Camelina

Camelina is an erect annual about half a metre to a metre tall, with narrow arrow-shaped leaves and clusters of small yellow flowers. The pods are rounded and pear-shaped, each containing several tiny, reddish-golden seeds about one to two millimetres long. The seeds are roughly thirty to forty percent oil.

Camelina oil is golden, with a nutty, slightly mustardy flavour sometimes compared to asparagus or green tea. It is sold cold-pressed in bottles as a salad oil and in supplements. The remaining press cake is used in animal feed. The plant grows on poor soils with little fertiliser and tolerates cold and drought.

Camelina is native to southeastern Europe and central Asia, and grows as a weed of flax fields, which gave it the names false flax and flax-weed. It has been cultivated for thousands of years in Europe, with seeds found at Bronze Age and Iron Age sites in Europe and Scandinavia.

The genus name Camelina comes from the Greek chamai, on the ground, and linon, flax, because of its association with flax. The names gold-of-pleasure and German sesame refer to the golden seeds and oil. Leindotter in German means flax dodder.

Camelina was an important oilseed in northern and central Europe from the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages, used for lamp oil, cooking and soap, and it was often grown alongside flax. Archaeological sites from Britain to Russia show it was an established crop. Its drought tolerance and short growing season made it valuable in colder climates.

With the rise of rapeseed and other higher-yielding oil crops in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, camelina declined to near-forgotten status, surviving in small pockets of Eastern Europe and Russia. Interest returned around the year 2000 as researchers rediscovered its omega-3-rich oil, low input needs and potential as a biofuel crop, including aviation fuel.

Today commercial production is found in North America, Europe and Australia, often as a rotation crop on marginal land. Camelina oil has gained approval for use in foods in several jurisdictions, and it is marketed as a plant source of omega-3 fatty acids. The meal is also approved for some animal feed.

Cold-pressed camelina oil is used as a salad oil, drizzled over finished dishes, in dressings and dips, but it is not ideal for high-heat frying. It is also taken in supplements for omega-3 fats. Refined oil is processed into biodiesel and aviation fuel, in lubricants, and in industrial products such as bioplastics and cosmetics.

Meal left after pressing is used as animal feed, and the plant is used in crop rotations and cover cropping. Historically the oil lit lamps and was used as a cooking fat and soap base. The seeds can also be ground into meal for baking.

Camelina oil is rich in alpha-linolenic acid, a plant omega-3 fatty acid, usually providing a third or more of its fat, and it also contains vitamin E, which helps protect it against oxidation. Small studies suggest that camelina oil can modestly improve blood lipids, but research is limited.

Plant omega-3 is only partly converted by the body to the long-chain EPA and DHA found in fish oil. Camelina oil can be a useful part of the diet but should not be seen as a substitute for fish or algae sources where those are needed.