Who is lurking on alt.food.wine

Its possible that that they have software, but it's also pretty easy to just use Google Groups search to say once a week search canola,and spread the gospel to anyone they feel needs to find enlightment.

Isn't Canola a variety of rape genetically modified to attenuate the toxicity of the original plant?

It's Canola from strains bred to produce less erucic acid. I'd estimate once a month I get a "warning" re canola oil from some idiot.I can see why the Canola council might monitor newsgroups.

PS I think your original posting was correct, that Broccoli rabe was a marketing attempt to get the word "rape" out of broccoli rape/ rapini. Not sure how closely broccoli rabe/rape is related to the rape plant of rapeseed fame.

Rape (Colza) oil in Europe is used mainly for feed I think. At any rate it is unsuitable for cooking, apparently it is toxic when heated.

Whatever, I will stick to olive oil for salads and cooking, and sunflower for frying.

Yes, this is what she said. Dee Dee

I use extra-virgin all the way. So does Mario Batali, for what it's worth. Dee Dee

We mostly use olive, but do keep canola for when we want especially neutral oil (and for oiling grill). Rapeseed oil was used for many centuries for cooking. Last century it was discovered that at high heat points, the eruric acid could be considered a carcinogen (which is why it was banned in US for cooking, well before in Europe). But, canola oil (CANadian Oil Low Acid)has less than 1% (about the same as olive oil),. You'll get more erucic acid by eating broccoli or mustard.

Well if you get broccoli declared as a dangerous food, you'll make lots of kids happy ;-)

In some cases you do indeed need a more neutral oil. For example when you make Pesto you do not want a strong oil (Tuscan olive oil would be definitely out!), and unless you have available a light ligurian olive oil, I suppose rapeseed oil would be a good alternative.

Even easier than that. You set up a "Google Alert" to search for "canola", anytime it is mentioned on newsgroups, or on the web I believe, Google sends you an email with a pointer to the article. Incredibly useful, actually.

So most likely the canola person was not lurking at all. Maybe they will have the common courtesy to tell us all about it, too.

-E

Google is a well oiled machine (rapeseed oil is mainly a lubricant)

Mike wrote on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:23:26 +0200:

MT> Dee Dee wrote: ??>> I got in my personal inbox an email from a person at the ??>> Canola Council in regard to a posting I made here ??>> referring to Canola. I suppose etiquette calls for it to ??>> be posted to the group as well; perhaps the poster doesn't ??>> know that. ??>>

??>> I guess they want me to be well-informed. What I'd like ??>> to be informed about is: if one mentions a product in ??>> groups, is there software that companies use to filter out ??>> names - well, you get my drift..... ??>>

??>> Yes, of course, I know that the internet is open to all; ??>> Kinda silly that I would get a reply from the ??>> Canola-council for mentioning Canola on the usenet. Dee ??>> Dee

MT> Isn't Canola a variety of rape genetically modified to MT> attenuate the toxicity of the original plant?

I seem to remember that Canada issues a stamp on the centenary of a city's founding and Tisdale, Saskatchewan (I think) was badly disappointed when the Canadian Post Office would not use their slogan "The rape capital of the world!)

James Silverton Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

I once purchased a bottle of that heavy machinery lubricant when the initial blitz of "HEALTH" advertisements began. The stench was so objectionable that it took an entire day to air out the apartment after we threw the bottle in the dumpster.

Now, we go so far as to avoid any products that list that substance as one of its ingredients. I totally agree with your oil preferences, each for its intended ideal usage.

Godzilla

Mike, Although we use a fair amount of olive oil in our cooking too, its use is restricted to unheated preparations (e.g., salad dressings) or preparations that don't employ high heat. For stir frying and browning of meats, we use an oil (peanut, sesame or canola) that doesn't smoke at high temperatures like olive oil does. For those rare occasions when we deep fry (usually making chili rellenos) we'll use whatever vegetable oil is cheapest, since it will be discarded after 1-2 uses. (We need to find a friend with a biodiesel engine now, I guess)

Mark Lipid

Lipid is the word, tons of it ;-)

We also use OO in dishes requiring reasonable heat and where the taste of OO adds to the dish - ratatouille of course, but we recently have taken to preparing potatoes in the oven with some OO and rosemary...

For frying, we do the same as you, but discard after one use.

The advantage of OO is that you never discard any (if there is some left on the bottom of the plate, bread takes care of it).

Dee Dee, There are companies providing services to do web searches for specific keywords for clients. Think of it a an electronic 'clippings' service.

Jon

Mario Batali, 'one' of my favorite chefs says that he cooks everything in OO. And, I believe he said 'extra-virgin.' He says that everything foods need not be fried above the degree where it smokes.

I take his word. But I do not deepfry in a deepfryer where I use huge amounts. Dee Dee

Hi all - I'm the "person from the Canola Council" who sent DeeDee a personal message. I'm sorry - I didn't mean to be rude. You're right - it was my first blog posting and I was not up on the etiquette. Thanks Dee Dee for filling me in! Anyway - there's no mystery about how I'd see your notes. I subscribe to the free Google news alerts and joined the blog network. I read hundreds of news stories and blogs everyday. I always write anyone who's wondering about canola - oil, seed or meal. I suggested that DeeDee might like to check the Council website for canola definitions and smoke points and whatever you didn't realize you needed to know about canola. The site is

snipped-for-privacy@canola-council.org wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

If someone sent me an email because they harvested my email address from a newsgroup, I would consider it to be spam, and report it as such to Spamcop and the abuse address at the ISP. I'm just sayin'... d.