The original rapeseed oil, used as a lubricant, caused heart disease when ingested because of high levels of a chemical called
erucic acid. Conventional plant breeding led to the development of rapeseed varieties with low concentrations of
erucic acid, which came to be known as canola.
Canola has been the subject of both kinds of modification, first to lower
erucic acid levels and then to increase pesticide resistance.
The respective oil is called laurate canola (canola--rapeseed oil without
erucic acid or low
erucic acid content).
infusion, 0.011% of the
erucic acid was taken up by the brain compared to 0.055% of the arachidonic acid.
High
erucic acid rapeseed oil is used in better-quality factices because it provides a harder product in a shorter reaction time (ref.
Development of ultra-high
erucic acid oil in the industrial oil crop Crambe abyssinica.
Erucic acid content in RSM (Table 3) was analyzed on a 7890 Agilent Gas Liquid Chromatograph (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA) and equipped with flame ionization detector and the column was SP-2560 (i.d.
One of the most significant differences was found between groups in
erucic acid (C22:1n9) which could cause myocardial lipidosis in animals [24].
The old strains were bitter to the human palate, however, and contained high levels of
erucic acid, which is toxic, especially for young children.
Fatty acid quantification was achieved by utilizing the internal standard method, using
erucic acid (C22:1, F-45629, Sigma-Aldrich, USA) as standard.
Canola is a winter crop originally derived from rapeseed varieties, which have been altered by genetic selection that has markedly reduced its detrimental components,
erucic acid and glucosinolate to a negligible level less than 20 [micro]g [g.sup.-1] (Leeson et al., 2001).
Keeping in view strong direct effect of total glucosinolates and moderate direct effect of linolenic acid, these quality parameters could also serve for the selection of lines with low
erucic acid in Brassica breeding programs.
