Everything about Canola totally explained
Canola is a type of
edible oil derived from plants initially bred in
Canada by
Keith Downey and
Baldur Stefansson in the
1970s. The oil is extracted from a group of
cultivars of
rapeseed variants from which low
erucic acid rapeseed oil and low glucosinolate meal are obtained. The word "canola" was derived from "
Canadian
oil,
low
acid" in 1978. The oil is also known as "LEAR" oil (for
Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed).
History
crop in
Canada, canola has become a major
North American
cash crop.
Canada and the
United States produce between 7 and 10 million
metric tons (tonnes) of canola seed per year. Annual
Canadian exports total 3 to 4 million metric tons of the seed, 700,000 metric tons of canola oil and 1 million metric tons of canola meal. The United States is a net consumer of canola oil. The major customers of canola seed are
Japan,
Mexico,
China and
Pakistan, while the bulk of canola oil and meal goes to the United States, with smaller amounts shipped to
Taiwan,
Mexico,
China, and
Europe.
World production of rapeseed oil in the 2002–2003 season was about 14 million metric tons.
Canola was developed through conventional plant breeding from
rapeseed, an oilseed plant with roots in ancient civilization. The word "rape" in
rapeseed comes from the Latin word "
rapum," meaning turnip.
Turnip,
rutabaga,
cabbage,
Brussels sprouts,
mustard and many other vegetables are related to the two canola species commonly grown:
Brassica napus and
Brassica rapa. The negative associations with the word "
rape" resulted in the more marketing-friendly name "Canola". The change in name also serves to distinguish it from regular rapeseed oil, which has much higher
erucic acid content.
Hundreds of years ago, Asians and Europeans used rapeseed oil in lamps. As time progressed, people employed it as a
cooking oil and added it to foods. Its use was limited until the development of
steam power, when machinists found rapeseed oil clung to water or steam-washed
metal surfaces better than other lubricants.
World War II saw high demand for the oil as a lubricant for the rapidly increasing number of steam engines in naval and merchant ships. When the war blocked European and Asian sources of rapeseed oil, a critical shortage developed and Canada began to expand its limited rapeseed production.
After the war, demand declined sharply and farmers began to look for other uses for the plant and its products. Edible rapeseed oil extracts were first put on the market in 1956–1957, but these suffered from several unacceptable characteristics. Rapeseed oil had a distinctive taste and a disagreeable greenish colour due to the presence of
chlorophyll. It also contained a high concentration of
erucic acid. Experiments on animals have pointed to the possibility that erucic acid, consumed in large quantities, may cause heart damage, though Indian researchers have published findings that call into question these conclusions and the implication that the consumption of mustard or rapeseed oil is dangerous. Feed meal from the rapeseed plant wasn't particularly appealing to livestock, due to high levels of sharp-tasting compounds called
glucosinolates.
Plant breeders in Canada, where rapeseed had been grown (mainly in
Saskatchewan) since 1936, worked to improve the quality of the plant. In
1968 Dr
Baldur Stefansson of the
University of Manitoba used
selective breeding to develop a variety of rapeseed low in erucic acid. In 1974 another variety was produced low in both
erucic acid and
glucosinolates; it was named Canola, from
Canadian
oil,
low
acid.
A variety developed in 1998 is considered to be the most disease- and drought-resistant variety of Canola to date. This and other recent varieties have been produced by
gene splicing techniques.
An
Oregon State University researcher has determined that growing winter canola for
hybrid seed appears possible in central
Oregon, USA. Canola is the highest-producing oil-seed crop, but the state prohibits it from being grown in Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties because it may attract bees away from specialty seed crops such as
carrots which require
bees for
pollination.
Canola was originally a trademark but is now a generic term for this variety of oil. In Canada, an official definition of canola is codified in Canadian law.
Health effects
Further Information
Get more info on 'Canola'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://canola.totallyexplained.com">Canola Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
