Gabe Menezes wrote: >Rapeseed oil sales soar as middle class cooks turn to it instead of olive >oil because it has half the amount of saturated fat
Gabe, About 40 years ago, Canadian scientists took Rapeseed, changed the content of the seed, bred into it drought resistance properties, increased the yield and renamed it Canola. Thanks to people pursuing more healthy diets, Canola oil is now the most popular oil on Canadian supermarket shelves. While the picture in your newspaper article looks pretty, there are parts of the Canadian parries where you can look out of your train window and see nothing but stunning views of golden fields of Canola, rolling for 15 miles or more in every direction. I use the word 'golden' not because of the colour of the crop but because it is one of the few crops a Canadian farmer can actually make money on. Did I mention its drought resistance properties? Well, last year's US drought meant disaster for US corn growers and a bonanza for anyone who held Canola futures. China has caught onto the action and is the biggest producer of Canola, followed by Canada and then India. One last thing. I get a lot of 'forwards' from friends in Australia who are convinced that Canola oil is poison. Here is a snip from one such forward, "Rapeseed oil was used in the chemical warfare agent mustard gas, which was banned after blistering the lungs and skins of hundred of thousands of soldiers and civilians during W.W.I." As always, there are clowns on the fringes or sometimes an entire circus of entertainers dancing around us. Mervyn
