fix.

“We call the U.S. the world’s dumping ground for rancid and defective olive oil. We don’t know the difference,” said Sue Langstaff, a sensory scientist who consults for the beer, wine and olive oil industries, among others. Studies have shown that even frequent olive oil consumers in the U.S. don’t know what the extra virgin or cold pressed designations mean, let alone have the ability to taste the difference. And in blind taste tests, consumers often prefer lower-quality olive oils.

Rancidity, for example, isn’t generally a sought after quality in edible products. And yet, when it comes to olive oil in the U.S., people like it. Why? Partly, because rancid olive oil is less bitter6 than the good stuff. But also, likely because it’s what many of us know and grew up with. It’s what we think olive oil is supposed to taste like.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with liking rancid olive oil. There is, however, a problem with thinking you’re buying extra virgin and getting low-quality oil instead. For starters, because extra virgin oil is harder to make, it commands higher prices. There are also potential health benefits associated with extra virgin oil that aren’t necessarily present in lower-quality versions.