I love Virgin Coconut Oil and I make no secret about it. It is an essential tool in my skin care routine and also an essential item in my healthy diet. Coconut Oil really is a remarkable product that has so many health and beauty benefits that it would take simply ages to list them all. There are many websites detailing the remarkable health benefits of coconut oil purely as a health food, never mind as a beauty product!
THE BASICS
The enormous health and nutritional benefits of coconut oil have been ignored for decades because of the general advice not to consume saturated fat. Coconut oil is 86% – 90% saturated, which makes it look unattractive – if you look no further. Most people looked no further until recently. Now we know that coconut oil is the most healthful oil in which to cook our food and the most healthful to spread on our toast. The cosmetics industry has always made wide use of coconut oil because of its extensive shelf-life and its wonderful effects on the skin.
The warnings we received about saturated fat never took account of the fact that there are three types of saturated fatty acid. We now know that long chain and short chain fatty acids should be avoided. Medium chain fatty acids are uniquely healthy. There are only two products on the market which belong to this group, palm kernel oil and coconut oil. (Palm kernel oil is difficult to obtain at the right quality and causes great environmental distress).
Coconut oil is used by the body in a different way from the other saturates and from mono- and poly-unsaturates. It is transported directly from the digestive- tract to the liver where it is converted into energy. This is why the oil has become known in some quarters as ‘athletes’ food’.
Seed oils (eg sunflower, safflower, rapeseed and canola) have long fatty acid chains. This means that they are not the healthy option that they’ve been made out to be in the media. They are not easy to digest and they encourage weight gain by aggravating the thyroid gland and by interfering with the action of thyroid transport protein. The epidemic of thyroid disease, largely caused by the seed oils and their junk derivatives (margarine etc.) has not yet hit the headlines – but it soon will.
Coconut oil has the opposite action. By stimulating the thyroid it steps up metabolism and encourages weight loss even without other dietary changes or an increase in exercise. Coconut oil has 10% fewer calories than all other fats which also helps!
There are many symptoms of hypothyroidism (sluggish thyroid). These include weight- gain, tiredness, lack of motivation, aching joints, loss of hair, premature loss of hair-colour and dry skin. All of these symptoms are improved with the introduction of coconut oil into the diet (and the removal of seed oils).
There are further problems with seed oils. They are extracted by solvent, residues of which pose a real health threat. Some seed oils, canola for example, need to be de-odourised, otherwise they smell disgusting. This process hydrogenates the oil by up to 5%. Hydrogenated oils are implicated in Altzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases.
The cells of the human body, wherever they are found in the body, have a requirement for saturated fat. It contributes to the integrity of the cell membrane or wall. In the absence of saturated fat in the diet, the cells are described by researchers as being ‘flabby’. Because poly-unsaturates (seed oils) are unstable in sunshine, if the skin-cell membranes are partly composed of these, the skin itself is unstable in sunshine, the worst outcome of which process is skin cancer. Not only do you do your skin cells a favour by eating coconut oil, you can apply it to the skin as natural protection from the sun (so long as you’re not tan-binging!).
There is mounting evidence that coconut oil has benefits in a variety of gastro-intestinal disorders. Sufferers from Crohn’s disease who have introduced coconut oil into their diet have experienced relief from digestive distress and those who suffer from an infestation by the parasite giardia (which is often mis-diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome) also experience relief since the lauric acid content of coconut oil targets giardia and other parasites. Lauric acid, which is only found in coconut oil, palm kernel oil and human breast milk, kills the bacterium helicobacter pilori which causes stomach ulcers and, ultimately, stomach cancer.
Because the lauric acid in the coconut oil goes directly to the liver, some hepatic conditions are considerably improved by the introduction of coconut oil into the diet. The lauric and other acids mop up harmful bacteria and help to protect the liver from free-radical damage (oxidative stress). Coconut oil supports recovery from hepatitis C and cirrhosis. It may even help to prevent cirrhosis caused by alcohol abuse.
It was heart health which prompted most of us to switch from butter to margarine, from full fat to skimmed milk. We were advised that all saturated fats were bad and that we should avoid cholesterol. What that actually means is “avoid all animal products” but it has seldom been expressed in that way.
Coconut oil is cholesterol free. Studies which followed populations who changed from coconut oil to seed oil found that alarming changes in the indicators of heart disease had taken place. The opposite was true of populations who changed from seed oil to coconut. Their heart health improved. In fact, studies of populations who traditionally used, and still use, coconut oil as their main dietary fat, show these populations to be very heart healthy; good hdl/ldl balance, little plaquing of the arteries, low mortality rate from heart disease etc. Post mortem studies of the fats which clogged the arteries of victims of heart disease in the west found the clogs to be mainly composed of poly-unsaturated fat with mono-unsaturated next. Saturated fat, of whatever sort (!) was the least implicated fat. Coconut oil promotes the required cholesterol levels in due proportion (hdl/ldl) and, quite clearly, reduces the risk of heart disease.
Because the lauric acid in coconut oil kills lipid-coated (fat-coated, ie unfriendly) bacteria as well as fungi and yeasts, ingestion of the oil restores the balance of bacteria in the digestive tract. The ‘friendly’ ones help us to digest our food and don’t appear to be affected by coconut oil. A healthy adult human has about five kilos of these! Candida, a yeast which occupies the digestive tract and causes misery if it gets out of control, is killed by lauric acid.
At the time of writing there are clinical trials going on looking into coconut oil in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, prostate disease, dental caries, MRSA, eczema and psoriasis.
Other benefits of coconut oil can be summarised as follows:-
It is stable. It can be kept at room temperature for years without going rancid. Seed oils are rancid when you buy them.
Coconut oil starts to smoke at around 185 deg. C. Under normal cooking conditions it doesn’t smoke at all.
At normal room temperature coconut oil has a consistency similar to that of butter which makes it convenient for spreading on bread or toast. It becomes a clear, bright liquid at about 25 deg C.
Virgin coconut oil is unrefined (all the goodness left in), chemical additive free, GMO free and processed at the lowest possible temperature. It is simply pressed from premium quality ripe fruits of cocus nucifera. It is not bleached or de-odourised. It contains no hydrogenated fat.
Baking with coconut oil is pretty much like baking with lard or butter but without their disadvantages. Although the oil has a slight coconut flavour this is seldom imparted to the baking or cooking.
If you don’t want to cook with coconut oil but need to get the benefits, most people find that carefully selected VCO is pleasant enough to eat by the spoonful.
Coconut oil is a fabulous skin moisturiser. Individuals with psoriasis, eczema or just dry skin benefit greatly from using it as a lotion. A little goes a long way.
Virgin coconut oil is the champagne of dietary fat. Avoid other types of coconut oil as these will contain residues of contaminants.
The lauric acid in coconut oil is converted by the body into mono-laurin which is a unique and powerful nutriceutical (a food which acts like a medicine). Since infection control is now a priority because of the imminent failure of antibiotics, the inclusion of coconut oil in the diet (about three and a half tablespoons per day) is an obvious step to take.
© ‘08 Independent Health Publications.
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