Canola Oil
For: How to Choose a Vegetable Oil, September 2003
Q: How can you recommend canola oil, as you did in May? I hear it is toxic.
A: It is not toxic. As we said, it is a good, inexpensive choice as a cooking or salad oil.
Lots of misinformation about canola oil has been circulating. One anti-canola website bears a skull and crossbones. Many readers have asked us about rumors linking canola to everything from heart disease and glaucoma to MS and "mad cow" disease. There's no evidence that it causes any of these or other diseases or has any adverse effects.
The word "canola" was coined by combining two words: Canadian and oil. It is made from the seeds of the rape plant, a member of the mustard family, consumed by humans and livestock for centuries. Today the oil is produced not only in Canada, but also in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.
All edible canola oil comes from a special type of rapeseed plant (Brassica napus or Brassica campestris) bred since the 1970s to reduce certain toxic substances in "natural" rapeseed. Before that, rapeseed oil contained fairly high levels of erucic acid (a fatty acid linked to coronary artery disease in rat studies) and glucosinolates (which can be broken down to cyanide). However, to be called canola, the oil must be extremely low in both substances. In fact, far from causing coronary disease, canola oil contains another fatty acid, called alpha-linolenic acid, which has been found to reduce the risk of heart disease, as we reported in May 1999.
UC Berkeley Wellness Letter, November 1999
