The Coconut Oil Miracle, 5th Edition

INTRODUCTION

Some years ago when I was in a meeting with a group of nutritionists, one of the members of the group made the statement Coconut oil is good for you. We all gasped in disbelief. Coconut oil, healthy? Preposterous, we thought. Everywhere we go we’re told how bad coconut oil is because it is a source of artery-clogging saturated fat. How could coconut oil be good for you?

She knew we would doubt her statement and explained, Coconut oil has been unjustly criticized and is really one of the good fats. She cited several studies proving to us that it wasn’t the evil villain it was made out to be and that it actually provided many valuable health benefits. I learned that for several decades it has been used in hospital IV solutions to feed critically ill patients and that it is a major component of baby formula because it provides many of the same nutrients as human breast milk. I learned that coconut oil could be used to treat a number of common illnesses and is considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be a safe, natural food. (It’s on the FDA’s exclusive GRAS list, which means it is generally regarded as safe.)

After the meeting I was intrigued. I had learned a lot, but it brought up many questions that troubled me. For instance, if coconut oil was good, why is it so often portrayed as being unhealthy? If the health benefits are real, why haven’t we heard of them before? Why don’t we hear about the use of coconut oil in hospitals, baby formula, and elsewhere? If it’s good for the sick and the very young, why wouldn’t it be good for us as well? Why would the government include it on its list of safe foods if it were dangerous or unhealthy? Why aren’t the studies on coconut oil better publicized? Why have we been misled . . . or have we? Perhaps coconut oil is bad, and hospital patients and parents of formula-fed babies are being deceived. These and many more questions filled my mind. I had to find the answers.

I began a search to find out anything and everything I could about coconut oil. The first thing I discovered was that very little has been written about coconut oil in magazines and books. Even my nutritional textbooks were relatively silent on the subject. No one seemed to know much about it. Almost everything I came across in the popular health literature was critical, stating that coconut oil is bad because it is high in saturated fat. Each author seemed to parrot the others, giving no further explanation. It was almost like a royal decree had been sent out to all authors stating that they must say the exact same thing about coconut oil in order to be politically correct (but not necessarily accurate). Saying anything different was against the rules, and that was that. I did find a few—a very few—authors who stood up to this rhetoric and stated bluntly that coconut oil wasn’t bad, but they didn’t give much detail either. It seemed that nobody really knew anything about it.

The only place I could find cold, hard facts was in often-ignored research journals. Here I found a gold mine of information, and the answers to all my questions. This was the best place for me to search, because these journals report the actual results of studies and are not simply people’s opinions, as is most of the material in popular magazines and books. There were literally hundreds of studies published in dozens of the most respected scientific and medical journals. What I learned was absolutely amazing. I found out that coconut oil is one of the most remarkable health foods available. I felt as if I had rediscovered an ancient health food that the world had almost forgotten about. I also learned why coconut oil has been maligned and misunderstood (I will get to that later, and the answer may shock and even anger you).

I started using coconut oil myself and began recommending it to my clients (I am a certified nutritionist and naturopathic physician). I’ve seen it get rid of chronic psoriasis, eliminate dandruff, remove precancerous skin lesions, speed recovery from the flu, stop bladder infections, overcome chronic fatigue, and relieve hemorrhoids, among other things. In addition to this, the scientific literature reports its possible use in treating dental caries (cavities), peptic ulcers, benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlarged prostate), cancer, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, genital herpes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS. Yes, as incredible as it sounds, I learned that coconut oil can be used to fight AIDS—a dreadful disease that has been considered incurable! Many AIDS patients have already benefited. Let me relate one example.

In September 1996, HIV patient Chris Dafoe of Cloverdale, Indiana, figured his time was running out. He’d lost a great deal of weight, lacked energy, and felt worse and worse with each passing day. His lab results seemed like the final nail in his coffin: they showed he had a viral load of over 600,000—an indication of rampant HIV infection and a sign that he didn’t have too much time left to live. So he made arrangements for his funeral, paying all expenses up front. Before he died, however, and while he still had some strength left, he wanted to take one last vacation—a dream vacation to the jungles of South America. He flew to the tiny Republic of Suriname and wound his way into the jungle where he stayed briefly among a group of the country’s indigenous people. While there, he ate the same foods as the natives, including a daily serving of cooked coconut.

The Indian chief told me, says Dafoe, that they use the coconut as the basis for all their medicines. They also use the milk from the inside of the coconut and also use other plants and herbs from the jungle to make medicines. They eat cooked coconut every morning to help prevent illness. While there, Dafoe’s health took a turn for the better, his strength and energy increased, and he regained 32 pounds (16 kilograms). Home again six weeks later he went in for another lab test. This time the results showed his viral load had plummeted to undetectable levels. The HIV virus that once flooded his body was no longer measurable.

He continues eating cooked coconut for breakfast every day, mixing it with hot cereal. He is convinced that it keeps the virus under control and allows him to enjoy good health. With a renewed zest for life he says, I feel great. I have more energy than ever.

Another remarkable benefit of coconut oil is its ability to prevent heart disease. Yes, I said prevent heart disease. While for years we’ve been led to believe that coconut oil promotes this condition, recent research proves otherwise. In fact, in the near future it may gain wide acceptance as a powerful aid in the fight against heart and other cardiovascular diseases.

I’ve continued to research coconut and other oils. I’ve been so impressed with the potential health benefits available from coconut oil that I felt an obligation to share what I’ve learned with the rest of the world. That’s why I’ve written this book. Before I go any further, let me state right here that I do not sell coconut oil or have any financial interest in the coconut industry. My purpose in writing this book is to dispel myths and misconceptions about and reveal to you some of the many healing miracles of coconut oil. What you will learn in this book may sound incredible, at times maybe even too incredible, but I didn’t make this stuff up. Every statement I make in this book is verified by published scientific studies, historical records, and personal experience. If you want to check them out, references and additional resources are listed in the back of this book.

Whenever I talk about coconut oil, the first thing people think is Isn’t that bad for you? This may have been your reaction when you first saw this book. Stop and think about it for a minute. All you need to do is use a little common sense, and you will see how ridiculous it is to think of coconut oil as being harmful. Coconuts (and coconut oil) have been used as a major source of food for thousands of years by millions of people in Asia, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and Central America. Traditionally these people have had much better health than those in North America and Europe who don’t eat coconut. Before the introduction of modern foods, many of these people depended almost entirely on coconut to sustain life. They didn’t suffer from heart disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and other modern degenerative diseases, at least not until they abandoned their traditional coconut-based diet and began eating modern foods. It should be, or soon will become, obvious to you that coconut oil isn’t the evil villain it has been generally considered to be.

THE TRUTH ABOUT COCONUT OIL

If you were to travel the world looking for a people who enjoy a degree of health far above that found in most nations, a people who are relatively free from the crippling effects of degenerative disease, you couldn’t help but be impressed by the natives who inhabit the islands of the South Pacific. These people in their tropical paradise enjoy a remarkable degree of good health, relatively free from the aches and pains of degenerative disease that plague most of the rest of the world. These people are robust and healthy. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis are almost unheard of—at least among those who continue to live on the traditional native diets.

Researchers have long noted that when these island people start to abandon their traditional diets in favor of Western foods, their health deteriorates. The more westernized the people become, the more their diseases mimic those commonly found in the West. Ian Prior, M.D., a cardiologist and director of the epidemiology unit at the Wellington Hospital in New Zealand, says this pattern has been very clearly demonstrated by Pacific Islanders, and that the further the Pacific natives move away from the diet of their ancestors, the more frequently they experience degenerative disease such as gout, diabetes, atherosclerosis, obesity, and hypertension.

What is the miracle food these people eat that protects them from degenerative disease? What is this mysterious food that has been used throughout the tropical island cultures in the Pacific yet is relatively uncommon in Western diets? A survey of the types of foods common among these people would include bananas, mangoes, papayas, kiwi, taro, sego palm root, and coconut. While all of these are common in the tropics, only a few are widely dispersed and used as staple food sources by millions of island inhabitants. Mangoes, for example, are found only in limited locations and are not an important food source in most island populations. Bananas, likewise, are abundant in some areas but relatively rare in others and do not contribute much, if at all, to the diets of the people in other localities.

The most universally eaten foods among the Polynesian and Asian communities around the Pacific are the roots of the taro and sego palm and the fruit of the coconut tree. Taro and sego palm roots are rich sources of fiber and carbohydrate and form the staple diet of many island populations, much as rice or wheat do in other parts of the world. Nutritionally, however, these foods are inferior to rice and wheat, containing fewer vitamins and minerals by volume. Such foods could hardly be the secret of the islanders’ good health.

The only other food eaten universally throughout the area is the coconut. Coconuts have been used as a staple part of the diets of almost all Polynesian and Melanesian and many Asian peoples in this area for centuries. They are used as food and as flavoring and are made into beverages. They are highly prized for their rich oil content, which is used for all cooking purposes.

Coconut oil has a long and highly respected reputation in many cultures throughout the world, not only as a valuable food but also as an effective medicine. It is used throughout the tropics in many of the traditional systems of medicine. For example, in India it is an important ingredient in some of the ayurvedic medical formulations. Ayurvedic medicine has been practiced in India for thousands of years and is still used as the primary form of medical treatment by millions of people. In the Central American country of Panama, people are known to drink coconut oil by the cup to help themselves overcome sickness. They have learned over the generations that consuming coconut oil speeds recovery from illness. In Jamaica, coconut is considered a health tonic good for the heart. In Nigeria and other parts of tropical Africa, palm kernel oil (which is very similar to coconut oil) is a trusted remedy for all types of illnesses. It has been used there with success for so long that it is the most commonly administered traditional remedy. In China, ancient medical textbooks over 2,000 years old include the use of coconut for the treatment and cure of at least 69 diseases. Among the Polynesian people, the coconut palm is valued above all other plants for its nutritional and health-giving properties. The healing miracles of the coconut have long been recognized in those cultures where it is grown. Only recently have these benefits started to become known to the rest of the world.

While still widely unknown to Western society, the therapeutic benefits of the unique oil found in coconuts are well known among lipid (oil) researchers. This oil is used in hospitals to feed patients who have digestive or malabsorption problems. It is commonly given to infants and small children who cannot digest other fats. It has been a primary ingredient in most commercial infant formulas. Unlike other fats, coconut oil protects against heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a host of other degenerative illnesses. It supports and strengthens the immune system, thus helping the body ward off attack from infection and disease. It is unique among oils in that it promotes weight loss, which has earned it the reputation of being the world’s only low-calorie fat.

In our modern society, where we are constantly being advised to reduce fat intake, it sounds strange to learn that eating any one particular type of oil can be healthy and actually prevent disease. But eating more oil may be one of the healthiest dietary changes you can make—if it’s coconut oil. We are told that in order to reduce the risk of heart disease we should limit fat consumption to no more than 30 percent of our total calorie intake per day. However, Polynesian peoples consume large quantities of fat, primarily from coconut. For some, fat makes up as much as 60 percent of their total calorie intake—twice the limit recommended as prudent. The 30 percent limit is probably a good standard with oils typically eaten in Western countries, but coconut oil is different. It is one of the good oils that promotes better health. As researchers have studied coconut oil, it has emerged as the premier dietary oil of all time, providing health benefits that surpass even those of other highly regarded oils.

Whenever coconut oil is mentioned, most people immediately think of saturated fat and therefore assume it must be bad. It’s true that coconut oil is primarily a saturated fat. What people don’t realize, however, is that there are many different types of saturated fat and all of them affect the body differently. The type of saturated fat found in coconut oil, a plant source, is different from the type found in animal products. The difference is dramatic and is fully documented by years of scientific research.

If you’ve been avoiding coconut oil because of its saturated fat content, you are among hundreds of thousands of others who have been purposely misled by self-serving commercial enterprises. At this point, you may be skeptical and perhaps even resistant to the idea that coconut oil can be healthy. At one time I felt the same way. But several years of intensive research into the scientific literature as well as firsthand clinical use have revealed a new image of this marvelous dietary oil. Much of the information presented in this book is so new that even most health care professionals aren’t aware of it yet.

Using coconut oil for all your cooking needs may be one of the healthiest decisions you could ever make. In this book you will discover many of the health-promoting benefits coconuts and coconut oil can bring to you. You will also learn why many researchers now consider coconut oil to be the healthiest oil on earth. You will discover why many Asian and Polynesian people call the coconut palm the Tree of Life.

The Tropical Oils War

At this point you may be asking: If coconut oil is as good as you say it is, why has it had such a bad reputation? The simple reason is money, politics, and misunderstanding. Everybody knows coconut oil is a saturated fat, and we’re constantly told to reduce our saturated fat intake. The words saturated fat have become almost synonymous with heart disease. Very few people know the difference between the medium-chain saturated fatty acids in coconut oil and the long-chain saturated fatty acids in meat and other foods. To most people, saturated fat is saturated fat—an evil substance lurking in foods waiting for the opportunity to attack and strike you down with a heart attack. Even medical professionals don’t know there is a difference. Most don’t even know there is more than one type of saturated fat (the different types are discussed in the next chapter). Unfortunately, many health care workers and health and fitness writers only repeat what they hear and have no understanding of fats and how they affect the body. Only recently has the truth about coconut oil been reemerging.

As far back as the 1950s, research began to show the health benefits of coconut oil. For many years it was considered a good oil with many nutritional uses. So how did coconut oil become a despised, artery-clogging villain? Much of the credit goes to the American Soybean Association (ASA). It began in the mid-1980s. At the time, the media were stirred into a frenzy, warning the public about a newly discovered health threat—tropical oils. Coconut oil, they proclaimed, was a saturated fat and would cause heart attacks. Everywhere you turned, any product that contained coconut or palm oil was criticized as being unhealthful. In response to the seemingly overwhelming public response, movie theaters began cooking their popcorn in soybean oil; food makers began switching from the tropical oils they had used for years to soybean oil; restaurants stopped using tropical oils in favor of soybean and other vegetable oils. By the early 1990s, the tropical oils market had dwindled to a fraction of what it once was. The promoters of this media blitz declared a victory in their fight against tropical oils.

This war of oils, unfortunately, made every man, woman, and child in America (and elsewhere) its victim. Tragically, the oil that replaced coconut and palm oils was hydrogenated vegetable oil (principally from soybeans)—one of the most health-damaging dietary oils in existence—and the only people who actually benefited from this new health craze were those in the soybean industry. These hydrogenated replacements contain as much saturated fat as the tropical oils, but they are not made from easily digested medium-chain fatty acids like those found in coconut oil—they are composed of toxic trans fatty acids. The result has been to replace healthy tropical oils with some very nasty, chemically altered vegetable oils. We are all victims, because when we eat foods containing these oils our health suffers.

The entire campaign was a carefully orchestrated plan by the ASA to eliminate competition from imported tropical oils. During the 1960s and 1970s, research indicated that some forms of saturated fat increase blood cholesterol. Since elevated cholesterol is recognized as a risk factor in the development of heart disease, saturated fat was, consequently, regarded as an undesirable food component, and we were advised to reduce our intake of it. The prevailing opinion was that the less saturated fat you ate, the better.

Capitalizing on the public’s growing fear of saturated fat and its perceived association with heart disease, the ASA set out to create a health crisis. The crisis they planned would be so terrifying it would literally scare people away from using tropical oils. In 1986 the ASA sent a Fat Fighter Kit to soybean farmers encouraging them to write government officials, food companies, and so on, protesting the encroachment of highly saturated tropical fats like palm and coconut oils. The wives and families of some 400,000 soybean growers were encouraged to fan out across the country in a lobbying effort touting the health benefits of soybean oil. Well-meaning but misguided health groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) joined in the battle, issuing news releases referring to palm, coconut, and palm kernel oils as artery-clogging fats.

The CSPI, a nonprofit consumer activist group, had been criticizing saturated fats since its founding in the 1970s. Like most nutrition advocates at the time, they mistakenly believed that all saturated fats were the same and attacked them with a vengeance. Encouraged by the publicity generated by the ASA, they began to intensify their attack. The tropical oils, being highly saturated, were severely criticized in their promotional literature, news releases, and lobbying efforts. It seemed the CSPI considered saturated fat to be the worst evil ever to beset humankind. The ASA had found a powerful, vocal ally in its campaign to take over the tropical oils market.

For a group that claimed to be an advocate for responsible nutritional education, the CSPI was surprisingly ignorant regarding saturated fats, especially concerning coconut oil. Instead of informing the public about the truth regarding saturated fats, they only succeeded in strengthening misconceptions and falsehoods. The CSPI’s lack of knowledge concerning lipid biochemistry is revealed in a booklet they published called Saturated Fat Attack. While laypeople and many health care professionals may have been fooled by the information in this booklet, nutritional biochemist Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., says, There were lots of substantive mistakes in the booklet, including errors in the description of the biochemistry of fats and oils and completely erroneous statements about the fat and oil composition of many of the products. Most people, however, would not have known this, and the booklet and other inaccurate information distributed by the group succeeded in convincing many to completely shun tropical oils. The