Cooking with Coconut Oil

GREEN LIVING: EATING RIGHT
The Environmental Magazine

The Saturated Fat That’s Good for You (Really!)

By Aimee Hughes

While coconut trees might not grow in your neighborhood, they do so in abundance in And coconut oil, packed full of good saturated fats, has been tropical regions. used for thousands of years as an external beauty product and an internal medicine.

Saturated fats are essential to living a long, healthy life. According to Teya Skae, author and founder of Empowered Living health and life coaching, “Saturated fatty acids give our cells structural integrity [and they] are needed for the proper utilization of omega-3 essential fatty acids, because omega-3s are better retained in the tissues when the diet is rich in In the modern American diet, however, saturated fats most saturated fats.” commonly come from animal sources—cream, eggs, meat, cheese, butter and Unfortunately, the ecological implications of a diet heavily reliant poultry. upon animals is not only bleak for our individual health, but also incredibly draining on the planet. Kerrie K. Saunders, author of The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention: Evidence Supporting the Four New Food Groups (Lantern Books), writes, “Raising animals for food is by far the greatest consumer and polluter of fresh water on the planet, draining off 60% of our Now more than ever our dietary choices continent’s entire fresh water supply.” have huge sociological and ecological implications, and as the toxins in our external environment increase, we must protect our bodies with the foods we eat.

The Functional Food
Dr. Ryan Shelton of Whole Body Health medical clinic in Overland Park, Kansas, is a proponent of coconut oil for the following reasons: “It is a functional food,” he says. “That is, it is a food that can have powerful medicinal properties if used appropriately. The complex mixture of They can serve lipids (fats) found in coconut oil have proven health benefits. to increase metabolism and thus assist with energy and weight loss. They can which is important for cardiovascular disease. They decrease Lipoprotein(a), help protect the liver against damage from alcohol, drugs and other can  environmental toxins.”

Using even the healthiest organic vegetable oils (including olive oil) in baking and frying creates cell-damaging free radicals because all vegetable oils oxidize, or combine with oxygen, especially when Organic virgin coconut oil resists oxidation, even at high temperatures. heated. Says Dr. Shelton: “The mixture of saturated fats in coconut milk with is difficult to oxidize under normal circumstances, making it an ideal fat  which to cook.”

In addition, nearly 50% of the fatty acid in natural coconut oil is lauric acid, which converts to the fatty acid monolaurin in the body. Lauric acid has adverse effects on a variety of microorganisms including bacteria, yeast, fungi and certain highly-resistant viruses. It destroys the lipid membrane of en-veloped viruses like HIV, measles, herpes simplex virus and Coconut oil also contains caprylic acid and capric acid, both natural influenza. antifungals known to fight yeast overgrowth.

When purchasing coconut oil, be sure to buy only virgin Avoid refined oil, as it is sometimes hydrogenated, meaning that organic oil. high heat has been used in the refining process, destroying many essential nutrients.

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