Canola Oil Again?

Canola oil is high in monounsaturated fats, and unfortunately it is anything but "healthy". Where does Canola oil come from?

Olive oil comes from olives, peanut oil from peanuts, sunflower oil from sunflowers; but what is a canola? Canola is not the name of a natural plant but a made-up word, from the words "Canada" and "oil". Canola is a genetically engineered plant developed in Canada from the Rapeseed Plant, which is part of the mustard family of plants.

Rapeseed oil is poisonous to living things and is an excellent insect repellent. You can use it - in very diluted form - to kill the aphids on your plants. It works very well; it suffocates them. Rape is an oil that is used as a lubricant, fuel, soap and synthetic rubber base and as a illuminate for colour pages in magazines. It is an industrial oil. It is not a food. Rape oil, it seems, causes emphysema, respiratory distress, anemia, constipation, irritability, and blindness in animals and humans. Rape oil was widely used in animal feeds in England and Europe between 1986 and 1991, when it was thrown out. Remember the "Mad Cow disease" scare, when millions of cattle in the UK were slaughtered in case of infecting humans? Cattle were being fed on a mixture containing material from dead sheep, and sheep suffer from a disease called "scrapie". It was thought this was how "Mad Cow" began and started to infiltrate the human chain. What is interesting is that when rape oil was removed from animal feed, 'scrapie' disappeared. We also haven't seen any further reports of "Mad Cow" since rape oil was removed from the feed. Perhaps not scientifically proven, but interesting all the same. US and Canadian farmers grow genetically engineered rapeseed and manufacturers use its oil (canola) in thousands of processed foods, with the blessings of Canadian and US government watchdog agencies. This oil has penetrated the market in a major way and even products that last year did not have this listed as their ingredients, now they display it on the label proudly.

Look at the ingredients list on labels. Apparently peanut oil is being replaced with rape oil. You'll find it in an alarming number of processed foods. There's more, but to conclude: rape oil was the source of the chemical warfare agent mustard gas, which was banned after blistering the lungs and skins of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians during W.W.I. Recent French reports indicates that it was again in use during the Gulf War.

Spill a little bit of Canola oil on a piece of fabric; you can treat and wash it as you like and the stain will still show. 

Rapeseed actually had to be bred over the years to reduce the percentage of a difficult component of rapeseed, which is erucic acid.

Canola oil typically ranges between 55-65% monounsaturated fat and between 28-35% polyunsaturated fat, with just a small amount of saturated fat.

While we've been told that high monounsaturated fats are good for us (which they are in the case of virgin olive oil or from unprocessed nuts or seeds), the fact is that canola oil has more disadvantages than it does benefits.

One of the biggest problems with highly processed and refined vegetable oils like corn oil, soybean oil, and canola oil, is that the polyunsaturated component of the oil is highly unstable under heat, light, and pressure, and this heavily oxidizes the polyunsaturated molecules, which increase free radicals in your body.

The end result of all of this refining and processing are oils that are highly inflammatory in your body when you ingest them, potentially contributing to heart disease, weight gain, and other degenerative diseases.

The reason that extra virgin olive oil is good for you is that it is cold pressed without the use of heat and solvents to aid extraction. It also contains important antioxidants that help protect the stability of the oil.

Canola oil, on the other hand, is typically extracted and refined using high heat, pressure, and petroleum solvents such as hexane. Most canola oil undergo a process of acid refining, degumming, bleaching, and deodorization, all using high heat and questionable chemicals. 

The issue is that this oil is being marketed as healthy for you!!! 

Live in Light!

EL