How Is Canola Oil Made? (Scary)

Canola oil is not, in our opinion, a healthy oil, despite the marketing propaganda you’ve been fed claiming that it’s healthy. Here’s a short video showing you the truth of how canola oil is made (scary) and then below are the facts you should know about what’s going on here. You call this “natural”? –

Ok, here are some facts you should know about canola oil:

1) Today, about 90% of the world’s canola oil crop is genetically modified in order to increase profits. The plant was genetically modified in order to make it “Roundup Ready” – so they can, in a nutshell, dump pesticide out of a plane and blanket the landscape, with only the crop surviving. Soil microorganisms, biodiversity, soil health… all destroyed. And then there are the residues of the pesticide and its potentially dangerous metabolites… not to mention the issue of pesticide drift.

2) Note how the video calls it “Canola Seed” and states that it is “Derived from the seed of the Canola plant”. This is a misnomer, because there is no such thing as a canola plant. The seed that is used to make canola oil is Rapeseed. The name “Canola” was chosen by the board of the Rapeseed Association of Canada in the 1970s. The “Can” part stands for Canada and “ola” refers to oil. A number of sources, including The Free Dictionary, continue to claim it stands for “Can(ada)+o(il)+l(ow)+a(cid). The name was coined partially to avoid the negative connotations of the unfortunately named Rapeseed.

3) The terribly-named rapeseed yields a high quantity of oil when pressed – yet in the old days it was not fit for human consumption. This is because it used to contain a toxic ingredient – erucic acid. This has however long since been bred out of the plant. However, that does not mean that canola oil is healthy.

4) Canola oil is a highly processed oil. It’s NOT “natural”, it is an industrial product that just so happened to start life as a plant before being completely transformed but a series of chemical processes. Toxic solvents are used in the extraction process. Sodium Hydroxide is also used. It’s bleached to lighten the color. Then it is high-temperature treated to deodorize it.

5) The hexane problem (this sucks): A small percentage of canola oil is expeller (cold) pressed (better) but the bulk of it is processed using solvent extraction. What they don’t tell you in this video is that the solvent that is most often used to extract the oil is the neurotoxin hexane – and as you can see, the plant material is literally bathed in it for 70 minutes. Hexane is a cheap byproduct from gasoline production and is a serious occupational hazard and toxic air pollutant. Importantly – it’s been shown that some hexane residue can remain in the canola oil, and (astonishingly) the FDA doesn’t require food manufacturers to test for residues. Residue tests done by the Cornucopia Institute in 2009 found hexane residues in soybean oil. So, we very well could be eating this chemical every time we cook with hexane-extracted oils. Almost all toxicology research of hexane focuses on the industrial use and inhalation of hexane, so no one knows exactly how dangerous eating it is – but it surely isn’t healthy.

6) Canola oil is touted by the industry as healthy because it contains significant amounts of omega-3 fats. However, omega 3 fats exposed to very high temperatures can become trans fats – which are regarded as dangerous to health. Canola oil is highly refined, which includes deodorizing at high temperature – and some studies have found high levels of trans fat in commercial grade canola oil.

Whole Foods Market, our supposedly healthy grocery, still uses canola oil in numerous of their prepared foods. Why aren’t they choosing a healthier product?

Here’s a more detailed report on the health problems with canola oil plus an excellent list of healthier oils to use:

Read more: The DIRTY truth about canola oil

image © https://youtube.com/watch?v=omjWmLG0EAs