You might want to read this then. For some time I’ve been hearing squeaks from alternative practitioners that canola oil is not a good for you monounsaturated, flavor neutral, (I don’t like the flavor at all), all purpose oil.

After catching up with both sides of the debate, which included reading Dr. Fred Pescatore’s article “The Real Story on Canola Oil (“Can-Ugly Oil”). If you are not familiar with Dr. Pescatore, he wrote The Hamptons Diet described on his website as, “The Hamptons Diet takes the best of the Mediterranean Diet and the best of controlled carbohydrate eating and puts them together in the context of whole foods (organic whenever possible), minimally processed, nothing artificial, and with minimal use of sugar alcohols.” He also educates about monounsaturated fats, the right balance of Omega 6 – to Omega 3 fatty acids, and overall health vs weight loss.

In addition to Dr. Pescatore’s work, Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon have written copious articles and books on the subject of safe and healthy fats vs the unhealthy ones, including the one you can link to above titled, The Great Con-Ola. You might be surprised to know that they have reams of proof to back up the idea that saturated fat does not kill people. And that using only monounsaturated fats with no saturates–such as those found in meat, eggs, coconut–is not only unnatural but it’s causing health problems.

Listen, canola oil–or Canadian oil, so named for the Canadian scientist who first brought it to the public eye–is a highly processed, non-nutritive version of a natural oil used for many hundreds of years in Asian countries. The modern version has too high a smoke point and as such becomes toxic with trans fats when used for sauteeing or frying. Oh, and did I say it comes with more trans fat than margarine? According to Jonny Bowden in The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, the Omega 3s in canola oil–usually a healthy thing–”become rancid and foul-smelling when subjected to the high temperatures needed to extract the oil. Therefore they have to be deodorized. The deodorizing process turns a large number of the omega-3 fatty acids into trans fats.”

He goes on to site a study from the U at Gainsville Florida which found trans fat levels as high as 4.6% in commercial canola oil, even more than margarine.

Then there is the genetically modified aspect. Rape seed, from which we get canola oil, was originally genetically modified  to lower the amount of something called erucic acid, a fatty acid that has potentially dangerous heart health implications. With the help of Monsanto it has continued through more GM permutations to make it more commercially viable which means less healthy.

So I ask you? What’s healthy about this oil? Producing a cheap alternative to olive oil and hiring the best marketers over the years has allowed the food industry–with help from the mega empire of evil Monsanto–to put a healthy spin on a mega profitable unhealthy product.

After probably years of eating products with this unsafe oil and pouring it on salads and into muffin recipes it’s time to stop. Replace canola oil with coconut, olive, nut oils, butter, ghee etc. Found in nature, processed minimally, ahh, now that does a body good!