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The Nutrition Facts label on Pam cooking spray says it contains no calories. But how can that be? It’s made with canola oil.
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Ask Tufts Experts
A local specialty-food store was passing out an article about canola oil that says canola oil is an industrial oil, genetically engineered rapeseed, and “deadly for the human body.” Should I stop using canola oil?
The health concerns you cite represent yet another “urban legend.” The Urban Legends Reference Page Web site calls the canola-oil scare “a bit of truth about a product’s family history worked into a hysterical screed against the product itself.” The canola plant was developed by natural cross-breeding—not genetic engineering—from rapeseed in the early 1970s. As the Canola Council of Canada explains, “Canola oil is pressed from tiny canola seeds produced by beautiful yellow flowering plants of the Brassica family. Cabbages and cauliflower are also part of the same botanical family. Canola… is NOT rapeseed. Their nutritional profiles are different.”
Many of the concerns misattributed to canola oil apply instead to the old rapeseed oil, which had high levels (30%-60%) of erucic acid. Today, erucic acid levels in canola oil range only from 0.5% to 1.0%, in compliance with FDA standards.
The “genetic engineering” of some canola was simply to improve the plants’ herbicide tolerance. Canola oil is one of more than 60 bioengineered products the US Food and Drug Administration has reviewed and approved over the past decade. According to Robert E. Brackett, PhD, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, “The FDA is confident that the bioengineered foods on the US market today are as safe as their conventional counterparts.” This conclusion, he notes, has been echoed by recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the Government Accountability Office and, most recently, a 2004 report from the NAS’s National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.
Keep in mind that all oils are high in calories, but canola oil is among the lowest in saturated fat. It also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to lower heart-disease risk, and is high in vitamin E.
The Nutrition Facts label on Pam cooking spray says it contains no calories. But how can that be? It’s made with canola oil.
Carb Replacement Options Equal
Vitamins Linked to Cataract Prevention; Role of Fats Less Clear
Increasing (and Decreasing) Alzheimer’s Odds with Dietary Fat
Ask Tufts Experts
A local specialty-food store was passing out an article about canola oil that says canola oil is an industrial oil, genetically engineered rapeseed, and “deadly for the human body.” Should I stop using canola oil?
The health concerns you cite represent yet another “urban legend.” The Urban Legends Reference Page Web site calls the canola-oil scare “a bit of truth about a product’s family history worked into a hysterical screed against the product itself.” The canola plant was developed by natural cross-breeding—not genetic engineering—from rapeseed in the early 1970s. As the Canola Council of Canada explains, “Canola oil is pressed from tiny canola seeds produced by beautiful yellow flowering plants of the Brassica family. Cabbages and cauliflower are also part of the same botanical family. Canola… is NOT rapeseed. Their nutritional profiles are different.”
Many of the concerns misattributed to canola oil apply instead to the old rapeseed oil, which had high levels (30%-60%) of erucic acid. Today, erucic acid levels in canola oil range only from 0.5% to 1.0%, in compliance with FDA standards.
The “genetic engineering” of some canola was simply to improve the plants’ herbicide tolerance. Canola oil is one of more than 60 bioengineered products the US Food and Drug Administration has reviewed and approved over the past decade. According to Robert E. Brackett, PhD, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, “The FDA is confident that the bioengineered foods on the US market today are as safe as their conventional counterparts.” This conclusion, he notes, has been echoed by recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the Government Accountability Office and, most recently, a 2004 report from the NAS’s National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.
Keep in mind that all oils are high in calories, but canola oil is among the lowest in saturated fat. It also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to lower heart-disease risk, and is high in vitamin E.