Rapeseed oil intolerance question

Leezy2

Got ill again this week. Both Warburtons and Kingsmill have started using rapeseed in their products. That means all mainstream breads have now got rapeseed in them. I mostly make my own, but as a shop owner we used to eat the stuff that was going out of date.

valperkins

I have an allergy to rapeseed oil, and find I can no longer buy 'crunchy' cereals as they all now use rapeseed oil, including the the more expensive ones. When I asked some manufacturers they said it was the cheapest way of getting the 'crunch' in. As some others have said, the only way to be sure of the ingredients is to prepare things yourself.

sillyvixen

its not just the food chain you need to watch, the pharmaceutical industry use all sorts in their products and it is not always easy to find the origin of an ingredient.
my food intolerance is mammalian meat products (including animal fats and gelatine) i have had reactions to things prescribed in hospital to things like blood thinners and expanders (and been told i should not have reacted as the proteins are not present in the final product!!) still was taken off my drug chart. information is still hard to find, and i only came across one pharmacist who agreed i should not have been prescribed a product as it is of porcine extraction. we are not talking about obvious items like gel capped pills - one item was given in theater under anesthetic and i reacted (despite telling both the surgeon and anesthetist i could not have it).
rapeseed oil and other cheap oils are being used by the pharmaceutical industry in all sorts of medications and most doctors/ pharmacists even be aware enough to advise you.

susan1

Rapeseed oil is also known as Canola Oil. Not allergic to it as such but gives me chronic heartburn and reflux (TMI) sorry.

Sparxva

kippers wrote: »

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).

Yes; I'm allergic to canola oil too. It was hard to figure out what was making me sick and I only determined what it was a few months ago after being hospitalized several times because of the severe reaction. Canola is used in so many products (breads, waffles, crackers, sauces, dressings, mayonnaise, etc.) in the United States that it is hard to identify the source.



I would always cook eggs for myself in a little butter and would feel fine afterward. My wife wanted to do something 'healthier' for me and would cook eggs in canola, but I would feel ill afterward. The only difference was the oil used in the pan, which helped me focus on what was causing the problem.


As for the "vegetable oil" on the label, here the labeling scheme is "may contain one or more of the following (canola oil, soybean oil, etc.)" and then the companies that make processed foods use whatever oil product is cheapest at the time. At this particular moment (November 2014) soybean oil is apparently very cheap and restaurants are using more soybean oil than canola oil. That means for a short period now my wife and I have been able to eat out more than before.


It is mostly a problem when we go to eat out. When we prepare our own food at home we simply avoid using canola for cooking. There are people that say you can't be allergic to canola oil because it doesn't contain proteins. That is only true if you are discussing the properties of laboratory-grade canola oil that has been filtered to a greater degree than what is sold in grocery stores. Also, the oil sold in grocery stores may contain traces of the chemicals used to extract the canola oil from the plants in an industrial process.


Your daughter may technically not be allergic to the actual oil but a contaminant in the oil. That said, it makes no difference since the product being used to prepare processed food may contain the contaminant as well and the only way to avoid the contaminant is to avoid the oil. Your best option is to read the food labels for everything processed that you bring into the house, including things you wouldn't think would include canola, like crackers, bread, pies, pudding, etc. It shows up in some strange places.


And when it is not possible to determine whether or not a product contains canola/rapeseed because it is just labeled "vegetable oil" or the ingredient information is not available, then she will have to avoid eating it. I'll tell you--this part sucks, I have to avoid a lot of yummy looking baked goods because I can't tell whether eating them is going to make me seriously ill. It may be hard to get a child to understand.


My last piece of advice would be to find some treat that she likes that you know does not contain canola -- something like ice cream -- and when she is disappointed that she can't have a treat that the other kids are enjoying offer to take her for ice cream instead.


Good luck!

Seakay

I was wondering if it might be the process rather than the plant (because pollen allergies don't necessarily make you allergic to the plant). I notice that most people here who have replaced have done so with pure forms of oil often cold pressed, virgin olive oil and coconut oil etc. There is a cold pressed rapeseed oil available which is a completely different colour and flavour to how rapeseed oil usually is.

This doesn't really help those suffering with shopping problems, but I m wondering if we are all going to end up with slightly different manifestations of what amounts to an allergy to industrial processes (pesticides, manufacturing etc etc)

Sparxva

Seakay wrote: »

I was wondering if it might be the process rather than the plant (because pollen allergies don't necessarily make you allergic to the plant). I notice that most people here who have replaced have done so with pure forms of oil often cold pressed, virgin olive oil and coconut oil etc. There is a cold pressed rapeseed oil available which is a completely different colour and flavour to how rapeseed oil usually is.)

It is possible that cold pressed rapeseed oil would not cause the same problems. But you still would not know whether it is a contaminant in the oil and not the rapeseed (canola) oil itself, that the filtering is just better for that particular product, or that the processing for the ordinary rapeseed oil made it rancid and the industrial process hides the smell of rancid oil.


My thought has been why bother exploring it further when there are so many other options out there that don't cause me any trouble? Extra virgin olive oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, soybean oil, and butter are regular consumables at our house. Each has utility depending on the application and the flavor desired for the food being cooked. Sesame oil is particularly nice with chicken. Avocado oil is good with lighter dishes because it does not hide the natural flavors.

Seakay wrote: »

This doesn't really help those suffering with shopping problems, but I m wondering if we are all going to end up with slightly different manifestations of what amounts to an allergy to industrial processes (pesticides, manufacturing etc etc)

Even if I learned that I am allergic to traces of rapeseed protein as a contaminant in the canola oil, it doesn't help me avoid the contaminant any more effectively than avoiding products that contain canola oil.



My wife calls ahead to restaurants to ask whether they use canola oil before we go so that I know whether I will have any menu options to eat. This informs us before we waste time going out to a restaurant where I can't eat the food, but it also becomes a source of information to the restaurants that their customers care about what oil they use to cook the food and will stop eating there if they use something that makes them sick. This is a valuable exchange of information for both us and the restaurant.


We won't all end up with allergies to these contaminants from processing the oils because even cost-conscious purchasers like restaurants will purchase products that do not alienate customers with food allergy or sensitivity problems. The manufacturers will respond to decreased demand for a product that makes people sick by altering the product so it does not make people sick--then everyone benefits.


But the process works best if people communicate their need for food choices free of ingredients that will make them sick, preferably to the owner or manager of a restaurant who is empowered to make decisions about what products to buy. Anyone running a business understands that a consumable product like fryer oil is not 'cheaper' if it drives customers away.

rapeseed_intolerance

hi, i too think ive got an intolerance to rapeseed oil. its taken me 16 years to work out whats wrong. make me feel flu,y achey, glands are swollen, sore throat and then i fall asleep for an hour after eating. im trying to work out how to approach my doctors for allergy tests. has anyone got any clues, found anything out, can help in any way?. it seems that for a "healthy oil" that has been genetically modified to enable humans to eat it, its causing rather a lot of problems for people. oh by the way it was the walkers crisps link for me that connected the dots for me, i normally eat seabrook - walkers crisps now make my mouth and lips go numb .

wondercollie

I live in a place where canola is a huge crop and have never heard of anyone being intolerant or even allergic to it.

Otzi

I discovered my rapeseed intolerance about 2 years ago. In the UK, where I live, labelling rules have changed recently. Formerly "vegetable oil" - not oils! meant one or more refined oils which did not have to be separately listed. This was ok as the refining process is reckoned to remove the allergen. But now the individual oils have to be listed whether they are refined or not. I know of at least one product where the manufacturer has assured me that the rapeseed oil is refined, and sure enough I can eat it without problems. But I don't know whether certain other products have changed the recipe or only the labelling: e.g. WeightWatchers crustless quiches and Kingsmill pancakes.
This probably applies across the EU. I wrote to my MP, but he couldn't get the European Food Standards Agency to change the rules. What's needed is to get a scientist to research rapeseed oil intolerance and get it into the scientific literature, then the lawmakers can act on it.