Is Canola Oil Healthy? All You Need to Know
Canola oil has practically taken over as the food processing industry's oil of choice. Whether it's mayonnaise, chips, or salad dressings, canola oil is usually the first, second or third ingredient on the list. Unfortunately, the health dangers of canola oil are far beyond what we've been led to believe.
Increased Inflammation
Several animal studies link canola oil to increased inflammation and oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress refers to an imbalance between harmful free radicals — which can cause inflammation — and antioxidants, which prevent or slow free radical damage.
Impact on Heart Health
While canola oil is promoted as a heart-healthy fat, some studies dispute this claim.
In a 2018 study, 2,071 adults reported how often they used specific types of fat for cooking.
Among overweight or obese participants, those who usually used canola oil for cooking were more likely to have metabolic syndrome than those who rarely or never used it (Trusted Source).
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions — high blood sugar, excess belly fat, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol or triglyceride levels — which occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease.
The findings of the 2018 study contrasted with an industry-funded review that linked canola oil intake to beneficial effects on heart disease risk factors, such as total cholesterol and “bad” LDL cholesterol levels (Trusted Source).
It's important to note that many of the studies suggesting heart-health benefits for canola oil use less refined canola oil or unheated canola oil — not the refined type commonly used for high-heat cooking (Trusted Source, Trusted Source, ScienceDirect.com , Trusted Source, Trusted Source, Trusted Source).
So, if there aren't any actual health reasons to use it, why would it be so widely used throughout the food industry? As with most reasons certain ingredients are used over others - the price. Canola oil is extremely inexpensive to grow and harvest. It is also very easy to grow, due to its genetic modifications and the fact that insects won't go near it.
Canola oil was first created in the early 1970s as a natural oil. But in 1995, Monsanto created a genetically modified version of canola oil. By 2009, over 90 percent of the Canadian canola oil crop was genetically engineered.
What is Canola Oil?
Canola oil comes from a descendant of the rapeseed plant, a member of the Brassicagenus, along with some of our favorite vegetables like kale, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. Rapeseed oil was put on the market for human consumption in the 1950s, but not many people wanted to consume it due to its strong flavor and off-putting color.
Scientists at the time began to discover that erucic acid, one of the major fatty acid components of the oil (over 50%), was damaging to heart tissue. Meanwhile, olive oil started being marketed as the next big thing in health. So what did marketers do for rapeseed oil? Give it a makeover of course! After some selective breeding and careful marketing, rapeseed oil was now low in erucic acid, high in oleic acid (just like heart-healthy olive oil), high in omega-3 fats and also neutral tasting. The name rapeseed was replaced with canola (the term can from Canada, and ola for oil).
While canola oil has been marketed as a health-food oil, low in saturated fats and a source of omega-3 fatty acids, it is very far from that. Canola oil is not only genetically modified, but it is highly processed and refined, both of which contribute to major health problems in the body.
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