Is canola oil healthy?

[Mr. Ected]

I had thought for years that it was the safest of the vegetable oils...until my wife read an article to the contrary. For now, I've switched to sunflower oil as my mainstay. I'd be interested in hearing your take on the matter.

UPDATE: My wife forwarded me the article in question, and I investigated a bit further on snopes.com. Seems a simple fact check would have answered my question.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

[seabeyond]

1. years ago i read the oils numbers against each other and came up with canola.

so have been using every since.

curious if not

btw... healthy relative. dont know if any of them are.... healthy.

[Bossy Monkey]

2. It depresses your thyroid a bit; otherwise, yes.

I use safflower and extra-virgin olive, myself.

[MissHoneychurch]

3. The plus of canola oil is

that you can heat it. Compared to olive oil which you can't.

Never heard anything that it is bad for you.

[gvstn]

4. Thanks for the Snopes link.

I only use about a quart of cooking oil a year. Just had to buy a new bottle and chose canola over vegetable oil. Glad to see I won't be poisoned. :)

It had me worried because in yesterday's articles about the rebranding of High Fructose Corn Syrup they mention Canola oil being renamed from a very chemical sounding formula.

"Renaming products has succeeded before. For example, low eurcic acid rapeseed oil became much more popular after becoming "canola oil" in 1988."

I think next time I'll go back to plain old Wesson or Crisco vegetable oil. But with a full bottle in my cupboard I guess it is time for some: