Food - KEEP IT REAL

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Did you know that there is actually no such natural plant as the canola plant? So how is all the canola oil, that has become such a common ingredient in so many processed foods, derived?

Well this is the flowering rape plant from which the seeds are used to produce canola oil. However, rape seed oil was high in erucic acid which was found to be toxic in animal studies.... so cross breeding of the rape plant was done in a laboratory to reduce the erucic acid levels, Then large scale chemically processed canola oil production arose. Canola is actually a trademark name by a Canadian rape seed association - Can for Canada, and ola for oil (low acid).

And just to take "canola" further from it's natural state, a lot of the crops used in canola oil production were genetically modified so as to become resistant to carcinogenic, chemical herbicides such as glyphosate. If any plant is genetically modified to become tolerant to a chemical herbicide, this would surely indicate that there is a highly likely foreseen usage of chemical herbicide application to that plant crop!!
In NZ, according to ISAAA, labelling of genetically modified foods is required, however there are some exemptions to this, including canola oil 🤔

So the poor old rape plant is ironically quite aptly named.
Moral of the story is, use organic extra-virgin, cold-pressed plant oils whenever possible, and read ingredient labels.

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