High Erucic Acid Oils

Fatty Acid Degree of Saturation3 Common Name Conventional High oleic High oleic High palmitic 

Fatty Acid Degree of Saturation Common Name Conventional (low erucic) High erucic 

These two examples clearly demonstrate the potential for development and manipulation of fatty acid profiles to improve plant oil characteristics for industrial use, and in the case of HEAR, to improve the economics of processing, reducing costs to the end user. However, one of the downsides of manipulating fatty-acid profiles in crops that have both food and non-food uses is the need to keep crops separated on the farm and in the post-farm-gate supply chain, to avoid risks of contamination of either chain. 

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In the Orient, both rapeseed and mustard oils are used extensively for food and large quantities of mustard are produced for oil in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Canada and Europe there is no production of mustard oil for edible oil purposes. All edible Canadian rapeseed oil is now from canola varieties, i.e., derived from seed low in erucic acid and low in glucosino-lates. High erucic acid rapeseed oil is used exclusively for industrial purposes, such as lubricants, slip agents for molds, and polymers. In Canada these high erucic acid oils are produced and marketed separately from canola oil. Rapeseed oils in the Western World are either very low in erucic acid for edible use or very high (over 40%) in erucic acid for industrial use. 

The polyunsaturated fatty acids, linoleic and linolenic, remain largely unchanged in the very high erucic acid oils therefore, reduction in the levels of these acids appears to be needed to achieve higher levels of erucic acid in Brassica species. 

H00C(CH2)Vobtained from high-erucic rapeseed oil, a commodity that is now produced mainly in eastern Europe. High-erucic rapeseed is raised on a modest scale in U.S., and it could be more widely grown. Its oil contains about 45 weight per-cent of erucic acid. 

Table 2.4 Fatty acid profile (% by weight) of oil from conventional and high erucic acid rape (HEAR) cultivars (Padley et ah, 1994)...

Dealing with such problems and adopting methodologies to reduce any risk of crop contamination places additional labour, infrastructure and financial burdens on growers. To address such concerns it has been proposed that non-food crop plants unrelated to current food crops and native flora (to avoid risk of crosspollination) should be used as potential hosts for engineered industrial use traits. Crambe, (Crambe abyssinica) has been identified as a suitable model oil crop plant (EPOBIO 2007). Crambe is a plant that has already been commercialised on a relatively small scale to exploit its high erucic acid content. Elsewhere, safflower has been proposed as a potential candidate, as well as the use of algae, moss and the aquatic plant duck weed in contained bioreactor systems. 

Kawamura, K. 1981. The DSC thermal analysis of crystallization behavior in high erucic acid rapeseed oil.. / Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 58, 826-829. 

Fully Hydrogenated Rapeseed Oil occurs as a white, waxy, odorless solid that is a mixture of triglycerides. The saturated fatty acids are found in the same proportions that result from the full hydrogenation of fatty acids occurring in natural high erucic acid rapeseed oil. The rapeseed oil is obtained from Brassica juncea,... 

Brassica napus, and Brassica rapa of the family Cruciferae. It is made by hydrogenating high erucic acid rapeseed oil in the presence of a nickel catalyst at temperatures not exceeding 245°. 

The traditional source of erucic acid was rapeseed oil before this acid was bred out of that oil because of its reported adverse health effects. Most rapeseed oil now contains less than 2% of erucic acid. The two major sources of erucic acid are high-erucic rapeseed oil (HEAR) containing about 50% of erucic acid and crambe oil with 55-60% of erucic acid. As will be reported later (Section 9.4), attempts to produce a still higher erucic rapeseed oil are being made by genetic engineering. Crambe oil (from Crambe abyssinica) is grown most extensively in North Dakota and to a lesser extent in Holland. 

Abbreviations HEAR—High erucic acid rapeseed LLCanola—Canola oil with low content of linolenic acid HOCanola—Canola oil with high content of oleic acid LLFlax—Flax oil with low content of linolenic acid P-8—Plastochromanol-8. 

Abbreviations HEAR—High erucic acid rapeseed oil. 

In China, canola-type rapeseed oil products still contribute a very small proportion of total rapeseed oil products. Oil from both high erucic acid rapeseed and canola rapeseed represent the largest use of edible oil at present. The oil from these two sources is almost entirely used as cooking oil. There are very little amounts of this oil used for margarine or shortening formulations at present. Efforts are being made to widen the spectrum of edible oil products and convert from HEAR cultivation to canola cultivation. 

Erucical H-102 [Lambent]. TM for a high erucic acid rapeseed oil referred to as HEAR oil. 

We thank the U.S. Agency for International Development, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) High Erucic Acid Development Effort (HEADE) Fund for financial support, and K. Carlson (USDA) for fruitful discussions and supplying samples of vemonia and crambe oils. 

Teasdale, B.F. and Mag, T.K. (1983) The commercial processing of low and high erucic acid rapeseed oils, in High and Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed Oils, (eds J.K.G. Kramer, F.D. Sauer and W.J. Pigden), Academic Press, Toronto, pp. 197—229. 

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