Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Discover the incredible journey of canola, from its roots to its status as a global powerhouse. Learn how Dr. Eskin’s groundbreaking research has contributed to Canada’s 29 billion dollar canola industry, making Canada the world’s largest producer of canola. Hello and welcome to the show. Welcome to the Whole Grain Podcast. My name is Jim Lenz, your host and producer of the show and director of global training and education at GEAPS. We’re the mission of the Grain Elevator and Processing Society is to champion, connect and serve the global grain industry and its members. At GEAPS, we work to become the global community and thought leader for the grain industry, which feeds and fuels the world. Thanks for listening today and for joining the network of thousands of other grain handling and processing professionals across the globe taking strategic steps to grow professionally. The Whole Grain Show will give you the competitive advantage to win at work so you can make more of an impact.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
In this episode of Whole Grain, our focus is on canola. Canola now supports a number of applications, including cooking oil, processed foods, biofuel, animal feed and protein for human consumption, as well as a broad base of industrial uses. Our guest is Dr Michael Eskin, distinguished professor from the University of Manitoba. This episode provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of canola as a commodity, highlighting key insights from Dr Eskin’s expertise in the field. Let’s get started, all right. Our guest for today is a distinguished professor, department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the University of Manitoba, the Fort Garry campus in Winnipeg. His research includes edible oils, canola oil, polyphenols, food carbohydrates and food enzymes. Some of his awards include being inducted into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2023. Include being inducted into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2023. And in 2023, he also received the Canola Excellence Award by the Manitoba Canola Brewers Association, and that’s why it’s super exciting to welcome Dr Michael Eskin to the show. We appreciate you joining us.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
It’s my pleasure.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
To allow our listeners to get to know you. Could you share with our listeners a mantra or success quote that you live by professionally?
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I always go by the mantra never start anything that you’re not going to finish. Life is too short and to waste on things that you are not going to see a successful end. So I’ve always worked on that. So I’m very careful in what I start, because I always intend to finish it and I’d say probably 90% of whatever I’ve started I have been able to accomplish.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
That’s a very good statement and that makes all good sense. So you’ve got to have an understanding of what you’re capable of and your surroundings and the time and investment. What does a project entail and look like? Does it make sense for me? Does it make sense for the organization? Very, very good, sound advice. Thank you so much, Dr. Eskin. You’ve dedicated much of your research and work on canola to best support our listeners, who may be in a spectrum from minimal to no experience and understanding of canola to. You know just the opposite a vast experience of working with canola. Big picture wise. Tell us about canola what is it? And about your journey into agricultural research, including your early experiences with canola.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Well, essentially, canola is not indigenous to Canada. Essentially, canola is not indigenous to Canada. And in the 30s a Polish farmer emigrated to Saskatchewan in Canada, and a friend of his sent him some seeds rapeseed seeds and they grew extremely well and he passed it around to his neighbors, et cetera. And then, with the introduction of the Second World War, it turned out that the oil from rapeseed was a wonderful lubricator for marine engines and in fact, as a result, canada had a growing program to grow rapeseed specifically for that, and they also imported from Argentina that also has a variety of rapeseed. And so that’s how the whole thing began. They grew and then, thankfully, after the end of the Second World War and in the introduction of diesel engines, they did not need a marine oil, a lubricant. So the question was asked and this was in the 40s was this oil, does this oil have any value? And it was green, it had a, you know, it didn’t smell so great and it had a fatty acid composition that was very high in a fatty acid called erucic acid, which was C22-1, up to 50% to 70%. And so the question was asked then can we do anything with this? And so it took, from the 40s to in the 60s two final breeders. I mean, there was a lot of work done to get to that point. One was Baldor Stephenson in Manitoba and Keith Downey in Saskatchewan, and they were both breeders. The joke with Baldor Stephenson he was hired by the University of Manitoba to study legumes and he said look, I’m interested to have a look at the rapeseed, what we can do with it. And so the head of the department said no problem, as long as you fulfill the requirement for the legumes, go ahead. Anyway, of course Canada is well known for its wheat, and so the wheat breeders used to tease him like hell. It was quite something. I understand a colleague who spoke with him and anyway they had to eat. Eventually they I mean canola suddenly became very when I came in.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I came to the University of Manitoba in 68. I had wonderful colleagues, Marion Vazigenza, and she pulled me in. I’m basically a food chemist, a food biochemist. I did my PhD, actually in toxicology, and I got tired of sacrificing animals and I said I wanted to do something that is a little different. So I moved into food science. I taught for a couple of years in the UK at what is now South Bank University, and a position opened up at the University of Manitoba. It looked interesting. I thought I’d sort of try it for two years and so I came, and 56 years later I’m still here, Wow. And so she pulled me into what was then rapeseed canola and the two breeders were really working very well and Stephenson had a gentleman called Fritz Haugen who was a chemist and with the discovery of the gas chromatography, that opened up the whole area. So, in other words, for the breeders, if they’re doing the old cross-breeding, they had something that could analyze them, analyze the oil, very quickly. So they could, and this really opened up the whole thing. And so, essentially, marion came in. I was pulled in by Marion Vazigenza, and then there was a group, four of us. Two of them looked after the nutrition the late Bruce McDonald, the late Vivian Bruce and I and Marion looked at the composition, the performance, the stability, and so that’s how I was pulled in.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
The Rape Seed Council became the Canola Council.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
The name changed and we were commissioned to write a booklet that would explain the oil to health professionals, industry around the world, which we did, and we went through five revisions and in fact it was the last one was considered so good that the University of California Davis used it in a graduate course in lipids, so that really helped to establish and it really changed the agricultural landscape of Canada. So, in other words, while wheat is a significant crop, canola I think outdoes it. While wheat is a significant crop, canola I think outdoes it. I mean canola now brings in annually about $29 billion a year to the Canadian economy, which is probably about $22 billion and employs over 200,000 people worldwide. So we have no idea of the yeah, significance of what we were doing Right, and it’s one of these things, that serendipity that you were very, I was very lucky and very fortunate to come in at that time.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I mean a lot of us we do research this area but you don’t see the impact, the global impact, of that. So now it’s the third largest edible oil after palm oil and soybean, and in Canada it accounts for half of the edible oil consumed. So really quite a success story, yeah that is amazing.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Obviously, you can’t predict the future, but even if you could do a little predictions, you could never even imagine the global scale, and you and the team were pioneering in this. It’s just neat to hear this background. I think this is going to be a rich experience to understand that. So that is a lot of the origin. Could you tell our listeners about the significance some more of canola as a crop in Canada and its economic potential? I mean, what is next? What do you see the future?
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I mean essentially, canola was unique because I remember years ago, when it came to nutrition, everyone was looking at the PS ratio. I don’t know whether you remember that the polyunsaturated is saturated in terms of cholesterol and of course that ratio was really very inaccurate because monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid, was also very effective. So canola was an oil that had probably the lowest in saturated fat. The high in oleic acid was close to 60%, 20% linoleic acid and 8% to 12%, depending on the agronomic conditions, in omega-3 fatty acid. So he had the perfect balance in terms of health-wise. And of course, one of the challenges of course in North America is with the frying. For years hydrogenation was the mantra for producing saturated fats for frying and of course it was shown to produce a lot of trans fatty acids. And there was a famous professor in the University of Illinois who found out, who actually contacted the FDA 50 years ago, saying you know, trans fatty acids is really not good, should not be, hydrogenation is a problem. But the FDA ignored them and 50 years later, at the age of 100, he soothed, not from a nasty point of view, but he died at the age of 103. Of course, canola being high in oleic acid, what they went through is to produce an oil that is more stable to prime because the more polyunsaturated fatty acid, the rapid oxidation and that’s why it was hydrogenated. But in hydrogenation, instead of saturating, all the double bonds changed. The natural double bonds have a double bond with the hydrogen on. Like this side, the hydrogenation switched hydrogen to that. That’s what’s called a trans, and that trans double bond was equivalent in properties to a saturated double bond but it was very bad health-wise in terms of cholesterol and very negative values. So obviously Europe used it into esterification and so they never hydrogenated. So once this was identified, they had to find a way to overcome the frying. So canola and soybean subsequently also developed the high oleic oils. Already canola was very high 60, so they increased the level from 60 to 80 something percent, lowered the linoleic, the polyunsaturates, and you had a very effective oil that could tolerate frying and could produce safe products. So that was really the major development because of the large market for frying, both industrial as well as for producing products. So that was the major change in terms of producing, modifying the oil, the current one.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Looking at terms, from canola they produced a canola oil that is almost, they say they can classify it as zero transit, so low. And then they have introduced and workers also going in soybean as well and sunflower. They’ve produced oil because one of the major challenges in North America is we don’t get enough omega-3 fatty acids. Ok, you have omega-3 eggs, etc. But in other words people are not eating enough fruit and vegetables and with the pandemic, of course, it just exasperated the situation.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
So they’ve developed niche oils where they have actually put a DHA, which is a polyunsaturated fatty acids with omega-3, and they place that in most of oils are solutions of triglycerides, are solutions of triglycerides, which is like you have a trihydrochloric alcohol with three. It’s like a fork and on each fork is attached a different fatty acid. So that’s your triglyceride. So the nature of those fatty acids are really important and so what they have done? They’ve put DHA this on one of those and they’ve produced this niche oil that is now available. So they’re looking for developing these niche oils which are becoming fairly successful.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
So there’s a lot of activity going on. In fact, there was a book the oil chemists did on Hyolae coils, which I did a chapter with colleagues from Canola Council on Hyolae, canola and in terms of its development, I mean what was interesting years ago, after canola was developed, there was concern about the frying stability. So I was involved in the development of a low linoleic acid oil which was much more stable. And the low linoleic acid oil had a higher oleic and that actually was a pre-step to the formation of high oleic oils. So that’s what is being used in industrial frying high ole coils.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
So there’s been incredible research and evolution with canola and, aligned with that, has been incredible growth within the Canadian markets. Canada is the largest producer of canola today. Is that correct? That is correct and, of course, used in food products, but are you able to elaborate on the other uses of canola?
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Well, I mean, it’s used for margarines, for making fats, and it’s used in a whole variety of different products. They’re all in terms of mayonnaise, as you name it, and potato chips and a whole host of processed products. They’re all in terms of mayonnaise, as you name it, and potato chips and a whole host of processed products. It is used, so it is used very extensively.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
One thing I wanted to inquire about is the importance of collaboration. Anything you want to add? Were there any other notable collaborations with STEAM researchers and institutions emphasizing the collective effort in advancing canola research?
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Yes, I mean there’s a collaboration with Cargill through the Canola Council of Canada. There was a lot of work done. We did a lot of work on blending and now I’m sort of at the stage where I’m going to be 83 this year and I’m on a reduced appointment. My wife is telling me when I’m going to retire. You know, I said you know when you’re doing something you love and you’re being paid for it, that’s really quite a nice. And I also have written quite a few books. My 18th book just came out in the States on what we call functional foods etc. I’ve done two books on canola and then there’s the Bailey’s Bible of fats that I, the group that I have, we collaborate in doing the chapter on canola oil. So there’s a lot of things going on.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Wow, that is dedication to canola.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I have done work in a lot of areas that were so interesting Years ago. One of the challenges now is to get. The oil is very good in the States. When it comes to soy, the soybean oil is sort of like the second byproduct, whereas the soybean meal is used very extensively not quite as and it’s limited to animal feed. And there are projects going looking at isolating some of the protein fractions.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
And years ago one of the things that we were concerned about is in plants there’s something called phytate, and phytate is a store of phosphorus and when plants germinate, all plants will have phytate. When plants germinate, they need to have energy for germination, so that phosphorus is used to produce compounds called atp, adp, is you name it? It’s responsible for our energy, for the energy in the in the firefly. It provides energy. Otherwise, for instance, I always say biological oxidative machines, and if all the energy was released, we would just boil, because our metabolism is there to produce energy. So the energy is stored in our body as ATP, so when we need it for metabolism, that ATP is an enzyme that converts from ATP to ADP and releases energy. So phytate is very important. However, phytate was considered to be an anti-nutritional compound years ago. Why? Because it chelated metal ions like calcium or zinc for example. So there was concern years ago about feeding canola meal to animals with the impact on the zinc in the bone. So I got this grant to do the work on, but I didn’t get the money to develop a method for measuring phytate.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Now I grew up in the wonderful bucket chemistry days. You need very sophisticated equipment to really do really sophisticated research. Okay, my day. I always remember the story of a colleague who was a very eminent lipid chemist and he did his PhD in London after the war and they heard about gas chromatography. Someone had developed it in northern England. So he was at Imperial College and the guy said to him go spend the day there, see what you think. So he spent the day and he came back. He said well, what do you think? He said I think I can make something like that. You can’t do that and so I did develop a method, a colorimetric method. That was very effective. I still get a few hundred reprint notifications of using it.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
But now phytate because it chelates metal ions like iron, it is now considered to be an important antioxidant Because what happens is ferric. Particularly ferric ions are very. They catalyze oxidation. So something that was considered to be bad now has been, if you like, redeemed. So things do change. So things do change, and so what I’ve been working on was given to her on the condition that I would be her mentor. So I became her mentor and then became a colleague and unfortunately she passed away just prior to the pandemic from cancer that was undetected the pandemic from cancer that was undetected. So I took over three graduates, four graduate students, and the last one just graduated, and they all did very well.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
So we looked at phenolics, because canola is very rich in something called synapine and synapine years ago was a problem. Why, years ago, when fed to hens that produced brown shell eggs, it produced a fishy odor. It was that particular breed of hens. And so I actually did some work on synapine, going back in the 70s, where it was a horrible method to measure it, using Rhinoceros salt, and I developed a method using titanium tetrachloride that was really very effective and we published it. And now, of course, there’s fancier ways we measure it with HPLC. But what is really interesting in that the Japanese discovered in 2005, that when they process the oil, that synapine the synapine in that was converted Synapine is something called synaptic acid, to which choline is attached.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
And what happens? During processing? The choline is released. You have synaptic acid. And then what happens to that synaptic acid is it loses carbon dioxide, like decarboxylation, and it forms something called cannelol. That cannelol is a very effective antioxidant and also an anti-cancer agent. So there’s been a lot of interest and we’ve been working on that for about 10 years, trying and finding green ways to cause that conversion. It’s not naturally present but to produce that and we’ve done quite a bit of work on that.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Wow, that’s fascinating Just the depth and scale in relation to the research of canola, because I was going to ask you know, before we conclude, kind of reflect on that current state of the canola industry and potential areas for further research innovation. You just shared some of that and I was going to ask you know what does that future direction look like, what are some of those challenges you know that you believe are facing the industry and what are the opportunities for growth and sustainability. Anything else you want to add there?
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I think that really covers, certainly on the canola. And see, one of the challenges is, I remember the breeders were saying, with climate change, that the canola tends to like to have a cooler climate. Okay, so I know the breeders, years ago and I were looking at modifying the leaves, the composition in the leaves, so they can adjust to the temperature, because you know now soybean, soybean, you know soybean is grown in canada, a certain amount in ontario, particularly right warmer climates yeah.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Warmer temperatures yeah in in response to the. The change in in climate, yeah wow, very interesting.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
So whole grain listeners. This interview aimed to cover Dr Michael Eskin’s remarkable career journey, scientific contributions, collaborative efforts and his lasting legacy in the canola industry. He’s weaning off it, but he’s still working on this. You said how old? 84 years old.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
I’m 83 this year.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Okay, 83 years young. Just amazing. Such dedication to canola, providing listeners here with valuable insights into the world of canola research and innovation. We encourage Whole Grain Podcast listeners to continue exploring the world of canola and its significance in agriculture and nutrition. On behalf of the entire team at the Green Elevator Processing Society, GEAPS, we express our gratitude to you for sharing your insights and expertise and providing a lasting legacy in the canola industry. Many of our members are working in the canola industry and it’s good to provide some greater context and evolution of canola, and we thank you for serving as guests on Whole Grain.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
Yes, well, I know we’re collaborating with a colleague. We’re looking actually at phenolics in wheat. All right, pulled me into that one.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Well, thank you for being a guest in the show. We thank you so much.
Dr. Michael Eskin:
My pleasure.
Jim Lenz, GEAPS:
Thank you, listeners of Whole Grain. We thank you for making time in your day to join us in this episode. You can catch the show on your favorite podcast app. Just do a search for Whole Grain. Be sure to hit the subscribe button so that you can easily stay connected with the show. The Whole Grain podcast can also be found on the Jeeps website at jeepscom. Forward slash whole grain. The Whole Grain show is a production of GEAPS. The Grain Elevator and Processing Society, the Grain Elevator and Processing Society, is the largest organization dedicated to advancing the grain handling and processing industry. Be sure to www. geaps. com out . Continue listening, share the news of the show with your friends and colleagues. Have yourself a great day and thanks for listening to Whole Grain.
