The oil Jamie Kennedy calls ‘foxy’ by Pamela Cuthbert
MacLean’s, June 18, 2007

"I call it gourmet gold. That's what it is: Canada's answer to olive oil." Culinary author Anita Stewart is talking about a hot newcomer to the booming "heart-smart" fats market: cold-pressed canola oil. The sunshine-coloured liquid, a far cry from the clear and odourless generic canola oil, is as rare as hen's teeth. But things are looking up. Until recently, one certified-organic Alberta farm supplied, on a made-to-order basis, a small local market with the deeply floral oil. Now stores including some Safeways and Sobeys are stocking the stuff, and the list of producers has doubled to include an Ontario family enterprise.

Canola, a variety of rapeseed, was developed in Canada in the early '70s. Today, the country's No. 1 cash crop for export, providing about 70 per cent of the vegetable oil consumed by Canadians, is mostly the product of a development in the 1990s: Monsanto's genetically modified Roundup Ready canola. The inoffensive oil boasts an extremely low saturated fat content. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given it a valuable endorsement with "a qualified health claim on its ability to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease," according to the Canola Council of Canada website. A popular choice for replacing banned trans fats, it is making a splash in A&W's deep fryers and will be blended with corn and soy oils for the McDonald's chain.

But questions surrounding long-term impacts of eating GM foods have put off some buyers and made this "health food" product ineligible for organic certification. With news of the cold-pressed, non-GM varieties, chefs who have avoided canola oil are creating pound cakes, bread dips and other dishes with the organic alternative. Toronto's Jamie Kennedy recently put it on his restaurant menus, seasoning a wild foraged salad.

It was Alberta grain farmers Penny and Tony Marshall of Highwood Crossing Farm south of Calgary who pioneered cold-pressed canola oil in Canada. The couple had switched to an organic-certified operation in 1989, four years before learning about the cold-pressing of seed oils in Germany. A pilgrimage to learn the techniques proved "an eye-opener," says Tony. He visited a German town where people shopped weekly for refills of flax and other oils "just like going to the butcher or the baker." Marshall brought home the reciprocating screw press, which forces the seeds through a series of increasingly smaller chambers until the oil is released. An added bit of inspiration from the German model: he made his oil to order, with once-weekly pressings.

David Wyse of Quarry Bistro in Canmore, Alta., says the Highwood oil "tastes like the Prairies." The flavour proved a challenge when Wyse decided to make a typically Italian-style cake substituting cold-pressed canola for olive oil. "It can be overpowering," he says. "but I fiddled around until I got it right. It comes off as really nutty, really good." The name? Highwood Crossing Canola Cake.

From the outset, the Marshalls' goal was to produce a homegrown product that could compete with top-grade -- meaning cold-pressed -- olive oil. "We don't heat the oil at all." The pressing is done in an oxygen- and light-free environment so that the oil's healthiest elements, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and vitamin E, are left intact. Aside from an increase in volume, including the contract with Sobey stores, little has changed -- other than the Marshalls' prime resource.

Highwood Crossing Farm is located in a broad sweep of farmland dominated by GM canola. Remember Percy Schmeiser, the Saskatchewan farmer who tried and failed to sue Monsanto for contaminating his land with GM seed? Canola grows through cross-pollination and is carried on the wind. It was only a matter of time before Marshall realized he couldn't guarantee his own canola crops as non-GM, so he sought out farmers in remote locales: "I work with five or six farmers all up in Peace River country." To be certain, he sends out random samples for DNA testing.

When Ontario farmer Jason Persall decided a few years ago to explore making cold-pressed canola, he had an easier time guaranteeing non-GM seeds. The climate in the southwestern part of the province, where his crops are sourced, is suitable to winter canola, whereas Roundup Ready is a spring variety. His brand of Pristine Oils is taking off: the Il Fornello restaurant chain in Toronto is using the canola. Chef Kennedy compares the oil to Canadian wines made with native grape varieties as opposed to European vinifera. "It has a very forward quality, which I think of as foxy."