If you eat margarine and fish and chips you have probably eaten some canola oil. Canola oil, which is obtained from the seeds of the canola plant, is used in many food products and other products such as soap, creams and lotions.

Canola oil has a low level of saturated fat (7 per cent), a high level of mono - unsaturated fat (61 per cent) and a moderate level of polyunsaturated fat (22 per cent). Due to the low level of saturated fat, canola is regarded as a healthy oil to eat. Saturated fats contribute to health problems such as heart disease.

Issues facing scientists, food producers and the companies that sell seeds to farmers are:

• Weeds grow among the canola plants in paddocks. How can the weeds be removed without harming the canola plants?
• Canola oil is among the most healthy of edible oils. Can canola oil be made even more healthy?

Biotechnology may provide some answers to these questions. Gene technology is being used to produce canola plants that tolerate weed poisons. This allows an entire paddock to be sprayed, killing the weeds but not the canola crop plants. It is possible that gene technology could also be used to reduce the amount of saturated fat in the oil that the plants produce making canola oil even healthier to eat than it is now.