On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Peter Smith wrote: > There is an interesting article about canola oil at the following > URL. I have no idea whether the claims made there are true, so it > would be interesting to hear from anyone who has more knowledge of > the subject than I. > > http://www.sightings.com/politics6/canola.htm I don't know if they are true either, and for the record I do not "advocate" the use of canola oil. I do advocate knowledge, and I wish we knew more about canola. Disappointingly, the article makes many startling claims but gives no references that one could check. She also quotes freely from a book by John Thomas which, she concedes, also contains no references that one could check. There are a couple of points to comment on, however. First, the author (Janet Allen) points out that the oil of the wild plants contained high levels of erucic acid and glucosinolates, which are considered toxic. The oil of the hybrid/engineered plants contains low but non-zero amounts of these chemicals. This is true, but it is also true that a number of paleo plants also contain these substances. Notably, most members of the Brassica family, including broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, and cabbage, contain glucosinolates. Some, such as mustard greens, also contain erucic acid. I am particularly interested, however, in Sally Fallon's claim (quoted in the article) that canola oil contains trans fats. For example, it is claimed that the trans fats are produced by heating (during processing). But some sources (including an organic chemist whom I asked about this) say that this is nonsense. Barry Sears, for example, states that you can't get trans fats just by heating an oil (though you can certain oxidize it). The article says that canola oil is "a long-chain fatty acid," and states that these cause the disease Adrenoleukodystrophy. Of course, it makes no sense to say that canola "is" a long-chain fatty acid, and it is also incorrect to say that it is particularly high in the c22 to c28 fatty acids. It isn't. The article claims that hemp oil has a superior w6:w3 ratio of 2:1. This is correct, but it is not much better, since the ratio for canola oil is only 2.2. None of this means that all of the alarming things that she says about canola are false, but it does show that she is not altogether careful of her facts. Todd Moody