Rapeseed oil intolerance question

kippers

When my daughter was first diagnosed with having a lactose intolerance / dairy intolerance, you oldstylers were really helpful so I thought I would ask another question....

Since then, my daughter has been occaisionally poorly but we could never figured out what it was, until now. Two weeks ago I changed from 'Pure' marg to a tesco soft spread that has no dairy in...all week she has been poorly and I didn't twig what was wrong until yesterday....I think it's the rapeseed oil.

I have managed to findout that in the uk 'vegetable oils' is all they need to put on the ingredients but this covers any oil that comes from vegetables. On ringing 'Pure' customer services I have been advised that the oil it contains is palm oil and linseed oil, which almost 99% confirms to me it's the rapeseed oil that is causing the problem (as i've been scutinising all ingredients that I have been using for a while) and i'm sure i'll know for definately within the next week or two if she feels a lot better.

I am convinced that my daughter can tolerate a very small amount of rapeseed oil but her sytem just could not tolerate all of my homemade cakes, biscuits, bread etc made with it.

My question is, does anyone else suffer from a rapeseed oil intolerance or allergy and how do you cope with it?

Also, does anyone know what vegetable oil is used in Asda Light mayo (still waiting for them to ring me back) as she has always been bad after eating this even though there is no dairy in it (It has 30% veg oil in the ingredient and i'm wondering if the majority is also rapeseed oil which is why it makes her bad).

I will be going back to the docs to refer her back to the specialist to confirm but I know this takes quite some time so I am doing my research ready.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

RAS

There is no dairy in any mayonnaise; it contains egg.

Allergic reaction to rapeseed in flower is well-recognised by medics in rural areas. A family member who has problems also thinks that rapeseed oil is problematic so avoids.

[Deleted User]

all marg is bad, made for the companies to get big profits and advertised as `good for us`. Get back to nature ie butter, with nothing added and containing no commercially produced oils and chemicals

rapeseed is all around these days and gm rapeseed as well. I see them spraying here very frequently, the farmers get a good subsidy so rapeseed is very common, also used to power vehicles. My dh is allergic to rapeseed

kippers

kittie wrote: »

all marg is bad, made for the companies to get big profits and advertised as `good for us`. Get back to nature ie butter, with nothing added and containing no commercially produced oils and chemicals

Unfortunately we can't use butter as it contains dairy / lactose

honeythewitch

kippers wrote: »

Unfortunately we can't use butter as it contains dairy / lactose

Quite a lot of people with lactose intolerance are alright with a small amount of cheese and butter, so it might be worth experimenting.

suki1964

I use groundnut oil, costs a fortune but like you I like to know what is in my food

Home made mayo is easy to make

Dippypud

honeythewitch wrote: »

Quite a lot of people with lactose intolerance are alright with a small amount of cheese and butter, so it might be worth experimenting.

Some lactose intolerance can be avioded with a 'different' milk

ask your GP / dietician if trying ewe milk, goat milk -

there is even ...

Lactose Free Milk:
Lactose-free milk is designed for people with lactose intolerance. Lactose is a naturally occurring sugar found in dairy foods. It is normally broken down or digested by the body using an enzyme called lactase. However, people with lactose intolerance don’t have enough of this enzyme to properly digest lactose, resulting in lactose intolerance. Lactose-free milk has been processed to break down the lactose before packaging, making it a suitable type of milk to drink by people who are lactose intolerant.

boultdj

I'm allergic to raprseed and it's a pain to try and keep away from, it's creeping into a lot of thing's,including bread, so in my case I use butter/lard/suet/sunflower or olive oil as the fat base when I bake thing's.hth

kippers

Thanks all for your replies. We are ok with the lactose/dairy side of intolerance now and we manage great with lactosefree milk and cheese.

Also, it's not that I want to make mayo it's just that I know she has been poorly with this mayo berfore and I wanted to just confirm my suspitions that it has rapeseed oil in (as I'm still waiting for asda to ring back to confirm the oils in it).

I always thought manufactuers had to list all ingredients in their products but it's not so, as all types of oils can be under the umbrella of 'vegetable oils' i.e palm oil, linseed oil, sunflower oil, olive oil.....if you are intolerent or allergic to a particular oil then it is a minefield!

Jolinar

The refining process of oils removes most if not all of the proteins that can cause allergies. I'd say try her on the pure oil before assuming it's the oil. Marg and bought mayo can contain a ton of other sustances other than oil so it might be one of those?

Good luck, hope you find the answer soon.

Leezy2

Hi all,
Apologies if this is a little long-winded I'll try to be brief.

I became allergic to rapeseed pollen when I was in my teens (25 years ago now!), back when it was not widespread in food. It took me years to find out I was being made ill by this cheap, nasty oil, and yes it is becoming far more widespread than ever. I'll not go into detail about symptoms, but eating this stuff can be very, very painful. It won't kill me, but it really hurts and is extremely unpleasant.

The food industry uses rapeseed oil for two main reasons:

To soften other fats and food products, eg. it makes your stuff 'spreadable' from the fridge, softens your bread rolls, adds a bit of elasticity to cakes and pastry. This is either to make the manufacturing process easier, or (obvious) to change the texture of the final product;
As a substitute for more expensive oils, eg. in mass frying processes (Walkers have just started using it for their crisps instead of the more expensive pure sunflower oil), in place of olive oil in mayonnaise and salad dressings.

The problem these days is that it can be anywhere, and it hides! Where rapeseed is not listed as a specific ingredient you can be pretty sure it's contained in anything listed with 'Vegetable Oils'.

Now 'Vegetable Oil' is fine. This is refined oil and has had virtually all the protein removed. As has already been mentioned, no protein, no reaction. However, try telling a cook in a pub that 'Oil' is fine but 'Oils' is not!

The other major problem is the 'Pure Vegetable Oil' label. Often found on the front of large drums of oil used in catering kitchens. Turn the drum around, and in much smaller writing it will have an ingredients list, that's where rapeseed will be listed if it contains any.

Almost anything can contain rapeseed now, however the dry, crunchy type foods are less likely to have any in (as they don't need to be softened). The main culprits though are:
Salad dressings and mayonnaise, and therefore coleslaw, potato salad etc. Hellmann's is the only mayo I have found without rapeseed. Yes, Heinz often is just veg oil, but then some of their catering packs and sachets have rapeseed in!
Bread. Warburtons and Kingsmill are fine, Hovis and many, many others have the dreaded seed.
Pastries and deserts (usually the types with a biscuit base). Most pubs and mainstream restaurants buy in their deserts so often have no idea what's in them unless someone has saved a box.
Margarine, goes without saying. Especially the spreadable stuff.

Be aware it's fairly widespread, most European countries its called Colza, and in the States and Canada it's Canola oil (seems to originate in Canada, lots of stuff on the net about it). And Rapeseed is the new fashionable oil to use, recommended by medics etc. so we are going to find it more and more difficult to avoid it.

Hope this helps, if I can offer any more just ask, and good luck.