Have you seen this ad for one of those fake butter spreads?
It features a 1950s family called the “Buttertons.” The mother serves the family entire sticks of butter shoved into baked potatoes. The voiceover says something like, “Back then we didn’t know much about cholesterol and saturated fats… Today, we know better.”
That means they’re telling you that you shouldn’t eat fat. It’s remarkable that this message is still dominant in the mainstream media.
The truth is we don’t eat a high fat diet. We eat less fat than our ancestors did. And yet we’re the ones with obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol, clogged arteries and high blood pressure.
In direct contradiction of what you commonly hear in the media – like in that ad – real butter is good for you. Saturated fats are a natural part of your diet and are essential to life. Fat makes up the basic building blocks of compounds that help your body perform everyday functions. This includes things like regulating blood pressure, blood clotting and bolstering your immune system.
Saturated fats have been on the media hit list for over 50 years. Butter is just one example. Red meat is another. But one of the worst victims of this low-fat propaganda is coconut oil. Like butter, it’s been vilified for decades.
But a new study shows that coconut oil can lower your total cholesterol, boost your HDL “good” cholesterol, lower your LDL “bad” cholesterol, and shrink your waist size. Compare that to soybean oil, which did the opposite – lowered HDL, raised LDL and total cholesterol, and did nothing for your belly size.
And it’s not the only study to reach that conclusion. Several other studies back up those findings and find even more benefits of coconut oil.
Coconut oil can protect
your heart, boost your immune system, and help you lose fat faster and easier than ever before. And today I’m going to show you how to use it.Make the Switch from Corn Oil and Watch Your Waistline Shrink
Coconut oil is rich in medium-chain fatty acids, medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs).
Unlike longer-chain fatty acids, the medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil are tiny enough to enter your cells’ mitochondria directly.
This means your cells use the fat from coconut oil for energy instantly, instead of storing it for later use.
A Boston University study gave one group corn oil (longer-chain fatty acids) and the other medium-chain fatty acids.
After 90 days, those that got the medium-chain fatty acids lost weight, increased their insulin receptivity and even lowered their overall cholesterol.1
Another study published this year in the journal Lipids compared coconut oil with soybean oil. The women taking coconut oil saw their waist lines shrink and their HDL “good” cholesterol levels increase. Meanwhile, the women taking soybean oil didn’t see any change in their waist size. Plus, LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol levels rose and HDL levels dropped.2
Another study found that coconut oil can help reduce the symptoms of type-2 diabetes and that “people who incorporate medium-chain fatty acids, such as those found in coconut oil, into their diets can lose body fat.”3
Coconut oil can help turn your body into a fat-burning furnace.
Plus, it can help you eat less. It controls your hunger by leaving you feeling satisfied, longer.4
Boost Your HDL Levels
Contrary to what mainstream medicine tells you, eating high amounts of fat does not automatically equal higher cholesterol. And that’s certainly the case with coconut oil.
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The truth is it does the exact opposite. It helps improve your HDL to LDL ratio (“good” vs. “bad” cholesterol), lower overall blood levels of serum cholesterol, and reduce the amount of fat your body stores.5
In fact, in Sri Lanka, about 50% of calories from the typical diet come from coconut oil. Yet, heart disease there is virtually non-existent.
Researchers, perplexed by this, decided to see what happened when they took a group of young men and had them substitute corn and soybean oil for coconut oil.
The results weren’t pretty.
Their HDL level plunged 42 percent – which put them far below what’s considered healthy. Their LDL/HDL ratio increased 30 percent.6
That’s a recipe for heart disaster.
These results simply confirm what countless studies are finding. Coconut oil is good for your heart and helps increase your good HDL cholesterol.
For example, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition studied 25 women. They were given three different diets. A diet high in coconut oil, a low-fat diet with small amounts of coconut oil, and a diet high in polyunsaturated fats. Each diet lasted 3 weeks.
As you might guess, the highest increase in HDL was when the women ate the high fat, coconut oil diet.7
Bulletproof Your Immune System
Coconut oil contains lauric acid, a powerful immune system booster.
Lauric acid has antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial and antiprotozoal properties that help bullet proof your immune system against everything from free radicals, to a latent virus that’s waiting to wreak havoc.
It’s so powerful, in fact, that preliminary research suggests it’s effective against lipid-coated viruses, such as HIV.
A recent study took a group of 15 men with HIV. They had not received any prior treatment. After 3 months of supplementing with coconut oil, half of the patients showed a decrease in viral load.8
Good Health Can Taste Great
It’s pretty easy to get all the coconut oil you need in your diet.
Just follow any one of these simple tips:
Fry with it. Coconut oil has a high smoke point. That means that it won’t degrade at high temperatures – leaving all the fatty acids intact. It’s especially great for pan searing. If you do cook with it, consider getting it with no flavor. This is known as “expeller-pressed” coconut oil.
Take it to go. If you’ve got a very busy schedule, you can eat a snack with coconut oil already in it. My Primal Force Power Bars are great for this. Every bar is made with a healthy dose of coconut oil, and gives you plenty of protein to boot. It will give you the steady, long lasting energy you need.
Another great favorite of mine is to grab one banana. Dip it in plain yogurt. Then roll it in finely chopped coconut. Afterwards
I put it in the freezer and eat it whenever I want a quick snack.
Make a smoothie. Scoop a healthy serving of coconut oil (it’ll probably be solid, but that’s okay) into the blender. Mix in your favorite fresh fruits. Maybe even add some protein powder. Add organic milk and a little ice. Blend it all and enjoy a tasty, heart-healthy smoothie.
Bake with it. It’s okay to have your favorite foods from time to time. And if you like to bake cookies, brownies, or anything else, go for it. Just substitute expeller pressed coconut oil for vegetable oil. Not only will everything taste better, but most of the fat you’ll be eating will get burned off right away.
- Han JR et al. Effects of dietary medium-chain triglyceride on weight loss and insulin sensitivity in a group of moderately overweight free-living type 2 diabetic Chinese subjects., Metabolism., 2007 Jul;56(7):985-91.
- Monica L. Assunção et al. “Effects of Dietary Coconut Oil on the Biochemical and Anthropometric Profiles of Women Presenting Abdominal Obesity,” Lipids Volume 44, Number 7 / July 2009
- http://www.garvan.org.au/news-events/news/how-coconut-oil-could-help-reduce-the-symptoms-of-type-2-diabetes.html
- Van Wymelbeke V, Himaya A, Louis-Sylvestre J, Fantino M. Influence of medium-chain and long-chain triacylglycerols on the control of food intake in men. Am J Clin Nutr. 1998 Aug;68(2):226-34.
- Kaunitz, H. 1986. Medium chain triglycerides (MCT) in aging and arteriosclerosis. J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol 6(3-4):115.
- coconut oil
- Hanne Müller et al. The Serum LDL/HDL Cholesterol Ratio Is Influenced More Favorably by Exchanging Saturated with Unsaturated Fat Than by Reducing Saturated Fat in the Diet of Women. J. Nutr. 133:78-83, Jan 2003
- Tayag E, Dayrit CS, Santiago BC, Manalo MA, Alban PN, Agdamag DM, Adel AS, Lazo S and Espallardo N: Monolaurin and Coconut Oil as Monotherapy for HIV-AIDS. Pilot Trial. For Publication