Canola oil is a genetically modified form of rapeseed oil, produced from rapeseed, a plant of the Brassicaceae family.
Canola oil is able to reduce the risk of contracting heart disease, is useful against metabolic syndrome, and the mono-unsaturated fatty acids it contains have the effect of reducing abdominal fat.
The fact that canola oil is a refined oil, extracted using heat, pressure and solvents, bleached and deodorized, opens up much controversy about its use. Canola oil, therefore, pleases some, but according to others, if it is good for the heart, it could be harmful to other parts of the body.
Canola oil is known to few people, it comes from rapeseed and is used a lot in the United States. A genetically modified oil that seems to be good for the heart. But is it really so? Let’s find out together
Canola oil, named as an acronym for “CANadian Oil Low Acid”, is also a form of the more well-known rapeseed oil.
Rapeseed oil is a vegetable oil that is produced from rapeseed, a bright yellow or white plant depending on the variety, belonging to the Brassicaceae family that grows in some hilly areas of the world.
Its food use was born in the mid-nineteenth century, without obtaining great consensus due to studies on the effects on human health that relegated it to a product of inferior quality: the culprit seemed to be erucic acid, a cardiotoxic lipid, which at the level of health would entail negative effects on growth and disorders of the liver, as well as the heart.
The properties of canola oil according to the latest research
However, the research mentioned above was subsequently contested. In addition, scholars have now managed to obtain a variety of rapeseed with a low content of erucic acid, called Canadian Brassica.
From this new genetically modified variety comes canola oil, a contraction of CANadian Oil Low Acid, produced mostly used in Canada and the United States.
Other recent research has highlighted the ability of canola oil to reduce the risk of heart disease. To underline this peculiarity seems to be the journal Diabetes Care, a periodical that deals with diabetes care, emphasizing that it is above all people with type 2 diabetes who benefit from this oil.
For them, taken and tested on a test group, a significant reduction in cardiovascular risk would have been monitored, following a diet supported by the intake of wholemeal bread and canola oil. In addition, canola oil would also help against metabolic syndrome.
According to the results of this second research, the mono-unsaturated fatty acids of canola oil would have the effect of reducing abdominal fat and therefore the risk of metabolic syndrome. But is it all true? There are those who point out that the research and experiments carried out are still too few and too short-lived to determine an effective effectiveness of the product with regard to certain pathologies.
The use of canola oil
And the fact remains that not everyone likes canola oil. It is not liked especially for the fact that it is still a refined oil, extracted using heat, pressure and solvents, decolored and deodorized. In the United States, where the oil in question is widely used, the debate is still heated: canola oil appeals to some, but according to others, if it is good for the heart, it hurts elsewhere. It would also go rancid quickly.
In the end it is always a genetically modified oil, although it is not bad, like other vegetable oils for that matter, to say that it is good for health perhaps is excessive. In Italy, where olive oil is still the favorite, there is still no trace of the use of canola oil, only of the use of rapeseed oil in certain industrial cuisine, produced with vegetable margarines or fried foods.
