Olive oil comes from olives, corn oil comes from corn and canola oil comes from … canola?
Right… sort of. Canola oil is a gift from our Canadian neighbors but it’s a gift horse that more and more people are looking in the mouth.
Canola oil is made from a hybridized version of the rapeseed plant which is a member of the mustard or cabbage family. Rapeseed oil is a low-quality monunsaturated oil used in traditional Japanese, Indian and Chinese cultures, which is high (30 to 60%) in a toxin called erucic acid, found to be associated with fibrous heart lesions.
In the late 1970’s, when polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils were beginning to be shunned for their association with high rates of cancer and heart disease, monounsaturated fats like olive oil were being relied on more and more as the best source of healthy monounsaturated oil. However, there was not enough olive oil for world demand, and Canadian researchers engineered a new plant from the rapeseed plant which was lower in erucic acid. It was eventually called “canola,” short for Canadian oil, low [erucic] acid.
The Canola Council of Canada defines canola as
“…an oil that must contain less than 2% erucic acid, and the solid component of the seed must contain less than 30 micromoles of any one or any mixture of 3-butenyl glucosinolate, 4-pentenyl glucosinolate, 2-hydroxy-3 butenyl glucosinolate, and 2-hydroxy-4-pentenyl glucosinolate per gram of air-dry, oil-free solid.”
Sounds yummy! Canola oil was marketed to healthcare professionals and consumers as a health product high in monounsaturated fats and Omega-3 fatty acids, and low in saturated fats. It was quickly embraced as a cheaper alternative to olive oil and endorsed by such health gurus as Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Barry Sears. However, since then Dr. Weil has modified his view, calling canola oil a distant second choice to olive oil and pointing out that there are no long term studies on the effects or benefits of canola oil:
"We have a wealth of evidence showing that populations that consume good quality olive oil as a primary dietary fat have significantly lower rates of both heart disease and cancer than those that don't. We have no comparable epidemiological data for canola. Also unlike extra-virgin olive oil, canola oil doesn't contain the anti-oxidant polyphenols that are protective against heart disease and cancer."
The critics of canola oil are vocal and passionate. Sally Fallon of the Weston Price Foundation, and co-author of “Eat Fat, Lose Fat,” agrees that there are no long-term human studies and concludes from a review of laboratory studies that:
"…canola oil is definitely not healthy for the cardiovascular system. Like rapeseed oil, its predecessor, canola oil is associated with fibrotic lesions of the heart. It also causes vitamin E deficiency, undesirable changes in the blood platelets and shortened life-span in stroke-prone rats when it was the only oil in the animals' diet. Furthermore, it seems to retard growth, which is why the FDA does not allow the use of canola oil in infant formula. When saturated fats are added to the diet, the undesirable effects of canola oil are mitigated. Most interesting of all is the fact that many studies show that the problems with canola oil are not related to the content of erucic acid, but more with the high levels of omega-3 fatty acids and low levels of saturated fats."
Other critics complain that the oil is highly processed, that it is genetically modified, contains traces of hexane and in general is an imitation food.
Nothwithstanding, the Mayo Clinic continues to promote use of canola oil as does WebMD.
What’s a consumer to do? Why bother with an unproven food invention? Thank your Canadian friends nicely but stick with tried and true olive oil, eh?
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Comments
An excellent informative article, congratulations! The high content of omega 3 being a problem is interesting: omega 3 from plants are short chain fatty acid useless to us as our body needs to synthesise from it the long chain version we need. This process is inefficient, also bio-individuality being variable adds to % of uptake. Some health food shop assistants ignorantly saying to customers it is the same as fish oil. Glossy promotions also mislead saying the same trying to capture the vegetarian market of those who shun animal product.
Yes, but how do you deep fry at 385 degrees with olive oil, which has a smoke point of 331 degrees?
On the other hand the canola critics use scare tactics, like claiming that it's genetically engineered. Such tactics cast doubt on the credibility of the canola critics.
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