Canola Oil?

Opinions on Canola oil in cat food? I was a bit surprised when looking to discover Natural Balance L.I.D Duck and Green pea had it listed rather high up in the ingredients list and the literature spouted its health benefits. I had heard it was a not so desirable oil, to see it listed so high up was surprising. Is it really that bad or does it just have a bad rep?

Like pretty much any other food out there, you can find good and bad about it...it all depends on who's talking about it.  I, personally, don't like canola oil, but that's just me.  I don't use it at home because I prefer something more natural, like Avocado Oil or Olive Oil, and I've never heard of a "cannola" .  That being said, however, Natural Balance L.I.D. is sometimes necessary and I know of a LOT of people who need to feed it to their cats to keep them from vomiting or having diarrhea, so if we had those issues with our cats, I might use it. 

What about peanut oil
?
Grape seed oil is definitely out because if they can't ingest grapes or raisins, they shouldn't the oil.

One of my cats likes to lick up spilled olive oil on a kitchen counter.

But then both of my cats like to lick the wet floor of the shower, even though they have a clean water dish to drink from.

My cats also enjoy licking up olive oil, one of my girls is just obsessed with oils in general and any oil I buy she wants to eat (as well as Petroleum Jelly...she is an odd one!). 

I asked about Canola oil in particular because it isn't like other oils, it is a genetically engineered oil since the original plant is highly toxic (causes heart lesions) so they 'created' a version of the plant with a lower content of the toxic component. It isn't gone, just at a concentration low enough to be safe for humans. That is my concern, the toxic element is diluted enough now to be ok for adult humans but cats are WAY smaller (and canola oil is banned in human baby food for this reason). There is also the issue of a study done showing that piglets fed a milk replacer with canola oil ended up with a lethal case of vitamin e deficiency, and the scientists have no idea what in the canola oil causes it. Just a lot of questionable stuff, and was wondering if anyone else had opinions on it. 

P.S. It is genetically engineered rapeseed oil, Canola stands for "Canada Oil" which was a name created since the oil itself has a long scientific name since it is more chemical than plant. 

That being said, however, Natural Balance L.I.D. is sometimes necessary and I know of a LOT of people who need to feed it to their cats to keep them from vomiting or having diarrhea, so if we had those issues with our cats, I might use it. 

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Interestingly, the Salmon and Chicken formulas of LID do not have Canola. Only the duck version. It seems like the Duck version uses canola for their source of Omega 3's in order to keep the food affordable since Duck is a very expensive protein source and Canola is dirt cheap. The Chicken version uses Flaxseed oil, which is far healthier. I just find it suspicious, if NB was using Canola because it really felt it was a nutritious ingredient, wouldn't they use it in all flavors and not replace it with a more expensive oil in their cheaper protein source varieties? 

Jezahb said:

 

That being said, however, Natural Balance L.I.D. is sometimes necessary and I know of a LOT of people who need to feed it to their cats to keep them from vomiting or having diarrhea, so if we had those issues with our cats, I might use it. 

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Interestingly, the Salmon and Chicken formulas of LID do not have Canola. Only the duck version. It seems like the Duck version uses canola for their source of Omega 3's in order to keep the food affordable since Duck is a very expensive protein source and Canola is dirt cheap. The Chicken version uses Flaxseed oil, which is far healthier. I just find it suspicious, if NB was using Canola because it really felt it was a nutritious ingredient, wouldn't they use it in all flavors and not replace it with a more expensive oil in their cheaper protein source varieties? 

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Well, that IS interesting.  I think you are right in that since the duck is more expensive, they are cutting costs.  That's a shame .  Flaxseed oil is so much better.  As I said, I, personally do not use Canola Oil, for the very reasons you state, but if I needed to feed a limited ingredient food, and it had to be duck, then I might need to use this, IF I couldn't find anything else.  I know Royal Canin has some presciption limited ingredient foods, but don't know if they have duck or not. 

The best I have found so far that offers a non chicken/non fish based protein source and does not have any suspicious ingredients is Wild Calling! Rabbit. The second one, if people have cats that can tolerate poultry, just not as a main ingredient would be Natures Logic Rabbit and Sweet potato (it has Rabbit as the main protein but chicken fat and turkey meal as well). It is definitely hard to find a LID diet without Canola oil it seems. Not sure why so many novel protein foods add it, other than cost since Rabbit, Duck, Venison all cost a lot more than Chicken/Turkey/Salmon. Natures Variety LID had Canola, and so does Blue Buffalo basics. Royal Canin does make a duck dry food but I really dislike it, peas are the first ingredient and the only duck in it is "duck by-product meal", that is on top of listing both pea protein AND soy protein. I would be very worried about how much of the protein your cat is actually able to digest since the majority of it appears to be plant based protein which has a low bio-availability. Plus it is ridiculously expensive (17 lb bag is 107.00) for essentially junk, it is barely better than Science Diet in my opinion. 

I went through a lot back when I had my cat Pooka who had IBD, and in the end I had to make her food. I just felt like the LID diets available were questionable. That was quite a few years ago though, and they have come a long way...but aren't quite there. However, the LID canned food is. I saw a lot of canned formulas while looking around that were fantastic, so worst case scenario for IBD or allergenic cats would be to feed canned...which isn't a bad idea for any cat

I'm a bit late to this but we usually leave used up canola oil on the stove, and we caught our cat licking it for the 2nd time this week. I am scared of what might happen but should i worry? The oil was used to fry fish so maybe that's why she wanted to eat it. Although I'm not sure how much she consumed.

I refuse to put in my mouth an oil that was made for lubricating heavy machinery and steam engines. If I won't eat it, neither are my cats.

HelloNingNing said:

I'm a bit late to this but we usually leave used up canola oil on the stove, and we caught our cat licking it for the 2nd time this week. I am scared of what might happen but should i worry? The oil was used to fry fish so maybe that's why she wanted to eat it. Although I'm not sure how much she consumed.

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I'm not honestly sure whether or not ANYONE really knows. Ask two Vets and you might get two different answers. I would guess that since it's used in certain cat foods and as far as I've heard there hasn't been a big ruckus about it, it's okay (at least in small doses), and I'm guessing your girl didn't lick a whole lot of it just because it's kind of hard to do with oil . But maybe in the future you might want to put a cover over when it's not in use. You certainly wouldn't want her to sample it when it's still hot!

mrsgreenjeens said:

I'm not honestly sure whether or not ANYONE really knows. Ask two Vets and you might get two different answers. I would guess that since it's used in certain cat foods and as far as I've heard there hasn't been a big ruckus about it, it's okay (at least in small doses), and I'm guessing your girl didn't lick a whole lot of it just because it's kind of hard to do with oil . But maybe in the future you might want to put a cover over when it's not in use. You certainly wouldn't want her to sample it when it's still hot!

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Yea we have been a bit busy this week, that's why it was out. I think she did a few licks but i caught her quickly. I really hope she'll be fine.