Coo Coo for Coconut Oil

What’s the deal with coconut oil?
With Costco carrying vat sized barrels of organic coconut oil we are seeing an increase in popular demand for what used to be a specialty health food item. Whether it is the versatility, healthful aspects, or simple hype that is driving more people to try the switch to this plant-based fat, we jumped on the bandwagon and want to share our experiences since making the switch.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Why did our family start using coconut oil?
After reading about the dangers of using oils with low smoke points and the toxins found in hydrogenated GMO oils, we began researching what oils we should and shouldn't be using. Time and time again organic coconut oil appeared in our research and its uses are many.

Like the other health aware changes we have made in our lives, things happen incrementally for us and there is generally a “getting used to the change” curve. Being open to the process of trying healthy alternatives and stepping out of the status quo are empowering paths to tread upon. Our goal is to restore as much of the natural balance to our lives as we can, while continuing to live in the modern world.

Healthy change is an iterative process and should be explored with an open, malleable mind. We try to take it easy on ourselves when embarking down a new path and keep our judgements balanced when doing our research. Unhealthy food is big business so there is sometimes trickery going on to get us away from simpler, healthier alternatives like minimally processed, locally grown organic foods. This broken nutrition cycle is lightheartedly demonstrated in the below image, but carries a serious message:

An inconvenient truth.
Courtesy of Joseph Jenkins, "Humanure Handbook"

We like to keep things simple when it comes to nutrition and try to choose the most direct path from plant to mouth. Common sense and good judgement are always handy to have around when trying something new. For example we limit our usage of coconut oil, because it is a saturated fat and is new to our diets. We currently have about 1-2 tablespoons per person on a daily basis as a substitution for where we used to use butter or vegetable oil. Extra virgin olive oil is still a regular staple in our house, but generally only as an after cooking drizzle or dipping sauce.

How do we use coconut oil?
It started with stir fry. It was the first recipe that we replaced our [insert highly processed GMO oil] in favor of coconut oil. As we got used to the slightly different taste of cooking with the new oil, things really took off. Eggs, cookies, popcorn... Coconut oil turns to liquid at 76F degrees, so depending on our house temperature it may be in liquid, solid, or a mixed states. It even goes camping with us in a little Nalgene container.

What kind of coconut oil is best?
There is a little bit of a variety within USDA organic coconut oils, but the short and skinny is to avoid any hydrogenated, refined product and get the virgin, organic, unrefined stuff.

When I bought our first bottle, I thought "Holy cow! The refined variety is way less than the unrefined kind!" and I let price drive my purchase. You have to be driven by putting your health before your wallet when buying more expensive healthier alternatives. So after learning what refined coconut oil, also labeled hydrogenated, or partially hydrogenated, really was it went back to the store in favor of the unrefined variety.

We choose to support sustainable businesses valuing human life above shelf life with our dollars.

When people talk about refined or hydrogenated product they are saying, “This here food turned rancid, so we are going to mix it with some chemicals to make it edible again. We can even put in some chemical coloring, flavor and preservatives to make this food unnaturally addictive and last forever."

I want to know more! What are some good resources?
Read Clean Cuisine & More: Is the saturated fat in coconut harmful? and this Coconut Oil article from TreeLight, a great health information resource.

Wondering what all you can do with all of your coconut oil, check out Crunchy Betty's: A Millionish Uncommon and not so Uncommon Uses for Coconut Oil and Hybrid Rasta Mama's 333 Uses For Coconut Oil.

And some more technical articles from Mercola: Coconut In support of Good Health in the 21st Century and The Truth About Saturated Fats.