Good Fat Bad Fat

According to the UK Foods Standards Agency to stay healthy we need to have some fat in our diet since fat helps the body absorb vitamins, it's a good source of energy and a source of the essential fatty acids that the body can't make itself. What is important is the kind of fat. The FSA say that eating too much saturated fat and trans-fat has been linked to heart disease, so they recommend cutting down on food that is high in these fats and to try to have food that is high in unsaturated fat instead. They go on to say that eating unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat actually lowers blood cholesterol level and that rather than saturated fat, try to choose more foods that are high in unsaturated fat, such as oily fish or food containing oils such as sunflower, corn, olive or rapeseed. The British Heart Foundation says that saturated fats raise blood cholesterol levels more than anything else in our diets.

Cold pressed rapeseed oil contains half the saturated fat of olive oil.

Cold pressed rapeseed oil is high in unsaturated fat

There are no trans-fats in cold pressed rapeseed oil

What about Omega 3?

You are probably as bamboozled about omega 3 as the rest of us with claims of increased brain function and improved eyesight especially for infants, benefits for diabetics, reduced inflammation in cells and tissues and reduced blood pressure. Some of these may well be true but here are a few facts picked from the sea of inconclusive research and advertising hype: Omega 3 is an essential oil, in other words we must get it from our diet, our bodies can not manufacture it from the other foods we eat and it is widely recognised that most of us do not get enough omega 3 in our diets as opposed to omega 6 which is present in many of the foods we eat. According to the British Nutrition Foundation both alpha-linolenic omega 3 fatty acid (from vegetables like rapeseed) and the very long chain omega-3 fatty acids (from fish) have a beneficial effect on vascular function and protect against cardiac arrhythmias, which can cause sudden cardiac death.

The British Nutrition Foundation goes on to say that the omega-6 fatty acid content of the UK diet has risen substantially over the past couple of decades as the food industry have replaced traditional sources of fat (e.g. lard and butter) with vegetable oils (e.g. sunflower oil, corn oil), in response to research concerning heart disease. However, they go on to say that to some extent, very recently, the balance may have been partially redressed with the increased availability of rapeseed oil since the intake of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet can most readily be increased by choosing rapeseed oil instead of other vegetable oils for cooking.

Cold pressed rapeseed oil is especially high in omega 3. In fact rapeseed oil contains ten times more omega 3 than olive oil. Vitamin E Cold pressed rapeseed oil contains natural vitamin E, this is an antioxidant which works both to keep the oil fresh and helps to protect your cell membranes by acting as an antioxidant. In addition rapeseed oil has a high smoke point so can be used in cooking without releasing as many free radicals as oils with lower smoke points.

Cold pressing

We just squeeze the seed and out comes the pure oil, fully intact with all of the natural nutrients, colour and delicious flavour. Unlike industrial oil extraction we don't pre-heat the seeds, nor do we use any chemicals - this would yield more oil but would seriously lower the quality. We only press the seed once to give the best oil; this is what is meant by extra virgin. Yellow Fields cold pressed oil is not refined - simply pressed, filtered and bottled.

Rapeseed gives me hay fever

Many people think that rapeseed pollen is linked with asthma and hay fever. This is unlikely however, as rapeseed is a crop that relies on pollen transfer by insects. Since rapeseed flowers have a distinctive smell, and it flowers in spring and early summer when other pollen is in the air, hay fever sufferers may wrongly jump to the conclusion that it is the rapeseed that is to blame simply because they can smell it.