It’s Friday, and here’s a story to warm your cockles. Manufacturers of vegetable and seed oils are apparently so flustered by our anti-vegetable- and anti-seed-oil messaging that they’ve come together to form, I kid you not, the “Seed Oil Coalition.”
He places his hand on its disgusting, swollen body.
There is silence.
He turns.
“It’s afraid,” he says…
The announcement was made via press release at the end of last month.
Canola and other seed oils are under attack.
“We are seeing more misinformation about seed oils, and a lot of that is coming through on social media,” Brittany Wood, director of canola utilization with the Canola Council of Canada, said during a recent webinar.
“If you are on TikTok or Instagram, it’s quite possible that you may have come across something that is negative or misleading.”
A quick search of the #seedoils hashtag on TikTok shows there are major influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers warning consumers to stop buying products containing seed oils such as canola oil.
They contend seed oils are heavily processed, have been bleached and deodorized and cause gut inflammation, among other criticisms.
In the release, Lynn Weaver, market development manager with the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission (what a dismal job!), was quoted as “shudder[ing] at the suggestion of anti-seed oil influencers that people should instead be consuming palm and coconut oil.”
“They’re very high in saturated fat,” said Weaver.
“You can see that when you see them on the shelf. They’re solid. They’re hard at room temperature. Those are the fats that we want to avoid.”
Big Canola is very keen to reassure readers that the formation of the Seed Oil Coalition is not at all a sign of fear or desperation. The press release states that “there is no evidence that the anti-seed oil campaign has lead to any demand destruction of canola oil.” Instead, the Coalition simply wants to ensure consumers are properly informed about the benefits of consuming vegetable and seed oils, and to fight the “misinformation campaign” currently being waged.
Note that word “misinformation.” I’ve already talked at length about how nutrition is the next frontier in the corporate information war that began with the pandemic.
The Coalition has various initiatives planned to educate the general public.
Weaver said the three provincial canola organizations are funding a Canadian marketing campaign called Hello Canola to help spread a positive message about the crop.
The group is working with social media influencers, such as Abbey Sharp, a dietician who touts the health benefits of canola oil and refutes anti-seed oil claims.
The target audience for the Hello Canola campaign is English-speaking millennials age 27 to 43 who access the majority of their content digitally.
Wood said the canola sector is also preparing a manuscript that will be published in a peer-reviewed journal that will be distributed to dieticians and health professionals to ensure they’re being informed about the health benefits of seed oils such as canola.
The council is conducting consumer market research to make sure it understands the perceptions and use of canola oil. The results are expected to be ready for publication in about six months.
These guys won’t go down just yet, but this is clearly good news. Let’s keep up the fight!
Soy is the one that will be toughest; it's a huge part of the US economy; has 4-5 futures contracts worth tens to hundreds of billions in open interest. Rapeseed oil will simply go away when we put the rape back into canola.
Keep offending the SOC's elite fat nutrition sensibilities. Spread the motto, "I *heart* lard!"