Lack of protein means canola oil isn’t genetically modified
The first thing I did Friday night when I got home from work was go into the kitchen and get out the bottle of canola oil to look at the label.
And sure enough, just like Dale Adolphe of the Canola Council of Canada said it would, the label confirmed there is no protein in the oil.
And if there is no protein, then there is no detectable genetically altered DNA in the oil.
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So, canola oil is not a genetically modified food despite the fact that in the popular news media in Canada, canola is on the leading edge of the GM food debate.
Given that more than half the canola grown in the last couple of years has been of varieties genetically modified to be tolerant of certain herbicides, there is a good chance the oil was crushed from seed that was genetically altered.
But through the oil processing, the protein, and the changed DNA, is removed.
The situation is the same with other vegetable oils such as soybean and corn.
This is a significant fact. However, it is probably too subtle to make much impact in the highly emotional debate on consumer acceptance of GM foods.
Yet it is the sort of detail that will become important as the food industry tries to find its way through new GM labeling rules developing in Europe and elsewhere.
Last week the European Union agreed to compulsory labeling for foods where at least one ingredient contains more than one percent of GM material.
Questions abound
Adolphe said this threshold has reduced some of the uncertainty around the EU’s labeling law. But there are still many questions, such as how and when you sample for GM content.
He noted some tests are so sensitive they can pick up residual dust of GM corn in a shipload of non-GM wheat. Should the wheat be considered to contain GM material?
Adolphe also noted the EU rules say there can be up to one percent of GM material that has been approved by the EU.
However, the EU has not yet approved most GM crop varieties.
Since the tolerance for non-approved GM varieties is zero, it makes a sham of the one percent threshold.
This is just one of the confusing and frustrating issues arising as countries around the globe struggle to come to terms with the new genetic science.
There are sure to be more.
