Whole Foods' love affair with Canola Oil

   If you have followed my blog for any length of time or listened to my radio show you already know that I have had a few issues with Whole Foods. I'm not going to go in detail on all of them in this blog (You can find them in my archived blogs), but I do want to point out something that you need to look out for and stay away from. Whole Foods has had a love affairs with Canola Oil. Im actually not even going to call it that any more in this blog, because there is no such thing as Canola plant or oil. It is a made up term. Canola Oil is actually rape seed oil, and some marketing firm somewhere decided that Rape seed is not that marketable of a name. So it was made in Canada so they decided on Canola. 
    You can't go anywhere in Whole Foods without finding it. It's in almost every one of their prepared food items. It's in the marinade they use in the butcher area of the store. It's even in the mayo they use in the deli. They love this stuff! And why? I'm not sure but it is just one of many reasons why I fell Whole Foods doesn't care as much about your health as they do profits.
   So whats so bad with Canola? One reason is that over 90 percent of it is Genetically Modified. If you haven't heard what GMO's are by now you can listen to one of my past radio shows by clicking here /media.html. In short GMO's is where they have changed the genetic code of crops to better withstand insects, drought, inclement weather, etc. How can they hurt you? They cause cancer. Whole Foods has promised to start labeling GMO's by next year. Key word is label, not remove. On the other hand Trader Joe's guarantees none of their brand label contains any GMO ingredients. 
   So besides being GMO, which is enough to avoid it all together, is there anything else about Canola? Yes there is, it does not react well in your body. Canola oil was developed from rape seed ... which is considered unsuited to human consumption because it contains a long-chain fatty acid called erucic acid, which under some circumstances is associated with fibrotic heart lesions. Canola oil was bred to contain little if any erucic acid and has drawn the attention of nutritionists because of its high oleicacid content. but there are some indications that canola oil presents dangers of its own. it has a high sulphur content and goes rancid easily ... during the deodorizing process, the omega 3 fatty acids of processed canola oil are transformed into trans fatty acids. 
   So before you go grab a big scoop of hot lunch from Whole Foods that's packaged in a "green" recycled box that is marketed to you to appear "healthy". Check the ingredients, they have them posted at every item, and look for Canola Oil, it's in EVERYTHING.

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