Canola oil controversy

[maya]

snopes.com has an interesting article on canola/rapeseed oil
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

 

[Hazel]

snopes.com has an interesting article on canola/rapeseed oil
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

maya -

Thanks for posting the link. This is very interesting.

 

[maya]

welcome. YEARS of working in the organic/natural/healthfood industry has taught me a ton about food, additives, what is worth it and what isnt and the occasional fear mongering.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

my take: despite the fact that our food supply is in danger of being a LOT less safe than it was in the early 1900's, when all food was organic, nothing subjected to pesticides and herbicides......

I avoid canola in cooking, and I don't like how it makes soap bars feel 'sticky' in my hands, compared with olive as the high percentage oil in my soaps.

I also learned a few years ago, that the larger growers of rapeseed found a way to make their rapeseed crops impervious to some pesticides, like e.g. 2-4-D, a popular weed-killer which people in my old neighbourhood used to use liberally on their grass-only lawns (not me, I like fields of wildflowers in my 'lawn').

So corporations made rapeseed "dioxin-friendly" which means you can spray poisons on it, and it won't be killed. Then we get to eat the un-killed toxins in the canola oil. I don't know if anyone determined whether human digestive systems can be harmed by eating the toxin-sprayed rapeseed, or canola.

This is why I don't use it in cooking.

I used it in a soap bar a few months ago and I was happy with how it behaved with the other oils to make a lovely bar of soap, but now, it has DOS so I won't do that again.

 

[Woodi]

Monsanto made rapeseed "Roundup-ready", which means that you can now spray with Roundup (a highly toxic poison) and it doesn't kill the rapeseed (which is what canola oil is made from), but just kills weeds around it.

I don't like the idea of being able to eat something sprayed with Roundup.

Not sure if I even want to put it on my skin, cuz things have a way of leaching into the body through the skin.

and as for Marianne's claim that her relatives have been eating canola oil for years, and lived long healthy lives into their 80's....consider:Canola oil has only been around in its current form since about 1978. People who never ate it in their childhoods may have stronger immune systems. Today's octogenarians ate mostly organic foods in their childhoods also.