12 Steps to Whole Foods

Avoiding Bad Fats, Enjoying Good Fats
Why Should I Eat Coconut Oil?
A very successful political campaign in the 80s and 90s by the soy industry effectively blacklisted tropical oils
(coconut and palm) and made “saturated fat” a swear word in nutrition. We were told instead to use canola or
corn oils when we couldn’t avoid oil in a recipe. Unfortunately, refined and nutritionally inferior vegetable oils
that replaced coconut oil ended up increasing health problems rather than decreasing them.
Medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) are necessary in our diet and lead to silky skin and hair, as well as healthy
cellular function buffered by lipids (fats) everywhere in the body. Organic, virgin coconut oil has the highest
levels of MCFAs (58%) and has provided for thousands of years some of the healthiest and most beautiful
people on the planet with excellent nutrition. Dr. Bruce Fife has documented in The Coconut Oil Miracle how
indigenous Pacific Islanders who are relatively unaffected by Westernization have virtually no heart disease
and cancer, with ideal height/weight ratios. Their diet is up to 60% fat, most of it saturated fat from coconut! 3
MCFAs supply quick energy because they are metabolized in the liver like carbs rather than being stored in the
adipose tissue or as belly fat. MCFAs enhance our immune system with critical nutrients. Coconut oil is
antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal—shown to kill strep, staph, fungus, the virus that causes leukemia,
and much more.
My teenaged son once had a fungal infection on his face that wouldn’t go
away all summer. We tried everything on it, including colloidal silver and
even over-the-counter topical drugs. Nothing worked, and the spot was
growing bigger and becoming a social liability. Finally, I had the idea to
apply some virgin coconut oil. The quarter-sized fungal infection
disappeared in 36 hours! My 8-yr. old has twice gotten painful urinary tract
infections, and they disappeared quickly when I had him eat a few
spoonfuls of coconut oil twice a day. (He doesn’t like it plain, so I spread a
thick layer on a sprouted-wheat English muffin or whole-grain toast, and he
thought that was a treat.)
The good and bad fat debate centered on saturation for many years,
obscuring other factors. Not all saturated fats are bad. Lauric acid (the
immune-boosting compound in mother’s milk) is found abundantly in
coconut oil, as well as in smaller amounts in butter. Many supplement
makers isolate lauric acid or make it in synthetic form and sell it as an
immune system aid. Coconut oil has lauric acid in the whole-food form,
which is always utilized better by the body than an isolate or synthetic.
Unlike other oils, coconut oil does not produce dangerous trans fatty acids, even when cooked at high
temperatures. (Even olive oil produces some TFAs.) For this reason, coconut oil is ideal for sautéing. If you
don’t like the coconut flavor imparted to fried foods, I would recommend non-virgin coconut oil—for this
purpose only—since cooking with high heat would kill many of the enzymes and nutrients anyway. The nonvirgin
oils tend to not have the coconut flavor.
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 99