Why canola oil is NOT good for you....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 3-21-2013

We post often about the health harm of too much omega 6 oil in your diet.

In excess, they tend to cause high levels of chronic inflammation.  And, because omega 6 oils are in the corn and soy fed to grain fed animals, people who eat animal fats from these grain fed animals or use corn or soy oil have 10 to 30 times too much omega 6 oils in their bodies.

To put it bluntly, most Americans now do both.  And the result is a health disaster. 

This causes or helps cause extra osteoarthritis, extra damage to the insides of your blood vessels which causes heart disease and vascular dementia and even helps cause many cancers.

And, it gets even worse if these oils are heated since they are fragile and become oxidized and even more inflammatory and harmful to your health.

Some people to avoid animal based fats have begun to use canola oil.  Why is that?  It has a bit more monosaturated fat than these harmful oils and for people who are vegans or don’t like fish, canola oil has some of the plant based omega 3 oil.

It also helps that canola oil is cheaper than olive oil which is almost all monosaturated oil.

But I’ve noticed that the profile of canola oil still has far too much omega 6 oil in it as a percentage.

More recently, I’ve found out 97% or more of the rapeseeds that canola oil is made from are GMO.

It’s simple, canola oil is cheaper because it’s a GMO factory farm product, just like wheat and corn and soy.

The companies who make the genetically modified foods are simply bad folks.  If the GMO foods they create don’t kill people immediately who eat them and seem like the real thing and result in crops that cost factory farms less to grow, these companies make money.

But the rest is really horrible.

These companies are making an enormous special effort by inserting things into needed laws to see to it that GMO foods are used before the long term effects have been tested at all, let alone tested well.  They've even tried to insert language that would prevent courts from stopping GMO foods from being used even when they test as harmful to your health.

Yikes!

To me it has always been simple.

If you buy strawberries that have been sprayed with insecticides in the field, you can wash off a good bit of the pesticide residues before you eat them.

But if you buy GMO corn on the cob, the inserted genes to act as insecticides or protect the plant from herbicides are PART of the food & cannot be washed off!

I really don’t think, given this that it is even possible for GMO foods to be safe.

Since the introduction without much notification of massive amounts of GMO foods in the American diet, the incidence of autoimmune diseases has gone up.  Some of the rising amounts of asthma and other allergies may be from this cause. 

And, some studies have shown a big drop in the fertility in people eating GMO foods which may be passed on to future generations. 

Since the US and California laws do not yet require all foods containing these GMO products from being used or even fully labeled and disclosed, the only way to avoid them is to avoid foods known to be mostly GMO such as corn, and wheat, and soy… and rapeseed.

And avoiding GMO rapeseed means avoiding canola oil.

Extra virgin olive oil has a dramatically better track record in being safe for your health to eat and even has many proven health benefits.  And, the olives it’s made from are NOT GMO.

For me, that’s enough.  I do not buy canola oil and avoid products that contain it as much as I possibly can.

What about you?

Are you convinced to do the same?

If not, this blog has a bit more for you.

Mike Geary is one of the most knowledgeable writers now alive writing about foods and health.

He sent this out by email & even suggests sharing it with others like friends and family at the end.

Here’s what he had to say:

“Avoid canola oil as much as possible... despite the false marketing claims that canola oil is "healthy" and contains lots of monounsaturated fats just like olive oil, canola oil is NOTHING like olive oil from a biochemical standpoint and how it reacts internally in your body. 

Read this article for the full story on why to AVOID canola oil at all costs.  Note that most canola oil is genetically modified too, so yet another reason to avoid it.

The Canola Oil Marketing Deception -

Have you been lied to about the health benefits of canola oil?

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

Author of best selling program:  The Truth About Six Pack Abs

If you've been following my fitness newsletters for some time, you may have noticed that I NEVER include canola oil in any of my recipes or any of my lists of healthy foods.

Many people have asked me why, because all they hear in the mainstream media is that canola oil is "heart healthy" and a good source of monounsaturated fats similar to olive oil.

Well, first of all, you need to realize that much of what you hear in the mainstream media has been influenced by heavy handed marketing tactics by big food companies.  Canola oil is cheap for them to produce so they want to fool you into thinking it's a "health oil" so that people, restaurants, etc will buy it up as their main oil of choice.

The dirty truth about canola oil

Yes, it's true that canola oil is high in monounsaturates, but let me explain why canola oil is anything but "healthy".

Canola oil is made from something called rapeseed. Rapeseed actually had to be bred over the years to reduce the percentage of a problematic component of rapeseed, which is erucic acid.

Important note on canola oil "urban legends":  There is a problem with most websites that DEFEND canola oil, saying that internet "urban legends" on the dangers of canola oil are unfounded.  The problem is that these websites that defend canola oil ONLY talk about the issue of erucic acid.  The issue of erucic acid IS an urban legend, because erucic acid has been bred out to very low levels over the years, so it is a non-issue.

However, these websites that defend canola oil are barking up the wrong tree because they don't address the issue of the processing of canola oil and oxidation of the polyunsaturated component of canola oil, which is what makes it unhealthy for human consumption.  THAT'S the real issue that they either don't understand (because they are not nutrition experts) or are simply ignoring.

Let's look at the REAL issues with canola oil:

Canola oil typically ranges between 55-65% monounsaturated fat and between 28-35% polyunsaturated fat, with just a small amount of saturated fat.

While we've been led to believe that high monounsaturated fat oils are good for us (which they are in the case of virgin olive oil or from unprocessed nuts or seeds), the fact is that canola oil has more detriments than it does benefits.

As you may have heard me talk about in other newsletters or in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program... one of the biggest problems with highly processed and refined vegetable oils such as corn oil, soybean oil, and yes, even canola oil, is that the polyunsaturated component of the oil is highly unstable under heat, light, and pressure, and this heavily oxidizes the polyunsaturates which increases free radicals in your body.

The end result of all of this refining and processing are oils that are highly inflammatory in your body when you ingest them, potentially contributing to heart disease, weight gain, and other degenerative diseases.

The reason that extra virgin olive oil is good for you is that it is cold pressed without the use of heat and solvents to aid extraction. EVOO also contains important antioxidants that help protect the stability of the oil.

Canola oil, on the other hand, is typically extracted and refined using high heat, pressure, and petroleum solvents such as hexane. Most canola oil undergoes a process of caustic refining, degumming, bleaching, and deoderization, all using high heat and questionable chemicals.

Does canola even have trans fats?

Even worse, all of this high heat, high pressure processing with solvents actually forces some of the omega-3 content of canola oil to be transformed into trans fats.

According to Dr. Mary Enig, PhD, and Nutritional Biochemist, "Although the Canadian government lists the trans fat content of canola at a minimal 0.2 percent, research at the University of Florida at Gainesville, found trans fat levels as high as 4.6 percent in commercial liquid canola oil".

And this is the crap that they are marketing to you as a "healthy oil"!

As you can see from the details above on how canola oil is processed, it is barely any healthier for you than other junk oils like soybean oil or corn oil.  The bottom line is that it is inflammatory oil in your body and should be avoided as much as possible.

The only canola oil that might be reasonable is if you see that it is "cold pressed" and organic. Most canola oil is NOT cold pressed or organic, so you might as well choose oils that you know are healthier.

Your best bets are these truly healthy oils:

extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) - for lower temperature cooking or used as a healthy salad dressing oil

Virgin coconut oil - great for all temperatures of cooking due to its super high stability under heat.  A great source of healthy saturated fats in the form of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), one of which is Lauric Acid, which helps support the immune system and is lacking in most western diets.

Organic grass-fed butter - I like to use a mix of grass-fed butter, coconut oil, and a small bit of olive oil for most of my cooking. Grass-fed butter is a great source of the healthy fat, CLA, which has even been shown in studies to have muscle building and fat burning properties.  Grass-fed butter also has a much healthier omega-6 to omega-3 ratio than standard butter at your grocery store.  Kerrygold Irish butter is my favorite grass-fed butter.”