Take the RapeseedOilBenefits.com challenge: non-testers add your feedback - you could win a £150 voucher NOW CLOSED

[KatieBMumsnet]

Did you know rapeseed oil, sometimes labelled vegetable oil, is one of the healthiest and most versatile cooking oils you can buy? That's the message from RapeseedOilBenefits.com, a not-for-profit campaign that aims to inspire people to use this cooking oil.

Take part in the RapeseedOilBenefits.com challenge and add your feedback here by to be entered into the prize draw:

~ Official testers (those selected by MNHQ) can win a £250 supermarket voucher of their choice
~ Non-official testers' who add a comment can win a £150 supermarket voucher of their choice

The challenge is to buy two bottles of rapeseed oil - one labelled 'vegetable oil' and the other labelled 'cold pressed' - and then to use these in place of your normal cooking oils for two weeks and tell us what you think. (If you already use rapeseed oil, feel free to take part in this challenge too.)

If you have any questions about rapeseed oil, go to RapeseedOilBenefits.com to ask the nutritionist and check out their guide to rapeseed oil FAQs.

Do try their easy and tasty recipes while you're there.

Please add your feedback here on the following:

~ Let us know what you think of rapeseed oil and if you knew about the benefits already or not

~ Have you tried out any RapeseedOilBenefits.com recipes? How did you and your family find them?

~ Please add any other comments, recipes, tips or ideas you have too - we'd love to hear from you at various stages of the challenge

Thanks

MNHQ

Please note comments made on this thread may be reproduced by Rapeseed Oil Benefits (AHDB)
Closing date: 19 August 2013, winners will be selected at random from all posting a comment: either a tester or non tester - prizes as above.

Made the light spaghetti carbonara last night. My family and I are enjoying cooking together and really enjoy the taste of the rapeseed oil and cold pressed rapeseed oil. We will certianly be converting from olive oil.

DW and DD are going to try a lemon cake made with rapeseed oil this morning.....(pesterpower goes a long way to making the most of these challenges particularly when they involve food making activities)

I am one of the official testers. Thanks again for the voucher.

As with other testers I was surprised to see that the standard vegetable oil we normally use was already 100% rapeseed oil so to some extent we have been testers for a while and regularly use this oil. I discovered this when I was looking for rapeseed oil in our local supermarkets and reading the small print on the back of the bottles. Like other testers it was harder to find a cold-pressed oil - I eventually found the Farrington's Mellow Yellow in Waitrose. The bottle is attractive and the oil is a deep yellow colour. There is no discernible smell.

Reading Hugh Feaney-Whittingstall's cookery books I was aware of the benefits of using locally-produced oil but hadn't fully appreciated the health benefits until I saw the product test thread.

We have continued to use the vegetable oil as we would normally do so (in bread in our bread maker, on potato wedges in the oven are two examples) but really focused on using the cold pressed oil in place of our olive oil. We have used it in all of our usual recipes and haven't noticed any difference taste wise. The oil heats to a higher temperature than olive oil so is much better in stir frys. I noticed that the higher cooker temperature caused more splatters when i was browning chicken pieces and have learnt to adapt the cooking temperature on the hob. I've also found that you need less of it and am pleasantly surprised how little of the bottle we have used so far.

From the RapeseedOilBenefits.com I have made the Lemon Chicken Parcels which were really tasty and seemed a healthy, light family meal. I used home-grown courgettes and onion in place of the baby corn and together with some packet couscous (made with vegetable rapeseed oil) and salad this was a filling meal.

Reading some of the other posts I'm now keen to try some of the baking recipes and will post again with feedback.

Thank you for the opportunity to try the Rapeseed Challenge. I found it really interesting to find out that vegetable oil was actually Rapeseed. I normally use Sunflower oil and Olive Oil (not extra virgin) for cooking. I use Extra Virgin for Salads and pasta. So I swapped it all. I used the Vegetable oil for normal cooking and to be honest never noticed. There isn't really a taste to it and cooked as well as Sunflower oil... was also much cheaper!
As for the Cold pressed I bought the British Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil. I used this in place of my Extra Virgin Olive oil. Obviously it doesn't taste the same but to be honest I preferred it as it was more subtle. I could definitely taste something with this compared to the Veg oil. What I love is this is British. Not imported like olive oil. Costs about the same and I know it will help British Farmers. I am a convert!

Thanks for choosing me MN. It's been a culinary pleasure. And in our quest to buy mainly British this is excellent, healthy(as healthy as oil can get) and easy to get hold of!

Had a look on the website for recipes - there are some nice vegetarian ones on there if you scout around (will definitely make oat and chickpea dumplings) but you might want to sort out the search facility, as it thinks salmon is a vegetable!

I bought Sainsburys Extra Special British Coldpressed rapeseed oil and Sainsburys vegetable oil. I was impressed with both these oils but I preferred the taste of the cold-pressed. I usually use olive oil but the cold-pressed was lovely as a salad dressing - nutty flavour and a light, fresh taste. I made the bacon, mustard and potato salad with the oil and it was delicious. I would definitely use these oils again, and these oils seem better value than olive oil.

I bought Sainsbury's veg oil and Borderfields cold pressed. The cold pressed has been great in salad dressings and a whole range of cooking. I haven't really enjoyed the veg oil - it left a definite flavour in a carrot which my usual sunflower wouldn't.

Made dressing (again) using balsamic rather than red wine vinegar with the cold pressed. DS wanted dressing (with a different dinner ) and Dp managed to knock the jug onto the carpet from what I could tell this was a rounded success.
I just cant taste anything in the cheap stuff so Im using the cold pressed for everything, soup next, and may give the veg oil away, (previously used Organic &/or EVOO for most things as I LIKE the bitter olive taste.

Thank you so much for the voucher and for the opportunity to try the rapeseed challenge.

~ Let us know what you think of rapeseed oil and if you knew about the benefits already or not
I usually use olive oil for both cooking and as salad dressings. I was not aware of the rapeseed oil benefits but now that I am I will be using it in the future. The bottle I bought of cold pressed oil was £3.49 which isn't cheap but will last us for ages and about the same price as olive oil anyway.
I used the oils instead of olive oil for all my cooking and salads and no-one noticed the flavour change. The only thing my husband commented on was that the cold pressed oil was very yellow on his salad!!

~ Have you tried out any RapeseedOilBenefits.com recipes? How did you and your family find them?
I've not tried any of the recipes yet but they do look good and I will give them a go when I next do my meal planner.

~ Please add any other comments, recipes, tips or ideas you have too - we'd love to hear from you at various stages of the challenge
I liked the fact it is British and with the extra health benefits I will be buying it in the future.

Thanks for the opportunity to try it out. :)

I must say I am a complete convert now and love the taste of Rapeseed.
When you see all those expensive bottles of olive oil on the shelves, that don't taste half as nice, it makes you realise just how brainwashed we can become by supermarket clap trap.

Thanks fuckwittery! Will go off and have a google and read that science link and have a go!

We made the Thai Turkey burgers and oh my god they were lovely. Definitely becoming a regular in our house. I also made roasties with both oils to see how they compared. The vegetable oil ones were a little bit tastie but felt much more greasy. The cold pressed ones were slightly less yummy, but they were way less greasy feeling and the texture was way better. I'll definitely being using the cold pressed for roasties from now on, they all taste the same once you put gravy on top, so textures the more important thing.

This week I've been using the vegetable oil in my cooking. I have to say I haven't noticed much in the way of differences between it and my sunflower oil. There's absolutely no notable difference. Considering the benefits it seems daft to get sun flower oil now. It does feel more greasy than the cold pressed oil, but it's a really good every day cooking oil. Like I said before I love that there's the option of every day oil and fancy oil.

Safe to say this household is converted to rape seed oil.

I've now been able to actually do the testing bit.

I got a bottle of cheap sainsbury's vegetable oil and some extra virgin cold pressed stuff. The vegetable oil is... well... Vegetable oil. I used it to make some stir fry and it was fine. The kids noticed no difference really and were more interested in what was in the sauce than anything else (mirin, soy sauce and some wine for anyone ho might care).

The cold pressed stuff is indeed very yellow. I made a simple salad dressing with it (just some oil and cider vinegar) which was nice. I think I prefer the flavour of olive oil generally, but it's always good to have variations on dressings. I don't think I'd want to dip bread in the rapeseed oil though, as the flavour on it's own was a bit standard vegetable-oily.

I tend to choose ingredients based on flavour rather than their supposed health qualities. So I'd be likely to use the rapeseed oil in dishes where the flavour was appropriate rather than switch to using only rapeseed oil.

Ooh, joining in! I'm a very recent convert to rapeseed oil, I have just moved to Kent and the farm just down the road cold presses their own (the brand is 'Pure Kent' if anyone is interested - highly recommended).

It is sold in the local farm shops, £4.75 for the large bottle. Been really impressed, will never buy any other type of oil again, as I really like supporting local.

I used it last night in place of olive oil in pesto, and it's really good. I also give a bottle to my foodie friends as a gift when we go to their house for a barbecue/lunch etc, our local farm shop will wrap it for you, so it's like giving a gift of extra-virgin olive oil (DH was a bit skeptical about a gift of cooking oil, but so far the reception has been positive!)

Not an official tester but I've been trying out rapeseed oil - both the usual stuff and coldpressed - and frankly I'm completely unimpressed and don't care for the flavour at all, or the way food feels much greasier after being cooked in it. I'll be sticking to olive oil. I'm also very dubious of the health claims on the website, as I always am for any site dedicated to pushing something for its supposed health benefits. Rapeseed oil? Snake oil more likely!

I have been using the rapeseed oil for over a week now and have to say I'm impressed. I haven't tried any of the recipes on the website because I had already done my fortnight's shopping before finding that I had been chosen but I would really like to try the cheese scone recipe and the baked peaches. I have been using it instead of any other oil in all my cooking.

The vegetable oil has been fine, I do notice a slight taste in some of the food but it is a positive one and nothing overpowering so that has been a straight forward swap really.

The cold pressed oil is lovely. It smells and tastes great and I actually prefer it to the cheap olive oil that I normally use. It makes great roast potatoes and works nicely in bread recipes too. Also makes nice salad dressings.

I wasn't aware of the health benefits before taking part in the challenge but it is an easy way to help my family eat healthily. I am converted. Thanks for the chance to try this out as I probably wouldn't have made the switch on my own.

The scones are divine, and are a lovely colour!

This evening I cooked sauté potatoes in the cold pressed and they came out tasting gorgeous. They are oily tasting with normal rapeseed, but with this they were so tasty and although oily, it was like a dressing rather than a greasy coating.

Tomorrow I am taking it to my sisters house to add to a salad and get their opinions....

OK, have tried the oil for almost 2 weeks and I have to say I will be buying it in place of Olive Oil from now on. The cold pressed oil is brilliant, it tastes nice and light and makes a lovely salad dressing when mixed with a little balsamic vinegar. There is also some produced nice and close to where we live cutting down on food miles and supporting local farmers :)

~ Let us know what you think of rapeseed oil and if you knew about the benefits already or not

I didn't know about the benefits, I was vaguely aware of it (we live quite near a farm which grows lots of rape).

~ Have you tried out any RapeseedOilBenefits.com recipes? How did you and your family find them?

We tried the scones (yum, they will be featuring regularly) and DH loved the mayo from the website. I've mostly used it in place of olive oil when cooking / baking or in place of butter when baking cakes. It works really well and keeps bread lovely and moist.

~ Please add any other comments, recipes, tips or ideas you have too - we'd love to hear from you at various stages of the challenge

We will definitely be using it more frequently, it is a very reasonably priced oil and tastes fantastic. We had it as a dip in place of olive oil with breads and cheese one night and it was yummy.

Cooking again and this time I made a banana and choc chip loaf for DDs guide camp holiday. The recipe called for 100g of butter and so (after a bit of research) I substituted the butter for 80ml of rapeseed oil. The cake looked light and fluffy but for taste analysis we'll have to wait until Sunday when the guides return!

AnneEyhtMeyer Hi there. I googled you very same question and the answer I got was 100g butter / marg is equivalent to about 80ml rapseed oil. I tried it with a banana and chocolate loaf cake as above and it seemed to work really well.

Oh Herman thank you! I couldn't find that anywhere and I just keep reading about chocolate cakes and I don't like those. I am nervous that I can't seem to find anything about non-chocolate cakes - I wonder if other cakes just don't work?

I have been chosen for this, no vouchers have arrived yet?