Walk down any grocery store aisle and you’ll see bottles of canola oil everywhere. It’s cheap, it’s marketed as heart-healthy, and chances are it’s sitting in your pantry right now. But lately, there’s been growing controversy about whether this ubiquitous cooking oil is actually good for us.

Let me be clear upfront: this is a genuinely complicated topic where experts disagree, and I’m not here to tell you that canola oil is poison or that you need to throw out everything in your kitchen. But there are some legitimate concerns worth understanding.

The Processing Problem

Here’s the thing that bothers a lot of people about canola oil: how it’s made. Unlike olive oil, which you can basically squeeze out of olives, canola oil requires extensive industrial processing. The oil is extracted from rapeseed using chemical solvents (usually hexane), then goes through degumming, bleaching, and deodorizing at high temperatures.

This heavy processing has a few consequences. First, it can damage the polyunsaturated fats in the oil through oxidation, creating compounds that some researchers believe may promote inflammation in the body. Second, the high-heat deodorizing process can create trans fats—yes, even though the label might say “0g trans fat” due to rounding rules.

The Omega-6 Question

Canola oil contains a fair amount of omega-6 fatty acids. Now, omega-6s aren’t inherently bad—we actually need them. The issue is balance. Our bodies function best with a certain ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, and the modern Western diet is already heavily skewed toward omega-6s.

Some researchers argue that this imbalance promotes chronic inflammation, which has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions. Canola oil does contain some omega-3s (which is actually one of its selling points), but when you’re already swimming in omega-6s from processed foods, adding more through your cooking oil might not be ideal.

What About the Heart Health Claims?

You’ve probably heard that canola oil is “heart-healthy” because it’s low in saturated fat. That narrative comes from older research suggesting that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats reduces heart disease risk. And there’s some truth there—canola oil can lower LDL cholesterol.

But here’s where it gets murky. More recent research suggests the picture is more complicated than just looking at cholesterol numbers. Some studies have raised questions about whether highly processed vegetable oils might actually increase cardiovascular risk through other mechanisms, like oxidative stress and inflammation. The scientific community is still debating this.

The Oxidation Issue

Polyunsaturated fats are chemically unstable, meaning they oxidize easily when exposed to heat, light, or air. When you cook with canola oil at high temperatures, you’re potentially creating oxidized fats and harmful compounds like aldehydes. Some researchers believe these oxidation products could contribute to various health problems over time.

This is why some nutrition experts suggest that if you do use canola oil, keep it for low-heat cooking or cold applications—though honestly, at that point, you might as well use something like olive oil instead.

The Rebranding Game: From Canola Back to Rapeseed?

Here’s where things get interesting from a marketing perspective. You might have noticed “rapeseed oil” showing up more often on store shelves and restaurant menus, especially in trendy or health-conscious establishments. Wait a minute—isn’t canola oil literally rapeseed oil? Yes, it is. So what’s going on here?

A bit of history: “Canola” is actually a marketing term created in the 1970s—it stands for “Canadian oil, low acid.” The food industry needed to rebrand rapeseed oil because, well, nobody wanted to buy something with “rape” in the name, even though the word comes from the Latin “rapum” meaning turnip. Canola is simply a variety of rapeseed that was bred to be low in erucic acid.

Now we’re seeing the reverse phenomenon, and the timing is telling. With the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement gaining traction and influencers increasingly calling out seed oils and processed foods, canola oil has taken a serious PR hit. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others in the health freedom movement have specifically targeted seed oils like canola as emblematic of what’s wrong with the American food system.

So some in the industry appear to be testing whether calling it “rapeseed oil” might give the product a fresh start—perhaps making it sound more natural, more European, more artisanal. It’s the same oil, just with its original name back. Some brands are even marketing “cold-pressed rapeseed oil” as a premium product, which is genuinely less processed than standard canola oil, but it’s still the same plant.

Is this cynical marketing manipulation? Kind of. The industry is clearly responding to consumer concerns by repackaging the same product with different branding. But it’s also worth noting that not all rapeseed/canola oil is created equal—cold-pressed, unrefined rapeseed oil really is different from the heavily processed stuff, even if it comes from the same plant.

The whole situation is a fascinating case study in how food marketing works. When a product gets a bad reputation, sometimes the easiest solution is just to call it something else and hope consumers don’t notice they’re the same thing.

So What Should You Do?

Look, I get it—canola oil is everywhere and it’s affordable. You don’t need to panic if you’ve been using it. But if you’re thinking about making a change, here are some alternatives worth considering:

Extra virgin olive oil is probably your best all-around choice for most cooking. It’s minimally processed, rich in beneficial compounds, and has centuries of evidence supporting its health benefits. For high-heat cooking, avocado oil or even traditional animal fats like butter or ghee might be better options than heavily processed vegetable oils.

The bottom line? Canola oil probably isn’t the health villain some make it out to be, but it’s also likely not the health hero it’s been marketed as. And whether it’s labeled as “canola” or “rapeseed,” it’s the same product—don’t let rebranding fool you into thinking otherwise. Like a lot of things in nutrition, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and probably depends on how much you’re using, how you’re cooking with it, and what the rest of your diet looks like.

If you want to err on the side of caution, choosing less processed oils for your everyday cooking is probably a reasonable move. Your great-grandmother wouldn’t have recognized canola oil by any name, and sometimes that’s worth thinking about.