We gave up vegetable oil years ago then started using olive oil. I learned that olive oil isn't good for frying (a person has to have some fried potatoes every now and then!), the oils we were using came from GM sources, most oils are not natural and also contain trans-fat (unlike naturally occurring coconut oil). So, we switched.
There are many benefits to using coconut oil. For example, coconut oil is naturally occurring unlike some of the oils sold that have been factory created into a nasty, oily, rancid substance. Not to mention, most of them are manufactured from genetically modified plants (corn, soy, canola) which gives them a terrible start anyway. You should know now that anything naturally created is better for you than a manufactured food product.
Not all fat is bad. Actually, natural saturated fat is good for you! I've read before about all the "low fat" fad diets that went around in the 90s and how obesity actually rose during this time. Aside from the fact that
natural fat is good for you, "low fat" frozen dinners contain all kinds of unnatural nastiness. But that's a rant for another day.
Back in the 1930s, Dr. Weston Price found South Pacific Islanders whose diets were high in coconut to be healthy and trim, despite high dietary fat, and heart disease was virtually non-existent. Similarly, in 1981, researchers studying two Polynesian communities for whom coconut was the primary caloric energy source found them to have excellent cardiovascular health and fitness. (emphasis mine)
*If you have never researched Dr. Weston Price's studies, you should. He did a mass amount of research in people groups and basically discovered that Americans have it all wrong. Here is his
Wise Traditions website.
There are many health benefits to coconut oil. For example:
• Improving your heart health.(3)
• Boosting your thyroid. (4)
• Increasing your metabolism.
• Promoting a lean body and weight loss if needed.
• Supporting your immune system. (5)
...Coconut oil is incredibly good for your heart. The truth is this: it is unsaturated fats that are primarily involved in heart disease and too much sugar and processed foods, not the naturally occurring saturated fats, as you have been led to believe.
Coconut oil also has a high smoke point which means you can use it to fry those potatoes without smoking up the house and saturating your food in an oil that has been heated to an unhealthy, unnatural degree.
We have also found another use for coconut oil....lotion! We don't use any store bought lotions because of the ingredients and coconut oil is sooo much better anyway. In fact, I have read that some studies show coconut oil to have some anti-aging qualities and that's never a bad thing...
We pay roughly $82 for 50 pounds of pure coconut oil. We buy it in a big, metal bucket. It lasts us a full year and takes care of all our cooking and lotion needs. It is solid at room temperature so it's easy to scoop some out of the bucket and melt it in your skillet for cooking. I've also found that it substitutes nicely for Crisco in pie crusts!
You don't have to buy 50 pounds but we have found it to be most economical this way. It also comes in varying qualities. We don't buy the super expensive stuff because ours is
still pure coconut oil. As a result, it does not have a coconut flavor so you don't have to worry about everything tasting like coconut.
When you consider everything discussed here, coconut oil is the best option. No other oil is ever worth considering. Most other oils are unnatural and unhealthy. They also contribute to bad health and weight gain.
All quotes referenced from
here. (great article)
