made from the rapeseed plant, specifically from the seeds of the rape, which is a member of the mustard (Brassicaceae) family. It was in the early 1970s that canola was first bred from rapeseed at the University of Manitoba in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson. In 1998, “the most disease- and drought-resistant canola variety to date” was developed using genetic modification, and this is how the majority of recent varieties are produced. The oil has been proven to destroy both the body and the mind, and is simply not the safe, healthy alternative that the mainstream media would have you believe.
Back in the 1960’s, the food industry was in search of an oil that could be produced cheaply, but marketed toward health-conscious consumers. While olive oil was preferred amongst those who cared about their health, it was never easy or cheap to mass produce. As a result, the food industry began selling rapeseed oil as a supposedly healthy substitute. Serious problems were later discovered with the erucic acid in rapeseed, like the fact that it caused degenerative lesions in the heart muscles. It should not have been surprising to the producers, since rapeseed is so naturally poisonous that insects avoid it. Food companies decided to sell it anyway, even after realizing the serious liability risk.
Starting in 1964, the food industry joined forces with the chemical and nuclear industries to begin work in reducing rapeseed’s poisonous erucic acid content, in the hope of producing a less toxic version of rapeseed oil. It had been banned in the U.S. in 1956. It would take the industry over a decade and enormous amounts of genetic engineering to get rapeseed oil back into the U.S. market. The resultant plant from the genetic modifications was originally called L.E.A.R. (low erucic acid rapeseed) and it is sometimes still called that within the food industry. It has been widely renamed to “canola” for marketing reasons, because no company wanted to market a cooking oil that had been officially banned for causing permanent heart damage, and having “rape” in the product name was considered a liability too.
The promoters of canola freely admit that its name was only changed for marketing purposes, which serves only to perpetuate the deception about its true lineage, as if canola were a totally different plant from rapeseed. This Frankenstein plant may be even worse than its parent rapeseed, for canola cooking oil is an E.P.A. registered pesticide. It is far from the natural product of selective breeding that its proponents contend. Canola oil was invented in a biotechnology laboratory in 1976, using radiation bombardment techniques to destroy parts of the plant’s DNA. This produced the first canola plant that has ever existed in the world.
This comes from the official Canola Council of Canada:
“Here are some key facts on growing genetically modified (GM) canola in Canada.
“GM or transgenic canola varieties have been modified to be resistant to specific herbicides. They are called herbicide-resistant varieties. The plants are modified, but the oil is not modified. It is identical to canola oil from non-modified or conventional canola.
“Herbicide-resistant GM canola is grown on about 80% of the acres in western Canada. GM canola was first introduced in 1995.”
The figures cited in the previous quotations are dated. About 90% of the canola was genetically engineered to be herbicide resistant at the time this was written. The quotation betrays that canola has been through two separate generations of genetic engineering: first to create the low erucic acid rapeseed that was renamed to canola, and then to further genetically modify it for herbicide resistance. No canola in the United States has any labeling to indicate that it is genetically engineered, or any labeling to indicate that it is a variety of rapeseed.
The following quotes come from the research paper, Genetic Control of Fatty Acid Biosynthesis in Rapeseed, which was published in The Journal Of The American Oil Chemists’ Society when work on modifying rapeseed began. Here are a couple of snippets from that report, explaining exactly how canola oil (L.E.A.R.) began life:
“Self-pollinated seed harvested from each plant was oven-dried, weighed and crushed with a glass rod in a 50-ml Erlenmeyer flask containing 10 ml solution of methanol, acetyl chloride and benzene in the ratio of 20:1:4. The mixture was refluxed under an air condenser for 1 hr to extract and esterify the seed oil. A known wt of internal standard (dibutyl sebacate dissolved in carbon tetrachloride) was added and 0.2-0.4 ~1 of the sample injected into an F and M model 500 gas chromatograph operated at 208c with a helium flow rate of 75 ml / min and using an 8 ft 3/16 in… At the base of each pod, 10 ~1 aqueous solution of radioactive sodium acetate (0.2 ,c methyl labelled) was injected with a Hamilton micro-syringe. A branch from a rapeseed plant bearing 15 pods was excised below the lowest pod, the pods were similarly injected…”
What was noticeably absent from the procedure was any mention whatsoever of controlled pollination, which the canola marketers have been swearing was at the core of their ‘organic’ selective breeding process to create ‘all-natural’ canola. Part of the propaganda used to deceive us about canola oil’s safety involves the fact that its manufacturer’s laboratory tests have shown it to be a more-or-less healthy cooking oil, until it is actually heated. Then canola undergoes a chemical transformation. Canola is technically a healthy cooking oil — provided that it is never actually cooked. As long as it remains cold and inside its air-tight bottle or test tube — it tests to be healthy. However, once heated, canola oil produces high levels of 1,3-butadiene, benzene, acrolein, formaldehyde, and other related compounds which become infused into the foods being cooked. All traces of omega-3 are gone.
Canola shares soy’s hormone-disrupting tendencies. Canola oil is also noted to produce cancer-causing toxic fumes when heated, and at much lower temperatures than are required to cause equivalent smoking by other cooking oils. Rapeseed and canola oil fumes are the primary reason for the surprisingly high incidence of Asian lung cancers, despite tobacco smoking being a rarity. Canola fumes have been known to kill pet birds, and many readers will remember that canaries were once used in coal mines to detect the presence of poisonous gases.
Dr. Joseph Mercola was the first person who was brave enough to go against the collective grain by attacking the fraudulent canola industry, and he was right to do it. As reported by Dr. Mercola:
“Canola oil was developed from the rape seed, a member of the mustard family. Rape seed is unsuited to human consumption because it contains a very-long-chain fatty acid called erucic acid, which under some circumstances is associated with fibrotic heart lesions. It has a high sulfur content and goes rancid easily. Baked goods made with canola oil develop mold very quickly. During the deodorizing process, the omega-3 fatty acids of processed canola oil are transformed into the dangerous trans fatty acids, similar to those in margarine, and possibly more dangerous. A recent study indicates that ‘heart healthy’ canola oil actually creates a deficiency of vitamin E, a vitamin required for a healthy cardiovascular system. Other studies indicate that even low-erucic-acid canola oil causes heart lesions, particularly when the diet is low in saturated fat.”
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation and fat experts Sally Fallon and Mary Enig:
Like all modern vegetable oils, canola oil goes through the process of refining, bleaching and degumming — all of which involve high temperatures or chemicals of questionable safety. And because canola oil is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which easily become rancid and foul-smelling when subjected to oxygen and high temperatures, it must be deodorized. The standard deodorization process removes a large portion of the omega-3 fatty acids by turning them into trans fatty acids. Although the Canadian government lists the trans content of canola at a minimal 0.2 percent, research at the University of Florida at Gainesville, found trans levels as high as 4.6 percent in commercial liquid oil. The consumer has no clue about the presence of trans fatty acids in canola oil because they are not listed on the label.
Canola oil never spoils! What kind of ‘food’ never spoils? You get one guess. That’s right – the kind you should never eat. So then why do you think most health food stores use canola oil mixed into nearly every packaged and jarred food on their shelves? The honest answer is they’re trying to make more money. Insects won’t go near canola oil – there’s a sign not to eat it right there. Its shelf life runs close to forever. Mix canola oil into salad dressings, mayonnaise, potato salad, macaroni salad, hummus, cereal, or corn chips and their shelf life extends almost indefinitely.
Plus canola oil is the cheapest “food” oil on the planet. Canola oil gets fancy, appealing labels too, like “expeller pressed” or even “certified organic,” but it wouldn’t really matter if you painted rapeseed hot pink and stamped it “grade A,” because it is what it is. Now let’s talk about what it does to the health of human beings who eat it regularly.
Organic or not, canola oil coagulates over time and causes health issues
What happens to humans when their blood clots and doesn’t flow properly from their heart to their brain and other organs? Ever heard of the words weight gain, heart disease, stroke, and dementia? Even the insidious American Heart Association has come to grips with evil canola, admitting in a recent study that canola oil dramatically raises the blood coagulation factor, increasing the risk of death from heart disease and stroke. For the whole detailed study, check their journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
Canola oil, when consumed by humans, leads to high cholesterol levels in the blood and fatty plaque build up inside blood vessels. These are obstructions that interfere with blood flow to and from the heart, triggering strokes and heart attacks. So, whether or not that canola oil is free from pesticides and processing chemicals, that coagulating will still occur. That’s why it simply does NOT matter if the canola oil is organic, expeller pressed, or served up by a 5-star restaurant, the end result is still the same.
The high-fat meal, blood coagulation study was authored by a doctorate student at an Agricultural University in Denmark, where it was discovered that even the so-called good mono fats increase risk of heart attacks and strokes due to blood clotting. The study was not done on rats or monkeys, but on humans, so all the canola-pushing quacks can throw out that old argument that humans aren’t the same as lab-test animals.
The research was done on 18 healthy young men over nine months. Rapeseed oil was a main culprit of blood coagulation and artery clogging, along with beef. The changes in the men’s blood indicated an “immediate prothrombotic effect” said the leading researcher. Imagine what happens to humans already suffering from heart disease when they consume canola oil. Then there’s the fact that 90 percent of canola oil is genetically modified to contain toxic pesticide. Talk about pouring salt in the wound.
Science behind toxic canola shows it increases plaques in the human brain, contributes to memory loss and decreases learning ability
The hallmark of degenerative diseases, a build-up of plaque in the brain, could be the scariest part about eating canola oil. That trendy kitchen staple that was labeled “heart healthy” for decades has just been proven to be the complete opposite. It should be labeled “brain deadly” and “heart deadly,” but since the FDA and the CDC are run by Big Food shills and hucksters, that will never happen.
The short term effect and ultimate red flashing warning sign that canola oil is horrible for your health is the weight gain factor. Have you run into a brick wall with your diet? Are you also feeling lethargic and brain dead lately? Maybe it’s time to check those organic salad dressings for blood coagulating canola. Avoid that canola-loaded prepared food bar at Whole Foods too.
Guy Crosby, Adjunct Associate Professor of Nutrition at Harvard’s School of Public Health, studies food and culinary chemistry and cell wall structure of plant foods. He warns all humans about canola consumption. Here’s his verdict. Canola oil is rapeseed oil bred to reduce the “undesirable elements.” Crosby notes that most canola oil is chemically extracted using hexane (a constituent of gasoline) and then it’s deodorized with other chemicals (because rapeseed stinks).
In another recent study, rodents fed the coagulating junk-science food stuff called canola oil developed signs of dementia and working memory impairment, and that’s after just two tablespoons of canola oil per day. The mice also gained significant amounts of weight after consuming canola.
Wait, we’re not done with the scary news yet. The rodents also showed increased formation of amyloid plaques in the brain. Plus, the canola oil had destroyed a peptide that protects brain neurons from damage. This damage prevented contacts between neurons, indicating extensive injury, according to the research experts. That study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Find out more about the effects of all processed oils on the human body at NaturalPedia.com, and try to stick with organic, live, raw foods as your main sources of nutrition.
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