There are no citations for these claims in the article. While I'm inclined to avoid canola oil because there are better alternatives that are less contentious, I'm also not going to just accept the author's claims without sources.
Key takeaway: "However, more recent research has cast doubt on the relevance of rat studies to the human health of erucic acid. Rats are unusual in their inability to process erucic acid, and the symptoms in rats caused by a diet with high levels of erucic acid has not been observed in pigs, primates, or any other animals."
In any case, mustard oil has been the primary cooking oil in India since time immemorial, so if high-erucic acid cooking oils were a problem, we'd absolutely know about it by now.
I've learned to stay away from canola oil - first, I don't find it very neutral and often can tell when a place uses canola oil. Second, there seems to be a correlation between a restaurant using canola oil and me have gastro issues - not always, so I'm wondering if it is only some brands that restaurants uses that is cheaper, or maybe they reuse it too much. I had read about someone else having issues and they whenever they did, they would call the restaurant and find out what oil they used, so I started to do the same. While not all restaurants that use canola oil cause problems, whenever I have had an issue, the restaurant always were using canola oil. Very anecdotal, obviously.
I stick to peanut, soybean, or mostly extra light olive oil (or EVO for non-cooking needs).
>Added to this, much of the rape now grown worldwide is GMO – genetically modified – although not currently here in the UK, which raises many other issues.
I've always wondered what are those "issues" of genetically modified crops? If anything I would love for us to create a plant that is very low in the arctic acid they say it's bad.
The only valid argument I've heard against GMOs is that they could decrease species diversity in some crops (like corn, which in Mexico we have hundreds of varieties, and the introduction of GMO corn could out compete those local varieties)