Rapeseed Oil: what it is and where it hides
Short answer
Rapeseed oil and canola oil are the same refined seed oil — 'canola' is the North American trade name for the low-erucic-acid rapeseed varieties, and European labels usually say rapeseed.
Also written as
On an ingredient list this oil can appear as canola oil, colza oil. Olive Detective normalises every one of those to a single flag, so a label in another language does not slip past.
Where you run into it
- European and UK packaged food (where it is labelled rapeseed, not canola)
- Frying oil blends and margarines
- Sauces, dressings and ready meals
Why people avoid it
Because it is the same oil as canola, it draws the same objection: a high omega-6 profile and heavy industrial refining. Olive Detective normalises both names to one flag, so a French or German label does not slip past.
What people use instead
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Cold-pressed avocado oil
- Butter or ghee
How the app flags it
Scanning a barcode matches the product against Open Food Facts and reads its parsed ingredient taxonomy, so rapeseed oil is detected by canonical tag rather than by string-matching English text. If the barcode is not in the database, the camera reads the ingredients panel instead. The flag feeds the personalised “For You” score only as heavily as you ask it to — seed oils are one preference among several, not the whole verdict.
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