Sto ry titl e . . . . . Elysia Vandenhurk and Natasha Vandenhurk with Craig Silliphant.
HOME Food: Camelina Oil Craig Silliphant Once upon a time, for a really long time, say from the 16th Century to the 1940s, there was a hearty and delicious type of oil seed called camelina. Camelina was used as a major edible oil crop as well as in animal feed and even as an oil for lamps. But when industrialization came along with its ‘faster and easier is better’ assembly line thinking, evil stepmother food industrialists decided to cast a spell on the oil. They didn’t want camelina anymore because it contained so many polyunsaturated fats that it was harder and pricier to hydrogenate down to make
margarine (and of course, we had little use for oil lamps once we had electricity). So camelina oil went to sleep for many years, undisturbed in its slumber, until it was awakened in Canada by three princesses. Well, that is, Three Farmers who are in fact, sisters. Hardiness & Health The seeds forThree Farmers Camelina Oil were sown when one of the founders, farmer Colin Rosengren, heard the good word about camelina oil at a seminar. Camelina sativa, to use its full name, is incredibly well suited for growing
in Saskatchewan because it adapts well to cold semi-arid climate zones like the prairies. “Camelina sativa originated in Northern Europe where climate is quite similar to that of Saskatchewan,” explains Three Farmers’ CEO Natasha Vandenhurk. “It is a very hardy crop that is drought resistant and cold tolerant.” On top of the fact that it’s a great crop to grow in Saskatchewan, camelina also has some interesting health benefits. In addition to vitamin E, the oil is rich in Omega-3, Omega-6, and Omega-9 fatty acids; some of the fats that made camelina
Boehmer Photography hard to process into margarine are the very same fats we’re now being told we should be putting into our bodies. Not to get too ‘sciencey’ on you, but our bodies don’t produce essential fatty acids (EFAs) like alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which is synthesized into Omega-3. Clinical research has suggested that an increase of ALA in human serum levels can significantly contribute to the prevention of maladies like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, and more. “Camelina oil has a balanced fatty acid ratio between
Spring 2014
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