The truth about coconut oil

Earlier this year Miranda Kerr was criticised for her comments regarding coconut oil. She told the public that she consumes 4 tablespoons of coconut oil a day. This sent most nutritionists in a spin and the backlash was immediate.

No doubt you’ve heard that saturated fats are bad for your health and can lead to a number of health problems such as cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, obesity and even alzheimer’s disease. In the last 50 years we have been warned against all saturated fats but interestingly there has been no reduction in any of these diseases, if anything they have skyrocketed. However Pacific Islander’s who consume a great deal of saturated fat from coconut show negligible rates of cardiovascular disease.(Mercola Oct 22 2010)

Clearly there is a lot of misinformation regarding this subject. The argument is; one form of saturated fat is bad for you then all must be bad, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. Coconut oil contains lauric acid, something which other saturated fats do not contain. Lauric acid is hugely beneficial to the immune system and is anti-viral and anti-bacterial.

Coconut oil’s health benefits have been well studied recently and it has made a huge resurgence. Rightly so. The truth about coconut oil is that it has many wonderful benefits for the body.

• boosts the immune system
• supports healthy metabolism
• provides immediate energy
• great for skin and hair
• supports proper thyroid functioning

Here at Cleanse we use Niugini organic coconut oil. I like that it comes in a glass jar rather than plastic. Coconut oil is great for cooking as it’s heat resistant, meaning it doesn’t change its composition at high temperatures unlike most vegetable oils.