Driving through Southern Alberta Province I passed thousands of acres of fields of yellow—a yellow-flowering plant about the height of soybeans. I had never seen this crop before. It is rapeseed, which is the source of canola oil. Common or wild rapeseed is high in erucic acid, which makes it suitable for use as a biodegradable lubricant and as a binder for oil paints. A hybrid form of rapeseed has been developed that is low in erucic acid that makes it suitable for human consumption and for use as livestock feed. In 1978 the term “canola” was devised to stand for “Canadian oil, low acid.”
According to Wikipedia, canola oil is low in saturated fat, high in monosaturated fat, and it has a beneficial Omega-3 profile. Hybrid rapeseed is grown in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Also, all production in the United States is in North Dakota. It is also the third largest crop in Australia, although its uses there are limited to non-food products. In the past ten years world production of canola has quadrupled.
The yellow fields look a lot like fields of mustard, as you might see growing wild in California. That is not surprising since both rapeseed and field mustard belong to the genus Brassica.
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| Rapeseed Field in Alberta, Used in the Production of CANOLA |
