The tropical coconut oil has always been a main ingredient in the diet of the tropical inhabitants, and according to Dr. Weston A. price’s book in 1939 ‘’Nutrition and Physical Degeneration’’, the American food diet that is filled with sugar and flour which are the main reasons of the poor level of health in America. And after travelling to the tropical islands and examining the inhabitants’ teeth, he found that those people are healthier than the people with the poor American eating diet and habits. And he also found out that people on a coconut based diet are very healthy and have reasonably fat count although the diet is saturated with fats.
In Thailand, specially Koh Samui which is called the ‘’coconut capital’’ because of the large amount of coconut it sends out, up to 2 million monthly, but that supply ceased greatly after the attack on pearl harbor and the invasion of Thailand, Indonesia and other coconut growing areas by Japan. So the suppliers had to look for a replacement, and Soya beans was the answer, but soya beans wasn’t a new thing since it dates back to 1770 , it was exported to America by China. But it was used as animal food; it stayed like that until 1904 when George Washington Carver noticed that Soya beans contain a lot of proteins that makes it very useful for people. And after the war, it became the main replacement for the tropical coconut oil, and it started to be grown in America, but when the war ended, and the importing of the coconut was resumed, and the industry of the soya started to fail, so they started to use the media to turn coconut oil to be the unhealthy dangerous choice and soya to be the healthier choice.
According to studies, seed oils consists of long chain fatty acids, which hare very hard for the stomach to digest, and they put stress on the liver since they aren’t broken easily, and they are turned into body fats. On the other hand Coconut oil consists of medium-chain fatty acids, which is very healthy compared to seed oils, because they are converted into energy directly, it was found by studies that coconut oil balances the metabolism of the body, which is translated to weight loss, which contradicts the public believe that all fats makes you gain weight.
The public believe was a result of a propaganda that was started by the medical profession in 1950, which stated that saturated fats such as coconut oil helps with the weight gain, and that it is very dangerous as it can cause heart diseases because of their high count of cholesterol. And it stated that seed oils such as soya is healthy for the body and it protects it from heart and cholesterol diseases. Of course both of those statements are fake; it was just a part of the propaganda pushed by soya allies to avert the public from soya bean’s oil.
And also the way we cook our food affects our health directly, for example frying the food is very unhealthy as the high heat kills the anti-oxidants, that’s why oils with low burning points such as olive oil, even that it is a very healthy oil, but when fried, it loses its benefits, that’s why it is advised not to re-use frying oil, but on the other hand, coconut oil has a high boiling point and can withstand frying without losing its anti-oxidants, that’s why it is advised to use it while cooking. It is important to pick the coconut oil wisely, always choose the clean smelling one, while avoiding the brownish ones; they are heat treated and rancid.
