Is canola oil healthy? The truth revealed - DietingWell (2023)

Is canola oil good or bad for you? When it comes to canola oil, some people see it as a healthy food, while others avoid it at all costs. When there are two extremely passionate points of view, it can be very difficult to get to the bottom of everything.

On the one hand, critics claim that canola oil is downright toxic, containing "the infamous chemical warfare agent mustard gas" and causing illnesses ranging from mad cow disease to blindness. On the other hand, proponents believe that canola oil is one of the healthiest oils in the world and offers the benefits of canola oil as it is high in omega-3 fatty acids, low in saturated fat and a good source of oleic acid. .

Of course, these qualities apply on the surface, but there is much more to the canola story.

Why is canola oil bad? Canola oil, a genetically engineered product, is a Canadian invention supported by the Canadian government, is cheap to produce and many packaged or processed foods contain it.

Canola oil was first produced as a natural oil in the early 1970s, but in 1995 Monsanto developed a genetically engineered version of canola oil. In 2005, 87% of canola grown in the United States was GM, and in 2009, 90% of Canada's crop was GM.

With so many oils on the market and so much talk about different types of oils, it's difficult to sort out what's fact, what's pure fiction, and most importantly, what's the healthiest oil. I want to explain all the reasons why canola oil isn't what you want to put in your shopping cart, from genetic modification to an unhealthy fat overload, plus better alternatives and resources to help you avoid GMOs in general. .
What is rapeseed oil?

Rapeseed oil is made from the canola plant, more specifically from the seeds of the canola or canola plant, which belongs to the mustard family (Brassicaceae). Then what is rape?

In the early 1970s, Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson grew canola from canola at the University of Manitoba in Canada.

In 1998, the "most disease and drought resistant canola variety to date" was developed through genetic engineering, and this is how the latest varieties are born.

Is rapeseed oil vegetable oil? Yes, it's a type of vegetable oil, which is why it's sometimes called that.

What is rapeseed oil made of? It comes from the canola plant.

Wild canola oil contains high levels of erucic acid, which is known to cause health problems, so the canola plant was developed from canola to produce a food-grade canola oil with lower levels of erucic acid.

The name canola oil was originally LEAR (low erucic acid canola oil) but was changed to canola oil for commercial purposes. This word was derived from the combination of "Canada" and "ola" meaning oil.

Canola oil is a much catchier name than LEAR oil or canola oil, but should you be using it in your food?

The price of canola oil is relatively cheap, so it is not surprising that there are many uses for canola oil. The oil works well as an industrial oil and has been used in candles, soaps, lipsticks, lubricants, paints, biofuels and even insecticides.

When the powerful figured out how to genetically engineer canola oil, it was sold as an edible food product.

Hence, it was marketed claiming to be a wonderful oil, low in saturated fat and a source of omega-3 fatty acids. But in its current hybridized and modified state, it can cause a variety of health problems that you'll soon learn about.
Story

Canola oil was developed when the food industry began looking for healthy, cost-effective alternatives to the saturated fat found in oils. These saturated fats gained attention as a result of the release of reports by the American Heart Association and other US government agencies on saturated fats, often found in commonly used cooking oils, that are bad for heart health.

Many of these reports have been directed specifically to corn oil and soybean oil.

As food manufacturers researched and experimented, they discovered canola oil. Canola oil is a monounsaturated oil.

The problem with this original type of canola oil was that it was high in erucic acid. Erucic acid is a fatty acid found in canola and mustard oils that has been linked to heart damage, particularly Keshan disease, a disease characterized by fibrotic lesions of the heart.

Food manufacturers continued their quest to refine canola and rapeseed oil until, in the late 1970s, they developed a formula for genetically manipulating the canola plant by splitting the seeds. This split seed oil produced rapeseed oil with less erucic acid and higher levels of oleic acid.

This was the oil then referred to as LEAR.

While there are no previously elevated levels of erucic acid in canola oil, there is still a serious concern if you use canola oil.
how is it done?

To use the trademarked name "canola," the constituents of canola oil contain only one thing, canola oil, but that oil must contain no more than 30 micromoles of glucosinolates and less than two percent erucic acid.

What is rapeseed oil made of? It is made from the oil obtained by crushing the seeds of the canola plant to express the oil content of the seeds.

Each tiny one contains about 42% to 43% oil. Leftover rapeseed meal is commonly used as animal feed.

How is rapeseed oil made? It is one of several vegetable oils that are refined, bleached and deodorized.

A solvent called hexane is used to chemically extract the oil from the seeds.

Is Canola Oil Bad For You? An unopened bottle has a shelf life of about two years before going bad.

Most sources say that an open bottle of oil will go rancid in a year or less.
Nutritional Information

You're probably wondering about the nutrition of canola oil.

Is Canola Oil Good For You? As with any food, the key to understanding the health qualities of canola is to look at the entire nutritional profile and not just one or two components.

A cup of canola oil contains approximately:

1,927 calories
218 grams of fat
16.1 grams of saturated fat
0.9 grams of trans fat, but other reports claim it's much more
155 micrograms of vitamin K (194% DV)
38.1 milligrams of vitamin E (190 percent DV)

As you can see, the calories in canola oil are not low. A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that most canola oil used in processed foods has been hardened through the hydrogenation process, bringing up to 40% trans fat into the final product.

If you take a closer look at the nutritional information for canola oil, its full fatty acid profile looks something like this:

Saturated fat: 16.1 grams
Monounsaturated fat: 138 grams
Polyunsaturated fat: 61.4 grams
Omega-3 Fatty Acids: 5,018 or 19,921 milligrams, depending on source
Omega-6 Fatty Acids: 40,646 milligrams

Is canola oil bad? One of the things that struck me while doing my research is that most canola oils have a poor omega 3/6 ratio of 8:1 and lots of trans fat, with only one source showing it to be closer to 2:1 (the first is omega-6 and the second is omega-3).

Many people tend to get too much omega-6 in their diet and too little omega-3. A high intake of vegetable oils such as canola oil can be a reason for this.

Related: Is Peanut Oil Good Or Bad For Your Health? Separation of done vs. fiction
Why is canola oil bad for you? Any potential benefit?

Originally, canola oil may not have as many negative health effects.

Why is canola oil so unhealthy? Most canola oil today can be very harmful to your body for three main reasons:

Over 90% of rapeseed oil is genetically modified.
Canola oil is a refined oil that is usually partially hydrogenated to increase its stability, but this increases its negative health effects.
It has been linked to increased inflammation in animal studies, and chronic inflammation is believed to be at the root of most diseases.

For these two reasons, I recommend you switch to the healthier oil alternatives listed below.

what can this do to you There are no robust long-term studies on genetically engineered canola oil, but there are reports that it has caused many kidney, liver, and neurological health problems.

This makes sense as there are other reports that genetically engineered products like corn and soybeans can also have negative health effects. So if you are comparing soybean or corn oil to canola oil, I would say avoid them all!

Is Vegetable Oil Bad For You? According to the Weston A. Price Foundation and fat experts Sally Fallon and Mary Enig:

Like all modern vegetable oils, canola oil goes through the process of refining, bleaching and degumming, all of which involve high temperatures or chemicals of questionable safety. And because canola oil is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which tend to go rancid and smelly when exposed to oxygen and high temperatures, it needs to be deodorized. The standard deodorization process removes a large portion of the omega-3 fatty acids and converts them to trans fatty acids. Although the Canadian government lists canola as at least 0.2% trans, research from the University of Florida at Gainesville found levels of trans in commercial liquid oil as high as 4.6%. The consumer is unaware of the presence of trans fats in canola oil as they are not listed on the label.

Monsanto has incorporated genetically modified organisms into its canola oilseeds, and we now know that Monsanto has also sold GM seeds for the following crops:

Raps
Alfalfa
More
Cotton
Military
Sorghum
Beetroot
Wheat

In 2016 there were some advances regarding foods containing genetically modified ingredients. The President signed a bill amending the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946.

As such, companies are now legally required to disclose the presence of GMO ingredients through text labels, symbols, or digital links (such as scannable QR codes).

Sounds great, but the problem is that it's up to the Department of Agriculture to decide what amounts of GMO ingredients need to be present in a food product for the GMO Labeling Act to be required.
6 main dangers
1. Kidney and liver problems

Most of the rapeseed oil produced today is genetically modified. The side effects of GMOs in general cannot be overstated.

A review published in Environmental Sciences Europe in 2011 evaluated 19 studies on mammals fed GM soybeans and corn. The 90-day tests showed liver and kidney problems as a result of the genetically modified foods.

Kidney and liver findings actually differed by sex, with kidney damage in 43.5% of male mammals and liver damage in female mammals in 30.8%.

The kidneys and liver are absolutely essential to life, so ingesting a genetically modified food like canola oil should not be taken lightly.
2. Life-threatening heart problems

As a monounsaturated oil, rapeseed oil has a high content of erucic acid. Erucic acid is a fatty acid that has been linked to heart damage, particularly Keshan disease, a disease that manifests with fibrotic lesions of the heart.

Research has shown that in areas where people are prone to Keshan, not only are selenium levels lower, but eurucic acid levels are also higher.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils like canola are also known to cause inflammation and hardening of the arteries, which are known risk factors for coronary artery disease.
3. Hypertension and Stroke

Previous studies have shown that consuming canola oil and some other types of vegetable oils shortens the lifespan of animals with hypertension and stroke. In particular, research conducted at the Ottawa Toxicology and Nutrition Research Departments found that rats bred with hypertension and a propensity for stroke died earlier when fed canola oil as the sole source of fat.

In addition, mice fed diets without canola oil lived longer than mice fed canola oil.

Another study, published in Toxicology Letters in 2000, specifically looked at the effects of canola oil on blood clotting time, or how long it takes for blood to clot, in animals prone to stroke. The study found that there was a "canola oil-induced reduction in blood clotting time and increased fragility in [red blood cell membranes]," which could promote stroke in stroke-prone animals.
Dangers of Canola Oil - Dr. haha
4. It can delay normal growth

Until recently, it wasn't legal to use canola oil in baby formula. There were, I believe, legitimate concerns about canola oil growth retardation in children.

In particular, the euroric acid in rapeseed oil is harmful to babies because it cannot be broken down properly. Previously, the FDA banned the use of canola oil in infant formula.

However, a few years ago, rapeseed oil made it onto the generally accepted list as safe.

Not only is it very worrying to feed developing babies GM oil, but it is also highly questionable to feed them unhealthy fats. Proponents brag about canola's overall healthy fat profile, but I don't think so.

Now it is sold as the first baby food. Of course, I recommend skipping commercial formulas and opting for breastfeeding if you can.
5. Increase your intake of unhealthy trans fats

According to a study published in the Journal of Food Lipids, when evaluating soybean and canola oils purchased in the US, "trans content ranged from 0.56% to 4.2% of total fatty acids."

When canola oil is hydrogenated, which normally becomes a partially hydrogenated oil, its trans fat content increases. This is a group of fats that you should avoid as much as possible because they are scientifically known to raise LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol.

Research has also linked trans fats to weight gain. In one animal study, trans fats lead to weight gain, even when compared to the same calorie intake.

With that in mind, given the obesity epidemic we are facing, this is a signal to reconsider these oils to help restore healthy weight and metabolic function, although of course this is only part of the growing problem.

If you read "partially hydrogenated oil" on a food's label, it guarantees that some amount of trans fat is present. This is true even if the label says it is trans fat free.

How can it be? Well, if a serving is less than 0.5 grams, the company can claim that there are no trans fats. Frustrating I know.

Trans fats are dangerous by-products of food processing and really deadly to your health. If you decide to omit canola oil, I would even stop cooking with these oils: corn oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, and vegetable oil.
6. Numerous potential health side effects of GMOs

I've already mentioned the link between GMOs and their negative effects on the liver and kidneys, but it doesn't end there. According to the Center for Food Safety's website, there are several new and very serious health issues and unexpected effects of genetic engineering that have been discovered through scientific research:

toxicity
allergic reaction
immunosuppression
Krebs
loss of nutrition

Ersatz

There are far healthier options than "plant-based" oils that sound healthy but are far from it. Most vegetable oils (canola, corn, peanut, safflower, etc.) are derived from genetically modified plants and/or are highly refined.

So what are the best cooking oils? These are the best oils that I personally use as substitutes for canola oil:
1. Coconut Oil

Is coconut oil unhealthy? The refined variety is chemically bleached and deodorized and isn't the variety you want if you're looking for a healthier alternative to canola oil.

Coconut oil is best when it's cold-pressed and virgin. Your coconut oil should smell like you're on a Caribbean beach.

Contains medium-chain fatty acids that may support both fat loss and the nervous system.

Are you looking for the best oil for frying? People often say that the best oil for frying is a vegetable oil like canola (canola oil's smoke point is around 400 degrees F).

Canola is certainly not the healthiest oil for frying. Instead of using canola oil for frying, I recommend coconut oil.

With a smoke point of around 350 degrees F, coconut oil is a good oil for medium-high frying.
2. Olive oil

Which is better olive oil or canola oil? Canola oil is often compared to olive oil.

If there's a dispute between olive oil and canola oil, olive oil wins any day of the week!

Olive oil has proven to be one of the best healthy oils. The benefits of olive oil are enormous and are central to the Mediterranean diet.

Look for an organic or cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil that comes in a dark glass container. Many fake and substandard olive oils are blended with cheaper non-GMO vegetable oils, so make sure they are non-GMO.

It is important to know that olive oil should not be cooked over high heat and its health benefits are best preserved when used raw. Olive oil is great for homemade salad dressings and for drizzling over finished products like cooked vegetables.
3. Organic butter or ghee from grass-fed animals

Good quality butter or ghee is a great substitute for canola oil. The benefits of butter and ghee come from alpha lipoic acid and conjugated linoleic acid, which can promote weight loss.

They also contain healthy short-chain fatty acids and have a higher heat threshold. When buying butter, opt for organic, grass-fed varieties.

Also remember that there is a difference between butter and margarine. Prefer butter as margarine often contains vegetable oils.
4. Red Palm Oil

Red palm oil is made from the fruit of the palm tree, not the nut of the palm tree, and in its unrefined state is rich in vitamin E and beta-carotene. It is stable even at high temperatures and is excellent for cooking.

When buying palm oil, make sure it is certified sustainable.

If you have to buy canola oil for any reason, make sure it's organic, because at least it can't come from genetically modified plants. It is still illegal to make genetic modifications to certified organic products.
5. Avocadoöl

Avocado oil is one of my favorite cooking oils as it has a high smoke point and a mild flavor that pairs well with any dish you can think of.

Avocado oil, along with olive oil, is a good source of monounsaturated fat, a beneficial dietary fat. In fact, it's so healthy that if you visit France, it's classified as a prescription drug for its arthritis-fighting effects.
final thoughts

Whether or not the canola oil you use is genetically modified, you really can't keep using it for the sake of your health.
Knowing which oils are best to cook with and use at home can be confusing. But one thing you can bet is that canola oil just isn't the safe and healthy alternative that the mainstream media would have you believe.
Canola oil has become so popular that it's found in many foods, including "healthy" food options.
In fact, canola oil is marketed to the health conscious industry, not the junk food industry.
However, you must be careful and read labels carefully to protect your health and the health of your loved ones from the dangers of this popular cooking oil.
Now that you're armed with the facts, use them to protect your health! I really hope you avoid canola oil and all GMO foods.
Look for foods labeled as non-GMO. More information can be found here: nongmoproject.org. I also suggest reading the Non-GMO Shopping Guide.