Saturated fats are bad for you. Food cooked in oil with saturated fat – also bad for you. Don’t even get us started on Trans-Fat – that is simply evil incarnate. If we all want to live long and healthy lives we simply need to switch to unsaturated fats – cook with Olive Oil and you are a shoe-in to see the 3rd Millennium roll in.
If Only the World Was Black and White
Life would be easy if all the above was true, unfortunately it is not. As with most nutrition, figuring out the right fats to eat is complicated and filled with many shades of gray. Sure, large amounts of saturated fats from animals is bad for your heart – no argument there. However, saturated fats that are rich in medium-chain fatty acids have some positive health benefits. What oil is rich in medium-chain fatty acids? Coconut Oil.
Coconut Oil is Left for Dead By The Media and Medical Community
A few years ago the mainstream media made any oils that had saturated fat public enemy number 1. We were told to replace all our Coconut and Palm oil with Olive oil. In fact, at the time – the media was generally right! Coconut oil was often processed by heating the coconuts and using chemicals to extract the oil. The processing of the coconuts was killing off the positive nutrients in the coconut. Highly refined coconut oil was a saturated fat oil that no longer contained all the positives of medium chain fatty acids.
Coconut Oil Tries to Rise from the Dead
Over the last 6 months we have watched Coconut Oil try to rise from the dead and it is a pretty impressive zombie act. The reason for the comeback of coconut oil has everything to do with new methods of processing coconut oil. Today, companies are producing Extra Virgin, Unrefined, Cold Processed Organic Coconut Oil and guess what – it maintains the healthy nutrients of the coconut such as the medium chain fatty acids.
Extra Virgin, Unrefined Cold Processed Organic Coconut Oil
The above is certainly a mouthful to say, but it represents the gold standard of Coconut Oil. Simply put, Mother Nature has created coconuts, which have some strong nutritional properties. If you want to use coconut oil and have it still maintain all those nutrients that Mother Nature gave it – you need to find a coconut oil that has almost no processing done to it.
Products such as the new Perfect Coconut Oil are basically coconuts squeezed into a bottle. They start with Organic Coconuts, cold press them to get the oil out and then put it in a bottle with nothing else added. You could say that the coconut oil of today is not your Mother’s coconut oil!
Health is All About Moderation
We are not saying that people should start chugging down gallons of saturated fats. There are still plenty of health issues from including a large amount of saturated fat in your diet. What we are saying is that not all saturated fat is the same. The saturated fat in Extra Virgin Unrefined Coconut oil has valuable nutrients like the medium-chain fatty acids (these are not found in high quantities in animal fats). You can do your own research, but an argument can be made for including some medium-chain fatty acids in your diet.
Like Mark Twain – reports of the death of Coconut Oil may have been greatly exaggerated.
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