Rapeseed oil
In contrast to what people might expect, the rapeseed oil of Sonneveld is not made of pure rapeseed but from coleseed or crossings of different coleseed plants.
Coleseed is extracted from the Brassica napus. A plant from the family where cabbage, radish and mustard belong. Rapeseed, however, is extracted from Brassica rapa. Both the Brassica napus and Brassica rapa are known to everyone in the Netherlands because they often grow along roadsides and ditch sides. All these plants are wild crops.
Differences
The differences between the coleseed plants and rapeseed plants are very small and they are usually all called coleseed. Real wild cabbage is very rare in the Netherlands and occurs as the Brassica oleracae especially in the dunes.
Rapeseed oil or coleseed oil
Previously, in the Netherlands mainly oil from rapeseed (is "real" rape oil) is used. In the 19th century there were, in the Netherlands, dozens of rapeseed oil refineries where rape oil was refined into oil patent. This patentoil was mostly used in lamps.Nowadays the terms rapeseed and coleseed oil are used interchangeably. This may cause confusion because the surrounding countries also use different names:
Language |
Brassica napans |
Oil of the seeds of the Brassica napans |
Dutch |
Coleseed |
Coleseedolie |
English |
Rapeseed or Rape |
Rapeseedoil |
French |
Colza |
Huile de Colza |
German |
Raps |
Rapsöl |
Canola
English people often call coleseed oil Canola oil. This is done for marketing reasons. "Rape" has a negative connotation in English. Real Canola oil has a different fatty acid composition and is not the same as coleseed oil. Canola stands for Canadian oil low acid and is not used in Europe because it is pressed of genetically engineered seeds.Globally, around 7 million tonnes of coleseed oil is produced. Most of this is used as cooking oil or margarine. Even coleseed oil is increasingly used to make biodiesel. China and Canada are the largest producers of coleseed. In Europe it is Germany and France that are the largest producers.