What is rapeseed

Why is that? It all comes down to the name. Here, we explain this weird naming discrepancy, the differences if any between rapeseed and canola oil, and the potential benefits and risks of using rapeseed oil in your cooking. Rapeseed oil is the name given to oil produced from the seeds of the rape plant—a yellow flowering plant that's a member of the Brassica or cruciferous family, which also includes broccoli and cabbage.

There are two main types of rapeseed oil: Industrial rapeseed oil is used in the machine and chemical industries to make things like engine lubricant and biodiesel while culinary rapeseed oil is used in all sorts of cooking.

But—and this is an important distinction—these two varieties of rapeseed oil come from different varieties of the rape plant. The rapeseeds that are used to produce oil for industrial uses tend to be high in erucic acid between 30 and 60 percent. This compound may be dangerous to humans when consumed in high enough concentrations, and research links it to heart problems in animals. This type of high-erucic acid rapeseed oil is valued for industrial use because it is incredibly heat-stable.

Now, onto culinary rapeseed oil. In the s, scientists developed a rapeseed plant that had much lower levels of erucic acid and higher levels of oleic acid, which is a type of monounsaturated fat. They did this through crossbreeding not to be confused with genetic modification. This newly developed plant contained less than 2 percent erucic acid and was renamed canola a variation on "Canadian oil," in honor of the country where much of it is grown to distance itself from the word "rape.

Canola oil is simply the culinary version of rapeseed oil, which contains less than 2 percent of the potentially harmful compound erucic acid. While people and food companies in other countries often use the term "rapeseed oil" to describe culinary rapeseed oil, pretty much everyone in the U. One tablespoon of culinary rapeseed oil contains :. While culinary rapeseed or canola oil is often praised by chefs for its high smoke point, it certainly isn't without controversy.

While the plant was initially developed through cross-breeding, many modern canola plants have been genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides, says Jess Cording, R.

And when crops are resistant to herbicides, more of those herbicides are used, which means more harm to the environment. For this reason, many people choose to avoid canola or rapeseed oil. The way canola seeds are processed into oil is another point of contention. The big downside: Heating the oil in this manner is thought to damage the essential fatty acids and reduce the number of antioxidants and vitamins in the end product. This profile will focus on industrial rapeseed.

Some cultivars of summer annual rape Brassica napus L. They are especially useful for finishing lambs, flushing ewes, for dairy cows and pastured sows. Forage rape is ready to graze 80 to 90 days after planting. Traditionally, industrial rapeseed is produced for birdseed and oil for industrial purposes.

Industrial varieties of rapeseed are used for non-edible purposes such as lubricants, hydraulic fluids and plastics. High-erucic-acid rapeseed HEAR oil is especially useful where high heat stability is required.

One of the primary markets for HEAR oils is erucamide. Erucamide has been used for decades by plastic film manufacturers for use in bread wrappers and garbage bags and is preferred over cheaper alternatives for its production properties. In the United States, the harvested acreage of rapeseed decreased from , acres in to 10, acres in The crop totaled more than Back to Recipes Smoothies Autumn drinks See more.

Back to Recipes Whole foods recipes Healthy dinners See more. Back to Recipes Vegetarian dinners Quick vegetarian See more. Back to Recipes Vegan storecupboard Vegan baking See more. Back to How to Roast timer Conversion guides. Back to Health Is air-frying healthy? Rapeseed, or oilseed rape as it is often known, is the bright yellow crop that you see in the fields in the run up to summer, a sure sign that winter is almost behind us.

There are , hectares of oilseed rape here in the UK, and the average yield per hectare is 3. Rapeseed makes a variety of products, including edible vegetable oils for cooking, animal feed and even biodiesel. Rapeseed oil is made by pressing the seeds from the plant, oilseed rape. Whizz Middleton, an arable farmer who farms wheat, oilseed rape and legumes on the rolling hills of Barton Hills in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire talks us through the process of making rapeseed oil.

Pictured above: Whizz Middleton shows us how these tiny black seeds are made into rapeseed oil. Is solvent extraction of seed oils used much in the UK? On a USA diet advice website I visited recently, rapeseed oil Canola is deemed barely fit for human consumption, due the use of hexane and other aggressive processing to extract the oil. The website also demonised sunflower oil for the same reason. I am pretty sure this does not happen much in Europe.