As the oil war hots up, coconut gets a new lease of life
Swap cheap vegetable oils that are cluttering your kitchen shelves and wrecking your insides with far healthier stuff. Cooking with coconut oil is good for your body. That includes the brain, of course
We need to clarify certain misconceptions about cooking mediums. Which oils are good for you? Which ones are the enemy? And just how long have you been played by the food lobby? Here’s a spoonful of truth on saturated fats.
Your brain seeing coconut oil, ghee or butter
‘These are so fattening. There’s so much cholesterol, so many calories. These can’t be good for me. And they have saturated fat too — that causes heart attacks. I need to stop putting ghee on my rotis… I need to stop spreading butter on my morning slice of toast if I want to lose weight. I have a family history of high cholesterol. I really need to stay away from these.’
Your brain reacting to vegetable oils
‘Light vegetable oils! They have no cholesterol, so they are good for me and for my family’s health. I mean, they are made from vegetables and sometimes rice or even corn or olives, so they must be good for my heart. Plus, the ad on TV shows how food is fried in it; that looks healthy too. And then when I look at the front of the can, it says all the words I’m looking for: “heart health” “light” “zero cholesterol.” This has to be good for me. Plus today there is an offer: if I buy one, I get the other one at half price.’
And this is how you go ahead and invest on buying a can of oil (that you use on a daily basis in almost every meal that you eat) that is as far from being healthy as is possible.
And recently, we have seen health experts who promote coconut oil and ghee and butter and this gets you really confused. The truth is, coconut oil has saturated fat and saturated fat is not the culprit. There is a big difference between the saturated fat in coconut oil and the one found in a cheese burger. We never put a cupcake and carrots in the same category as carbohydrates, so why do it with saturated fat?
This misconception about saturated fat
Couple of years ago, a scientist name Ancel Keys, published a study across countries on saturated fat and its ill effects. He started off with 22 countries but when the study was published, some of the countries and findings were tossed out just to ‘fit’ his hypothesis. The entire study was misinterpreted, showing the findings from only seven countries. This is common knowledge in the field of Nutritional science. He is pretty much the reason why wholesome natural eggs were replaced with sugary cereals for breakfast! Ancel Keys was on the cover of Time magazine in 1961. And 53 years later, in 2014, the same Time magazine, had the following title on the Cover: “EAT BUTTER — Scientists labelled fat the enemy. Why they were wrong.”
Now let’s just use a bit of common sense
It is not easy to ‘squeeze oil’ out of something like corn (because it does not contain too much of it to begin with) so manufacturers have to add a lot of chemical solvents to maximise the production. This will subject the oil to high temperatures and make it highly unstable. Plus, most of the vegetable oil sources are genetically modified and toxic solvents go into its manufacturing process. So what you finally get in that can is cheap, highly refined oil that is inflammatory and adds no nutritional value to your meals.
It is far easier to squeeze oil from coconut meat since it already contains a lot of it. So the manufacturing process is not harsh and you get an anti-inflammatory variety of oil, which helps build healthy cell walls around each cell in your body.
Since the outer layer of every cell in your body is made up of fat, it is essential and very important that you choose the right type of fat to build that wall. When it is built from sources like vegetable oils, it functions poorly and when the outer wall is made from sources like coconut oil, it builds better receptors for insulin and functions optimally.
So will your cholesterol go up if you switch to coconut oil? And what did the recent study on coconut oil raising cholesterol levels mean?
Cholesterol in your body is not black and white. More than good and bad cholesterol, the important consideration is the ‘ratio’ of bad to good cholesterol.
There are studies that show a rise in Total cholesterol or the bad cholesterol (LDL) when you start to have saturated fat from coconut oil. But what these studies don’t talk about is that the quality of LDL is improved since the size of LDL molecules is bigger, and which is less likely to promote heart disease. The studies also don’t talk about the increase in good cholesterol — HDL — which helps improve the ‘overall ratio’.
In a nutshell
The ratio of good to bad plus the number and size of the cholesterol molecules are a far bigger predictor of heart attacks than LDL itself. The tests you want to ask for along with your regular lipid profile are either NMR lipid panel or a Cardio IQ test. These are far better indicators of your heart and cholesterol rather than a regular lipid profile.
The takeaway
In the absence of refined carbs from fruit juices, breads and other processed foods and addition of saturated fat from the right sources, your cholesterol levels will remain fine. You absolutely MUST replace cheap vegetable oils with coconut oil. Your insulin levels will stay under control, your overall body composition will change for the better and your brain, which is mainly made up of fat, will also be fed well with rocket fuel to function better.