What is Canola Oil?
Most people think oils come from plants. Olive oil, sunflower oil and peanut oil are simple enough. Canola oil’s background is different. While not the Frankenstein of oils, Canola carries a significant scientific history.
While the oil comes from the rapeseed plant, Canola oil is actually the product of a genetic engineering in Canada.
The genetic engineering involved cross-breeding to weed out unhealthy traits. The plant was re-engineered in the 1970s to reduced monounsaturated fatty acids that caused serious health problems. The re-engineered plant is actually a new species, separate from rapeseed.
Canola oil, unlike olive oil, is particularly tasteless, so it doesn’t add any tastes to the foods it is used to prepare.
When to use a can of Canola
Canola oil’s light taste allows the natural tastes of foods and spices to flourish.
Canola oil is ideal for stir-fried oriental dishes along with grilling meats and vegetables. Canola oil makes deep-frying chimichangas, empanadas and eggrolls easy. For this reason, Canola is very popular in Japan, China and Mexico.
Baking, of course, is its most popular use. The light taste made it popular in baked goods where the sugary sweet tastes are not diluted. Canola oil substitutes well for fats like those found in butter that turn solid in baking. It’s great for coating pans, without altering flavors.
Canola oil’s ideal for foods with strong robust tastes, that don’t need any additional flavor. Canola oil is also popular to add texture and viscosity to salad dressings and meat marinades. Canola oil flows freely in marinades, moisturizing the meats and keeping added spices at the forefront.
It makes great salad dressing because it prioritizes health, keeps fat low and gives a good base for homemade dressings.
Health Benefits
Canola oil is one of the most healthy mass consumption oils. It’s even got the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s heart healthy label.
The oil is low in saturated fat compared to other oils. Saturated fat contributes to heart disease, the number one killer in the United States and across the world. Reducing saturated fat is essential to avoiding heart disease. On the other end, Canola oil has high amounts of monounsaturated fats, which decrease heart disease and cancer, according to many research studies.
Canola oil’s health benefits have increased its favor in comparison to less healthy oils.
It also contains omega fatty acids that benefit blood pressure and cholesterol, two key factors in heart disease.
As a result of the many health benefits, a variety of products tout Canola in their ingredients. However, Canola oil alone does not make a product safe. Reading the nutrition label is always the best analyzer of key ingredients to find out what you’re ingesting.
General Benefits
- Cattle, fish and most animals benefit from the high levels of protein found in Canola meal.
- Canola oil, like other oils, can e used in makeup in plastics, paints, makeup and even biodiesel to power cars.
- Canola oil lacks proteins that cause allergies
- Canola oil survives on a shelf for about a year
The best experience with any cooking oil is to experiment yourself. Try it with your favorite carrot cake, grilled strip steaks or Japanese stir-fry dishes.