Coconut oil; good for you?

July 14, 2005 9:54 AM

Any informed opinions on the safety of coconut oil as a food supplement?

My wife has successfully avoided using or cooking with most oils and fats except olive oil and flaxseed oil. Recently, after reading some compelling articles about the value of short-medium chain hydrogenated fats, she has started using coconut oil, about one tablespoon a day. It is supposed to have many health benefits. My question, since coconut oil has been labeled a danger for years, is: are the new findings on its health benefits really true, scientifically sound?

posted by dpcoffin to health (3 comments total)

I can't comment on the new findings, but as for the old ones:

Palm oil and coconut oil were demonized because they're high in saturated fat. For someone eating the average American diet, chock full of meat and cheese, avoiding yet another food high in saturated fat makes sense.

But there's nothing inherently evil about saturated fat in moderation. Coconut oil isn't a problem if your overall profile of fat consumption is healthy.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 10:13 AM on July 14, 2005

Robert Wolke covered this topic recently for the Washington Post. His column seems to have expired from their site, but I found this discussion of his column on another site:

"Like all vegetable oils, coconut oil is cholesterol-free, says Robert E. Wolke, the not-quite-retired chemistry professor who writes the Food 101 Column for The Washington Post.

But the fatty acids in coconut oil are 85 percent to 90 percent saturated, Wolke points out. Saturated fats are the biggest dietary cause of high LDL levels (“bad cholesterol”) and a major risk factor for heart disease.

True, coconut oil is non-hydrogenated and therefore free of trans-fatty acids. That doesn’t make it in any way healthy. “The reason,” writes Wolke, “is that it is already so saturated, there would be no point in hydrogenating it. That would be more senseless than hydrogenating lard, which is 39 percent saturated.”
posted by grateful at 12:38 PM on July 14, 2005

There is some real science here...

"During two clinical trials, conducted at Macdonald Campus’ Mary Emily Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, Jones and his team tested an oil made of medium chain triglycerides (MCT) versus long chain triglycerides (LCT). Trials were conducted over two periods of 27 days on men and women who were about 25 pounds overweight. Both trial periods were separated by washout intervals of four weeks. The MCT oil that Jones and his team designed for participants – for now labelled Functional Oil – was composed of 67 percent tropical oils, 13 percent olive oil, six percent coconut oil and five percent flaxseed oil." here

Then there is this weblog, run by a guy makes some pretty large leaps of logic -is sometimes just wrong- but does seem to consistently catch and spotlight good articles that I would otherwise miss. Make of them what you will...

Coconut: In Support of Good Health in the 21st Century

Coconut Oil: You Want a Food Loaded with Real Health Benefits? You Want Coconut Oil
posted by 517 at 10:17 PM on July 14, 2005