Front Porch Fridays
July 4, 2008
Editor's note: This is the third in an eleven-part series exploring coconut oil in depth from Canadian chef, Lori Nichol-Davies. Check it out and come to your own conclusions.
Coconut oil / Coconut Milk / Coconut Flour, Pt. 3
by Chef Lori Nichols-Davies
Let’s discuss propaganda that spread fear against good saturated fats
During World War Two coconut oil became difficult to transport across the Pacific ocean to North America. Food manufacturers took advantage of their increased sales to use the money to start a rumor that saturated fats cause arterial clogging. But in 1996 and 1997 scientists found just the opposite to be true, that coconut oil decreases plague in the arteries. For decades, food manufacturers govern the health department more than science. Also, pharmaceutical companies govern insurance companies for drug claims suited to profit not to human needs. It’s not easy to remove vested interests from a corrupted health care system unless educated consumers simply stop buying hydrogenated fats to wean them from grocery store shelves. We pay the price for health one way or the other. Control the market, and tell manufacturers what you want by the vote you cast every time you go shopping. The harmful trans fat hoopla revolves around vegetable oils, not animal fats. Trans fat in animal fat is CLA, which is a healing fat.
“The coconut meat contains up to 60% fat, and this fat is 92% saturated. But this is no reason to avoid coconut products. Saturated fat has been a major part of our forefather’s diets, as well as a big part of traditional tropical cuisine, and traditional medicine. Saturated fats constitute at least 50% of cellular membranes. They give cells necessary firmness and integrity. Saturated fats play a vital role in the health of bones. For example, “50% of dietary fats need to be saturated for calcium to be effectively incorporated into skeletal structure.” B. A. Watkins, et al, “Importance of Vitamin E in Bone Formation and in Chrondrocyte Function,” Purdue University, Lafayette, IN, AOCS Proceedings, 1996; B.A. Watkins and M.F. Seifert, “Food Lipids and Bone Health,” in “Food Lipids and Health,” R.E. McDonald and D. B. Min, eds. (New York, Marcel Dekker, 1996, p. 101.
Contrast this with a 10% guideline for allowable saturated fats currently perpetuated by Dieticians in a nation headed toward diabetic epidemics and increasing Alzheimer’s. The brain is 60% fat. We need cholesterol and good healthy fats like coconut oil.
In an ideal world, we work with true economy that supports human physiology, human health. Let’s make our guide common sense, Mother Nature, truth brought forth by Empirical evidence as well as double-blind studies.
Extra virgin coconut oil is so fragrant and delicious it does not need to be deodorized - as do stinky vegetable oils.
Coconut oil tolerates heat
Coconut oil is one of the most stable oils. It is naturally solid. It does not need to be hydrogenated to make it hard. On the other hand, hydrogenated Crisco shortening ® has trans fatty acids that suffocate all cells from oxygen. “The lack of oxygen is the main cause cancer.” (Dean of Medicine, New York University, 1932; also Julian Whitaker, MD,) Why is it that margarines are not yet removed from the grocery shelves? It is hard to swallow that government is more fearful of lost votes due to lost jobs as margarines are taken off the shelves than with loss of life in the public sector due to leaving it on the shelves. Dieticians find it hard to apologize for being so duped.
Coconut oil is highly resistant to rancidity, and well-suited to hot climates and stove top cooking. The medium-chained fatty acids can resist heat.
Extra virgin coconut oil tolerates tropical heat and stovetop heat. In the tropics, coconut oil stores well at room temperature for up to two years, and longer in colder climates, whereas hydrogenated vegetable oils are rejected by animals and even low life maggots who know better. Vegetable oils, in contrast go rancid while being deodorized before they arrive on grocery shelves. Refined oils, which many North American homes now use, are very unstable and turn rancid (oxidize quickly). Heating polyunsaturated fatty acids (PaFA’s) tends to polymerize these oils, (form chemical compounds known as polymers, which are very toxic to the body, causing wide spread free-radical damage.
