Rape Seed Oil | Natural Health Philippines

RapeSeed Oil

healthy appetite

By Natural Health+

Rapeseed is a young crop with an oil content of 40 percent. Rapeseed oil has had a bad reputation because of its bitter taste which is caused by its high erucic acid content, a type of monounsaturated omega-9 fatty. That has now changed and rapeseed oil is now recognized as a high quality cooking oil.

Uses of Rapeseed Oil

Until a few decades ago, rapeseed oil was mainly used as fuel for oil lamps in the European countries because of its bitter taste. It was also widely used in the industrial setting.

In the mid-1970s, a plant breeder introduced double zero rape (00-rape) which contained only small amounts of bitter-tasting erucic acid. In addition, this rapeseed oil wasfree of glucosinolates, which are toxic substances that previously ruled out any other use of the oil except as animal feed. This variety of rape made it possible for edible oil to be made from rapeseeds

Modern rape varieties provide high-quality edible oils, making rapeseed one of the most important oil seeds grown. In fact, margarine is sometimes made from rapeseed oil.
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Rapeseed oil in the diet
In 1974, almost all rapeseed oil production was used to feed machineries. Now, the food industry is the principal customers.

From a nutritional point of view, rapeseed oil is valuable edible oil.

Compared to other vegetable oils, it has the highest content of unsaturated fatty acids (91 g/100g) and the lowest proportion of saturated fatty acids. For the monounsaturated fatty acids, it is surpassed only by the olive oil, which has more saturated fatty acids.