Did you know what Canola stands for? Canadian Oil Low Acid...

One of the problems we all face (when I have a day off) is that I start looking through the pile of journals stacked in my bedroom. Leaned ALOT more about it as well... somethings just shouldn't be engineered, but I'll explain.


Millions of people use it every day to prepare their family’s meal. Are you? What’s worse is that the food product is promoted as a healthy alternative to other cooking oils. Here are a few of the risks researchers turned up on one of the commercial food industry’s favorite ingredients:

Heart attack
Stroke
Heart lesions
High blood pressure
Vitamin deficiencies
Hemorrhaging
Free radical damage
Retarded growth


This is something that’s been marketed for years as a “good” alternative to butter, lard, and other edible fats...but a group of chemists practically made it up from scratch. It isn’t found anywhere in Nature. Chances are you’ve eaten a lot of it without knowing it. You’ll find it in restaurants and kitchens all over the country...and looking at it a little more closely seems to be that I could be a potential killer. This eating stuff can be hazardous to your health!

If you think about it: olive oil comes from olives. Peanut oil comes from peanuts. So where does “canola oil” come from?

Here’s a hint: the kind of “plant” it comes from doesn’t need sunlight, soil, or rain to thrive.

The word “canola” is an industry invention. And once you know where it really comes from, you’ll understand why the industry had to come up with a new name for it.

Canola is an artificial, processed oil made from rapeseed, a flowering plant of the brassica family, which includes cabbage, rutabagas, broccoli and turnips. “Rapeseed” comes from the Latin word for turnip, “rapum.” Not an especially appealing name.


It also turns out that for most of human history people didn’t think of it as an especially appealing food, either.

Asians used rapeseed oil to light their lamps for centuries. Then during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, machinists found that it worked well as an engine lubricant. It even played a crucial role in combat operations for the US Naval fleet during World War II.

Today it’s used in all kinds of industries. It happens to be a great insect repellent. You’ll also find it in synthetic rubbers, ink, even soap... Can you believe it...your salad dressing could be toxic to insects!

So are you wondering how rapeseed oil turned into “canola” oil—and how it came to be considered a food in the first place?


It all started with the mainstream medical establishment and food industry’s obsession with so-called “bad” fats. Back in the late 70s, they were looking for something to replace corn and soybean oil.

They’d promoted these oils for years as more healthy than traditional fats like butter, lard, or palm oil. But new science was emerging indicating that the oils they were peddling to the public were actually unhealthy.


There were other healthy options available, like olive oil. But olive oil was too expensive to use because it wasn’t a major crop. Plus it didn't blend well into most mass-produced, processed foods. So the industry went looking for something inexpensive, “healthy,” plentiful that would be easy to store, transport, and include in commercial food production.

That’s how rapeseed oil made it onto the industry’s radar screen. It had been widely used in Asian countries. It was cheap, easy to grow, and there was a readily available source nearby, in Canada, where it was farmed in abundance.


Scientists found that it was rich in what they considered healthy vegetable fats, including omega-3. But there was a big problem: two thirds of the fat in rapeseed oil is “erucic acid.” This is a dangerous toxin that can cause deadly heart lesions.

Then in 1978 a few Canadian agricultural specialists figured out how to breed a strain of rapeseed that was low in erucic acid. Suddenly, the industry had its new “healthy” alternative. And that’s how it eventually got its name: “canola” stands for “Canadian oil, low acid.”

The problem is that canola doesn’t really resemble the rapeseed oil found in Asia. In places like India and China, they traditionally pre-cooked the seeds before they extracted the oil, and they used stone presses to make it. They sold it soon after they made it, so it was fresh and pure. The process was entirely natural.


Now compare that with the industrial processes used to make canola here: high temperature pressing in metal vats; blasting with chemical solvents to remove the oil; bleaching; soaking in acid; and “deodorizing,” since some of the omega-3 in the oil goes rancid and creates a foul odor.

Traces of these chemicals remain in the oil, particularly hexane. Hexane’s a component of gasoline. It’s used to make shoes, leather products—even roofing! Its toxic effects on the body are well known. It causes nerve damage, and the gas emissions from industrial hexane can cause cancer. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations on commercial hexane use in 2001 because of the serious cancer risks.


Now what you ask?

Well, one of the problems with all the industry’s health claims about canola is that there are virtually no studies of canola’s effects on humans. But the research done in animal studies paints give a pretty grim picture.


Canola has been shown to retard growth and cause heart lesions in rats. Newborn piglets fed a formula with canola oil developed a vitamin E deficiency in one study. Vitamin E’s a key ally in overall heart health, protects eyesight, and acts as a powerful antioxidant. They also suffered from sustained bleeding, because a diet high in canola lowered their platelet count (platelets are what help your blood to clot and stop hemorrhaging). Another recent study found that canola worsens high blood pressure, and stroke in rats genetically prone to these health conditions.

Yet we’re still hearing about how good canola is for you. Millions of Americans are pouring this stuff on their salads or eating foods fried in it, thinking it’s great for their health. I would hat to think that research down the road might suggest that they may as well have been eating their shoes.


I'm not one to get up on a soap box too often but maybe we should try eating less engineered things. Maybe we should try using an oil from nature, not industry.

For some reason, the word still hasn’t gotten out on this, but there’s a natural plant-based alternative to canola that’s plentiful, and safe for all kinds of cooking. It’s easily digested, free of toxins... and actually comes with a host of major health benefits..... It’s coconut oil.


I still scratch my head over why this isn’t the best-selling edible oil in the world. The fact is that conclusive clinical evidence of its health-promoting power has been around for over 30 years.

Coconut oil has the power to:

Power overall heart health
Boost your metabolism
Raise your antioxidant levels
Promote weight loss
Strengthen your immune system
Stimulate healthy thyroid function
Maintain healthy cholesterol balance
You can even use it as a skin care product. It even helps to moisturize and keeps your skin elastic, radiant, and youthful. At least that's what the studies suggest.


Unlike canola, coconut oil actually protects the heart by keeping fat and cholesterol in your blood stream in proper balance. One study looked at native island tribes in the South Pacific whose diets were heavy in coconut oil. They had perfect serum lipid and cholesterol profiles at the start of the study. But once they migrated to New Zealand and stopped using coconut oil, their total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol increased, and their HDL cholesterol (the good kind) decreased.

It’s also been shown to ramp up your body’s ability to convert fat into energy, increasing your metabolism and actually helping you to lose weight.


But the most impressive and recent research on coconut oil suggests that the natural health-promoting compounds in coconut oil can actually prevent free radical damage. I knew that's why I liked pina coladas! :-)

Finally, coconut oil contains lauric acid, one of the key building blocks of your immune system and a powerful anti-viral/anti-microbial.

In other words, you could make a pretty strong argument that coconut oil should be one of the staples in your kitchen. Unlike olive oil, coconut oil’s stable at very high temperatures, so you can put it on salad or fry with it. It won’t start to smoke and burn your food like olive oil

You may want to try finding an organic, extra virgin brand at your local health food store or on line. This oil might just give you all the health benefits your looking for and are free of any industrial contaminants.


Til next time...