`Study Shows Canola Oil Cannot Replace Olive Oil in a Mediterranean-Style Diet - Olive Oil Times
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Study Shows Canola Oil Cannot Replace Olive Oil in a Mediterranean-Style Diet

By Elena Paravantes
Feb. 18, 2015 09:56 UTC

Canola oil is often sug­gested as an alter­na­tive to olive oil for those want­ing to fol­low a Mediterranean-style diet. However, canola oil (also known as rape­seed oil) is quite dif­fer­ent from olive oil and might not have the same effect.

Researchers sought out to exam­ine whether canola oil is suit­able as an alter­na­tive for fol­low­ing a Mediterranean-style diet for indi­vid­u­als who live in coun­tries where olive oil is not pro­duced locally.

In the study, pub­lished in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers reviewed evi­dence from exper­i­men­tal, epi­demi­o­log­i­cal and clin­i­cal stud­ies of the health ben­e­fits of rape­seed oil (known as canola oil) and olive oil.

For olive oil, the researchers char­ac­ter­ized the evi­dence for car­dio­vas­cu­lar pro­tec­tion as con­vinc­ing” where as evi­dence for canola was lim­ited to short-term stud­ies and they noted that any ben­e­fits seen were likely to be due to α‑linolenic acid of canola oil, but which is prone to oxi­da­tion dur­ing fry­ing. Most of the health ben­e­fits from olive oil are due to the antiox­i­dants it con­tains.

The researchers con­cluded that, due to lack of evi­dence that may show that canola oil is com­pa­ra­ble to olive oil in terms of health ben­e­fits, canola oil can­not be rec­om­mended as a suit­able sub­sti­tute for extra vir­gin olive oil for a Mediterranean style diet.


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