Ten to twenty years ago if you mention to someone that you were using coconut oil they would have told you that you needed to stop using it because it was loaded with saturated fat. Today people are telling you that using the oil is beneficial to your health. Sometimes you have a difficult time deciding what to believe and what to ignore.
What did the Studies Reveal?
One way to determine what is fact and what is fiction is to read the scientific studies and weigh their significance. It appears that in the past when the experts were telling you to avoid coconut oil because the saturated fat in it would harm you they were basing their advice on one negative report. The negative study that proved the damaging effects was never named, but, researchers have discovered that the study being quoted was done on hydrogenated oil.
Hydrogenated coconut oil is bad for you because the process they use to hydrogenate the oil makes it bad. The actual tropical oils are not harmful and are now being considered to have some wonderful health benefits.
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Does Coconut Oil have Health Benefits?
In order for you to receive any health benefits from the use of coconut oil you must be using oil that is pure and organic, and not oil that is hydrogenated. The type of oil that benefits you the most is the ones that were processed in one of the following manners:
- The meat is removed from the coconut and put through a quick drying process. Then the oil is extracted from the dried meat by pressing it out.
- The other method that can be used is called wet milling. Wet milling is done by pressing the milk from the meat and then separating the oil from the water in the milk.
Either of these methods will produce an organic and pure coconut oil that will have a shelf life of several years.
What are the Health Benefits of using Coconut Oil?
The studies are showing that coconut oil has many different health benefits to the human body.
- The heart is greatly benefited by the consumption of this oil because it is the highest vegan source of medium chain triglycerides and the majority of those are provided in lauric acid. Lauric acid is not found in any other vegetable and the content of it in this one is very close to the content found in human milk. So it helps increase our good cholesterol levels.
- The immune system is benefited because of a precursor to the lauric acid known as monolaurin. Monolaurin is a chemical that has been proven to help fight several diseases because it has a negative effect on the lipid membranes of them. Two of the diseases it seems to have an effect on are some types of cancer and HIV.
- Since coconut oil has a large concentration of medium chain fatty acids it helps increase your metabolism so that you lose weight easier. This happens because that type of fatty acid is quickly metabolized by the liver and used as an energy source.
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