Coconut Oil - Is It Good For You Or Bad For You? The Debate.
I'm so confused. A couple of years ago Coconut Oil was introduced as one of the healthier oil alternatives, for cooking especially. In South Africa the trend hit when Professor Tim Noakes released his book The Real Meal Revolution, which strongly endorses the use of coconut oil, milk and cream. So we jumped on board the bandwagon and started stocking up on the substance - thinking yeah, we'll be healthy too.
As the years passed I learnt that coconut oil has MANY health benefits and is not just beneficial as a dietary source. The oil can be used as a natural moisturizer, hair conditioner and barrier cream - and the list goes on. These cures and treatments were highlighted over and above the fact that coconut all was a healthier fat option than vegetable and even olive oil. But now studies and recent articles are saying otherwise.
I have just read an release by the Huffington Post (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/06/19/coconut-oil-unhealthy_n_17210200.html) stating that coconut oil is not as healthy and good for you a person as we thought, that it has more saturated fat than animal fat and other oils.
So what is it? Who is right and who is wrong? I must say, I'm not sure who's word to take anymore and trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle has ironically become very stressful and exhausting!
You have to go back to the start of the fight against cancer and obesity. See the goverment had a study on obesity way back. The finding turned out that sugar was bad for you health and cause obesity. Not sure of date but there was even a bill trying to limit sugar in food in our government. But because this industry was such a large money maker for the government and that many in government officials had been invested in sugar that bill was blocked. Then the sugar industry with the help of media came out with a fake study saying saturated fats are bad not sugar. Because of this you now see so many low fat foods with high sugar content in them.
This is sad but true...
@sweetpea the article that you quote is based on information distributed by the American Heart Association. I'm sure if we do a little research, we'll find that they are sponsored by one or more large food manufacturing companies that will suffer from the increased popularity of coconut oil. I'm guessing in this case that it is probably a diary company that is losing profit and wants the American people to stick to what they know: butter and or spreads made from animal product.
If you haven't seen it yet, I recommended to watch 'What The Health'. It's a documentary that is uncovering how food companies sponsor health associations and thus prevent them from providing any advice that might compromise their profits. You can find it on Netflix.
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I agree. In the 80's and 90's, when all fats were considered bad fats, coconut oil really fell out of favor, along with butter. Then late 90's/early 2000's it seemed like it became more of saturated fats/unsatured/polyfats.
So there are good fats like avocado, coconut and olive oils, and animal fat isn't as bad as once believed. Now coconut oil is bad again?!?
Here's an article on Snopes that discusses how the latest study is http://www.snopes.com/2017/06/28/aha-coconut-oil/
Thank you, will be sure to read it.
I'm confused too! I've decided to go with how my body feels and not worry about if whatever I ingest is particularly healthy or not.
At this point I'm doing the same. We try to stay away from chemicals though, which is actually almost impossible...but what can we do except try!
Sometimes I think the stress of trying to live a healthy lifestyle is worse than just using common sense and winging it. AND not beating yourself up for the occasional poor choice.
It's healthy!
Of course you want minimally processed without chemical used to clean and process it.
It has nourished cultures for thousand of years.
If it's some new invention, or something that healthy cultures have not consumed for hundreds/thousands of years, that is when I am highly skeptical.
Thank you, makes sense - if its pure and naturally surely its good for you. Sometimes I think the Health Federations feed us lies just to ensure their money keeps rolling in!