Canola Oil Nutrition Facts: Why We Avoid It

QUICK SUMMARY

Canola oil is a modern low-erucic-acid rapeseed oil that we recommend avoiding as much as possible. Its nutrition label looks favorable on paper because it is low in saturated fat and contains mostly monounsaturated fat, plus some ALA omega-3. Controlled trials have even found improvements in LDL cholesterol when canola replaces certain other fats. That does not make it a food we choose for our family.

Our concern is the whole picture: canola is a highly industrialized commodity oil, most U.S. canola is genetically engineered, conventional production commonly involves heating, pressing, hexane extraction, refining, bleaching, and deodorization, and repeated high-heat use can generate lipid-oxidation products. Refining can also reduce naturally occurring phenols, carotenoids, tocopherols, and other micronutrients.

Within the Natural Living Family food philosophy, there is no version of canola oil we recommend as a preferred cooking fat, including organic or cold-pressed canola. We would rather use traditional, minimally processed fats such as extra-virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and responsibly sourced palm oil.

Canola oil is a staple in kitchens, restaurants, packaged foods, dressings, baked goods, and fried foods across America. It is also one of those ingredients that can ignite an argument almost instantly.

One side says canola is one of the healthiest cooking oils because it is low in saturated fat and contains oleic acid and ALA omega-3. The other side calls it toxic and repeats claims that do not hold up under scrutiny.

We do not need either extreme.

Canola does not contain “mustard gas,” and modern food-grade canola oil is not the same as the high-erucic-acid industrial rapeseed oil used generations ago. At the same time, we do not believe a favorable fatty-acid chart tells the whole story about whether a highly refined commodity oil belongs in our kitchen.

For our family, the answer is simple: we avoid canola oil as much as possible. Here is why.

Pros and Cons of Canola Oil

When University of Georgia researchers helped sequence the canola genome, the work highlighted just how scientifically important this crop has become.

Professor Andrew Paterson, director of UGA’s Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory and co-corresponding author for the study said, (1, 2)

“This genome sequence opens new doors to accelerating the improvement of canola. We can use this knowledge to tailor the plant’s flowering time, make it more resistant to disease and improve a myriad of other traits that will make it more profitable for production in Georgia and across the country.”

As research like this becomes more common, the Great Canola Oil Debate reignites and consumers become more bewildered.

What is all the confusion about?

Part of the problem is that both sides can oversimplify the story.

Canola critics have circulated claims that the oil contains “mustard gas” or that it is directly responsible for everything from blindness to mad cow disease. Those claims are not credible.

Canola supporters point to facts that are real:

• It is low in saturated fat.
• It contains mostly monounsaturated fat.
• It provides ALA, a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid.
• Controlled feeding trials have found favorable changes in LDL cholesterol and other lipid markers when canola replaces certain comparison fats. (11)

Those facts still do not make canola a food we recommend.

A nutrition label does not tell you how a crop was bred, how commonly it is genetically engineered, how the oil was extracted, what refining did to the original seed compounds, how the oil behaves during prolonged high-temperature cooking, or how often it appears in ultra-processed foods.

That bigger picture is what matters to us.

Canola Oil Nutrition Facts

Canola is a major global commodity crop. USDA data show that U.S. farmers planted about 2.39 million acres of canola in 2025, and global rapeseed production remains enormous. (4, 12)

USDA also reports that more than 90% of U.S. corn, upland cotton, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets are produced using genetically engineered varieties. Herbicide-tolerant traits are widely used in canola production. (13)

That does not mean genetic engineering itself proves that canola oil is toxic.

It does mean conventional canola is a poor fit for families who intentionally avoid genetically engineered crops. USDA organic standards prohibit genetic engineering, so certified organic canola addresses that particular concern. (14)

Even then, it is still not an oil we recommend.

What Is Canola?

Canola is not a separate botanical species. The term refers to rapeseed varieties bred to meet low-erucic-acid and low-glucosinolate standards.

This is where older discussions often become inaccurate.

Modern canola was originally developed through conventional plant breeding and selection, not by chemically transforming rapeseed into an edible oil. Canadian breeding programs selected low-erucic-acid and low-glucosinolate lines during the 1960s and 1970s. Genetically engineered canola varieties arrived later. (15)

The name “canola” became associated with these edible low-erucic rapeseed varieties and the oil produced from them.

High-erucic traditional rapeseed and modern food-grade canola are therefore not chemically identical.

In the United States, food-grade low-erucic-acid rapeseed oil is regulated to contain no more than 2% erucic acid and is recognized by FDA as canola oil. (16)

That factual correction does not change our food philosophy.

Canola remains a relatively modern commodity oil that is produced at massive scale for food manufacturing, restaurant use, animal feed systems, and increasingly biofuel markets. We prefer fats with a longer traditional culinary history and less dependence on industrial refining.

The Inconvenient History of Canola Oil

Rapeseed itself has a long agricultural history, but modern canola oil is a much newer food product.

During World War II, high-erucic rapeseed oil was valued as an industrial lubricant, including for steam engines. When industrial demand fell after the war, plant breeders began looking for ways to make rapeseed more useful as a food and feed crop.

The challenge was chemistry.

Older rapeseed varieties could contain very high levels of erucic acid, and rapeseed meal also contained glucosinolates that reduced its usefulness as animal feed.

Canadian breeders eventually developed “double-low” varieties with:

• Low erucic acid in the oil
• Low glucosinolates in the meal

The term “canola” was formally adopted for these improved food-grade varieties in the late 1970s.

FDA granted low-erucic-acid rapeseed oil, or canola oil, GRAS status for food use in 1985. Current FDA records continue to identify canola oil as low-erucic-acid rapeseed oil. (16)

So the problem is not that canola is secretly the same high-erucic industrial lubricant sold as food.

The more accurate concern is that canola became a highly successful modern commodity oil because plant breeding, industrial extraction, refining technology, inexpensive production, and food manufacturing all came together at the right time.

That matters because “approved for food use” and “the oil we want to build our family’s diet around” are two different questions.

The Nutritional Breakdown Facts

The original version of this article used an entire cup of canola oil for its nutrition comparison, which made the numbers look enormous.

A tablespoon is a much more realistic serving.

One tablespoon of canola oil provides approximately:

• 124 calories
• 14 grams total fat
• About 1 gram saturated fat
• About 8.9 grams monounsaturated fat
• About 3.9 grams polyunsaturated fat
• About 2.6 grams linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid
• About 1.3 grams alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA omega-3
• About 2.4 milligrams vitamin E
• About 10 micrograms vitamin K

On paper, that fatty-acid profile looks attractive.

Canola is relatively low in saturated fat, high in oleic acid, and its omega-6-to-omega-3 ratio is not unusually high compared with many other seed oils.

So we should not repeat the old claim that canola is one of the largest drivers of omega-6 imbalance simply because it contains omega-6.

The broader problem with the Standard American Diet is that refined oils and ultra-processed foods can dominate fat intake while whole-food omega-3 sources are neglected. Our guide to the best omega-3 sources explains the difference between ALA from plants and the long-chain omega-3s EPA and DHA.

Canola provides ALA. It does not provide meaningful EPA or DHA.

But What About the Heart-Health Research?

This is where we need to be intellectually honest.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials found that canola oil improved several cardiovascular risk markers compared with various edible-oil controls, including reductions in LDL cholesterol and some lipid ratios. (11)

That evidence is real.

It also does not change our recommendation.

Lowering LDL compared with a particular control fat is not the only standard we use when choosing food for our family. We also consider:

• How processed the food is
• How it is commonly produced
• Whether it is a traditional culinary food
• How it behaves under heat
• Whether better options are readily available
• How commonly it appears in ultra-processed foods

We have better oils available, so we choose them.

Inflammation & Other Side Effects of Canola

Canola oil is often criticized for “causing inflammation.”

Human evidence does not support making that universal claim.

Linoleic acid is an essential omega-6 fatty acid, and controlled human studies do not show that simply eating more linoleic acid automatically raises inflammatory markers.

Our concern with canola is different.

1. It Is Usually a Highly Refined Oil

Conventional canola processing commonly includes seed heating, flaking, pressing, solvent extraction with hexane, and additional refining steps to improve color, flavor, odor, and shelf life. Industry descriptions themselves explain that hexane is commonly used to recover oil remaining in the presscake and that the crude oil is then further refined. (17)

Vegetable-oil refining typically involves processes such as degumming, neutralization, bleaching, and deodorization.

Research on rapeseed oil shows that refining can reduce naturally occurring tocopherols, sterols, beta-carotene, phenols, and antioxidant capacity. (18)

That does not mean every refined oil is acutely poisonous.

It does mean the finished product is very different from simply squeezing oil out of a seed and eating it.

2. Refining Can Create Undesirable Compounds

High-temperature deodorization and other severe refining conditions can alter fatty acids and create processing contaminants.

Research on low-erucic rapeseed oil has shown that severe deodorization conditions can increase trans fatty acids. Modern commercial oils generally contain far less trans fat than some older studies reported, so it would be inaccurate to say all canola oil is “high in trans fat.” (19)

Refined edible oils can also contain heat-generated contaminants such as glycidyl esters, depending on the oil and processing conditions. (20)

Again, the issue is not that one tablespoon equals poison.

The question is why make a heavily processed commodity oil a daily staple when we have alternatives we prefer?

3. High Heat Promotes Oxidation

Unsaturated oils can oxidize during prolonged high-temperature cooking.

Canola contains both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Studies heating canola at frying temperatures have documented formation of aldehydes including acrolein, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, hexanal, and other lipid-oxidation products. (21)

This is not unique to canola. Heating temperature, duration, repeated reuse, fatty-acid composition, antioxidants, and storage all influence oxidation across cooking oils.

Still, it gives us another reason not to make refined canola our default frying oil.

Our concern is especially strong when oil is repeatedly heated in restaurant fryers or becomes part of the fried-food pattern that accompanies ultra-processed diets.

4. Most U.S. Canola Is Genetically Engineered

USDA reports that more than 90% of U.S. canola and several other major crops are produced using genetically engineered varieties. (13)

For families who choose to avoid genetically engineered crops, that matters.

Certified organic canola cannot be produced using genetically engineered seed under USDA organic standards. (14)

But this is where our position is important:

Organic canola is still not an oil we recommend.

It may address the GMO issue. Cold-pressed canola may address some of the extraction and refining concerns. Neither changes the fact that we simply have other traditional fats we prefer.

5. High-Erucic Rapeseed and Canola Are Not the Same Thing

High levels of erucic acid produced heart effects in animal research and were one reason plant breeders developed low-erucic varieties.

Food-grade canola is specifically bred and regulated to be low in erucic acid.

EFSA notes that traditional rapeseed and mustard can contain more than 40% erucic acid, while rapeseed cultivated for food use is typically far lower. (22)

So we do not use high-erucic rapeseed toxicity as proof that modern canola is poisonous.

We can reject canola as a preferred food without relying on an inaccurate argument.

What About Autoimmune Disease, Cancer, Liver, and Kidney Claims?

The older version of this article listed cancer, growth retardation, platelet abnormalities, free-radical damage, and liver and kidney breakdown as direct “side effects” of canola oil.

Current human evidence does not justify presenting those conditions as established consequences of normal canola consumption.

That language has been removed.

Our position is strong enough without overstating the science.

If your goal is to reduce inflammatory burden, focus on the entire pattern:

• Reduce ultra-processed foods
• Avoid repeatedly heated restaurant oils
• Eat more whole plants
• Prioritize high-quality protein
• Choose traditional fats
• Get enough omega-3
• Move your body
• Sleep well
• Reduce synthetic fragrance and unnecessary toxic exposures

For more support, see our guides to pain and inflammation and heart health.

Safety First: Choosing a Healthy Cooking Oil

When we decide whether an oil belongs in our kitchen, we look beyond a single nutrient or laboratory value.

We ask:

• Is it a traditional food?
• How much processing does it require?
• How stable is it for the way we plan to cook?
• How transparent is the sourcing?
• Is it something we want our children eating regularly?
• Are there better options available?

For canola, our answer is consistent:

We avoid it as much as possible.

That includes conventional canola, organic canola, expeller-pressed canola, and cold-pressed canola.

The less-refined versions may solve individual concerns such as GMO exposure, solvent extraction, or more aggressive refining. We still do not consider them preferred fats within the Natural Living Family philosophy.

Instead, we choose oils and fats such as:

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Responsibly sourced red palm oil

The important word is quality.

Choose minimally processed oils from transparent sources, store them properly, avoid repeatedly overheating them, and match the fat to the cooking method.

At the end of the day, we do not need to prove that canola is poison to decide we do not want it in our kitchen.

Canola’s fatty-acid profile may look favorable on paper. Regulatory agencies consider food-grade low-erucic canola safe. Some controlled trials report favorable cholesterol changes.

We can acknowledge all of that and still say:

We have better choices, and we choose them.

That is the Natural Living Family position. Avoid canola as much as possible, read ingredient labels because it hides in countless packaged foods, cook at home when you can, and build your meals around real foods and traditional fats you feel good about serving your family.