Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed
Before the advent of genetic engineering, plant breeders were aiming to produce a less-bitter-tasting multi-purpose crop from oil-rapeseed that would appeal to a larger market by making it more palatable and safer for cattle and other livestock. While it was possible to breed out much of the pungent-tasting glucosinolates that were the cause of the problem, the traditional methods of plant breeding resulted in one of the dominant erucic acid genes also getting stripped out of the genome in the process, thus greatly reducing its erucic acid content. Although this latter effect was an unintended consequence of the breeding program, it was noticed from studies on rats that they show signs of lipidosis when fed high quantities of erucic acid.
Food grade rapeseed oil (also known as canola oil, rapeseed 00 oil, low erucic acid rapeseed oil, LEAR oil, and rapeseed canola-equivalent oil) is regulated to a maximum of 2% erucic acid by weight in the USA. and 5% in the EU, with special regulations for infant food.
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