Health Benefits:Why Use (fry with) Coconut Oil over Olive or Vegetable Oil?
- Promotes heart health and protects the heart
- Promotes weight loss when and if you need it
- Supportes your immune system health
- Supports a healthy metabolism - short chain sat fats and the EFA's in hemp and flax actually boost your metabolism!
- Provides an immediate energy source for you (your body preferentially burns short chain MCFA's (coconut oil) instead of storing them as fat)
- Helps to keep your skin healthy and youthful looking
- Supports the proper functioning of your thyroid gland
The first, extra-virgin olive oil, is a better monounsaturated fat. It works great as a salad dressing. However, it is not the best oil to cook with. Due to its chemical structure, cooking makes it susceptible to oxidative damage. And polyunsaturated fats, which include common vegetable oils such as corn, soy, safflower, sunflower and canola, are absolutely the worst oils to use in cooking. Omega-6 oils are especially prone to this because of all the double bonds they have which are highly susceptible to heat damage. Why?Reason #1: Most people believe that frying creates trans fats. That is not the major problem, in my opinion; although some are created, they are relatively minor. There are FAR more toxic chemicals produced by frying omega-6 oils than trans fats. Frying destroys the antioxidants in oils and as such oxidizes the oils and causes cross-linking, cyclization, double-bond shifts, fragmentation and polymerization of oils that cause far more damage than trans fats.
Reason #2: They contribute to the overabundance of omega-6 fats in your diet, and the imbalance of the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. As you know from my extensive writing on this subject, I believe that excessive omega-6 fats contribute to many health concerns.
There is only one oil that is stable enough to resist heat-induced damage, while it also helps you promote heart health, maintain normal cholesterol levels and even helps you lose weight -- coconut oil. So, whenever you need an oil to cook with, use coconut oil instead of butter, olive oil, vegetable oil or any other type of oil called for in recipes."
We personally use and recommend Tropical Traditons' Organic Virgin Coconut Oil.
Can you use coconut oil 1:1 in recipes that call for butter or margarine? How about with shortening?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Yes, you can use coconut oil in 1:1 ratios for butter, margarine, or shortening. You can also use it completely in place of vegetable oil, which is really important.
ReplyDeleteHi Cindy,
ReplyDeleteI recently bought Jarrow coconut oil based on all the recommendations I've read about how it is so much healthier. I don't know if this is the case with other brands, but Jarrow says to refrigerate the product after opening. However, this results in a rock-hard oil. How do you deal with this?
Thanks, and have a happy Thanksgiving,
Michelle
Happy Thanksgiving [almost]! Glad you are trying out the coconut oil, I hope it works as well for you as it does for us. I do not refrigerate our coconut oil. There is no need to keep it cold to "keep it fresh" if that is what the Jarrow container meant. Keeping it cold only makes it a pain to scoop out. When ours solidifies when it is cold in our apartment, I just scrape out what I need with a spoon and melt the solid oil in the pan before adding any food.
ReplyDeleteSince coconut oil is a (medium chain) saturated fat it does NOT break down at higher temperatures, which is why you can use it for frying without creating free radicals or oxidizing the oil.
For this reason there is no benefit (to my knowledge) in keeping the coconut oil "cold." It does not break down at higher heat or in the presence of light. Extra virgin olive oil and all of your other oils WILL, however, so try not to fry with them.
Don't ever put bottles of oil in the windows for the "pretty sunlight streaming through" effect either- the light makes the fats rancid. I've seen this done for aesthetic effect, but it does damage your oil (not that you do that at all!).
Udo's book Fats that Kill, Fats that Heal discusses this topic as well as the detailed chemistry behind the fat molecules. It is an interesting read if you like the science behind the "rules of thumb" I give here.
Coconut oil can be healthy. There is also the issue of its compatibility with different types of foods.
ReplyDeletet also helps you promote heart health, maintain normal cholesterol levels and even helps you lose weight coconut oil.
ReplyDeleteNice post and thanks for the great information about the organic virgin coconut oil. Not only in oil every organic products are more healthy like organic fruits, organic vegetables etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this valuable information.
ReplyDeleteI just know that there is virgin coconut oil is organic
Quite interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletethank you for this information very helpful
ReplyDeleteCoconut oil is my new favorite oil. I love that the body prefers to burn it as fuel verses storing it, like you mentioned. It's so cheap to find unrefined, expeller pressed coconut oil too. I love the fact that its melting point is at 75 degrees and that it's a solid at room temperature. That makes it so they don't have to heavily process it to increase its shelf life, which is an added benefit that most people never consider. I hadn't heard about all the health concerns from frying Omega 6s. That's scary.
ReplyDeleteI've been using coconut oil for several years and still find people are horrified. It's complicated to explain why it's OK even though it is saturated fat. One thing I find fascinating is that some days its solid and some is liquid. I can't think of one other thing that changes from at room temperature.
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