Canola Oil

No. Cats convert plant omega-3 into useful EPA and DHA only to a limited degree, so canola oil does not replace fish oil.

Canola oil is a vegetable oil pressed from canola seeds. It supplies linoleic acid, an omega-6 fat, and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a plant omega-3. A 1984 study in cats found that dietary linoleic acid prevented most signs of essential fatty acid deficiency, though arachidonic acid from the diet was still required for some functions. For a cat with a medical condition, ask your veterinarian about its diet.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Canola oil is a fat source that adds calories and fatty acids to dry cat food. It contains omega-6 linoleic acid and some plant omega-3. Tufts veterinary nutritionists say linoleic acid is essential for all animals. Canola oil carries no arachidonic acid, so in cat food it works next to an animal fat rather than in place of one.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Canola oil comes from rapeseed varieties that were bred to contain little erucic acid. Older rapeseed oil, much of it used for industrial purposes, had far more. So canola is a type of rapeseed oil, but the two names are not interchangeable. On a US cat food label, canola oil refers to the food-grade oil from these low-erucic varieties.

It gives them alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA, which is a plant omega-3. Tufts veterinary nutritionists say cats cannot convert ALA into EPA and DHA, the omega-3s found in fish and algae oils. So when canola oil is the only omega-3 source on a label, the omega-3 in that food is ALA. Foods that list fish oil or algae oil supply EPA or DHA directly.

Source: sites.tufts.edu

Pettings gives canola oil 2 out of 5 and lists it as a vegetable oil. It appears on 8 of the 149 dry cat foods we list. That score rates the ingredient by itself, and each food's page shows how the full recipe scores overall.