{"id":5,"date":"2013-08-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/coconuts-and-coconut-oil\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:39:11","slug":"coconuts-and-coconut-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/gabiwell\/coconuts-and-coconut-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Coconuts and Coconut Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

From being a child, I have always loved the taste of coconut in any form or guise<\/strong> (especially if it\u2019s enrobed in chocolate, like a Bounty Bar !).<\/p>\n

When I was young we lived across the river from Battersea Park Fun fair, in London \u2013 now long gone, sadly \u2013 and I remember my father winning a coconut at the coconut shy. We took the hairy, brown object home where my father drilled holes in the three marks at one end and we carefully drained the clear liquid, which we shared. It tasted exotic, but I\u2019m not sure either my brother or I really liked the taste of it or not \u2026 what we were waiting for was for the nut to be cracked open for us to get at the milky white flesh.<\/p>\n

I seized any opportunity to consume the meat \u2013 usually desiccated and with chocolate ! We went to ABC Bakery, opposite Peter Jones in the Kings Road, and chose from the enticing selection behind the child finger-marked glass, not far below our eye-line : Coconut bites, coconut delights, coconut pyramids, coconut macaroons, a flaky pastry with whirls of sweetened shredded coconut that fell off into the white paper bags and that I kept till later and ate in my room, chocolate & marshmallow snowballs covered in desiccated coconut \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that the most easily accessible coconut was usually dried and associated with huge amounts of sugar.\u00a0 I do seem to recall that you could find whole nuts in supermarkets fairly easily, but I kept them for so long that either the water had dried up by the time I thought of a recipe to use it (why I couldn\u2019t just have drunk it, I have no idea) or the flesh was starting to dry out by the time I had mustered the enthusiasm for trying to separate the meat from the shell.<\/p>\n

Since then coconuts became another sinful delight \u2013 because scientists in the \u201970s & \u201980s found them to contain the highest amount of saturated fat of any oils.\u00a0 So, I forsook large amounts of fresh coconut for \u2018naughty\u2019 smaller amounts of dried sugary stuff !\u00a0 At the same time, believing they were protecting us from the terrible health effects of consuming products with such high saturated fats, manufacturing companies substituted coconut oil with trans fats \u2026 do you see where I\u2019m heading with this ?<\/p>\n

Coconut oil can be produced in a variety of ways and the oil that was tested in the \u201970s and \u201980s was partly hydrogenated, which creates trans fats, and not virgin coconut oil, which has a totally different health risk profile.<\/p>\n

I became aware that perhaps coconuts had been given rather a harsh negative health profile when I came across the use of young coconut meat and coconut water in many recipes for eating raw, about eight years ago.\u00a0 Frustrated that I would never be able to try out these delicious-sounding recipes, because of where I live, I contented myself with buying unsweetened shredded coconut to make banana bread and other more \u2018healthy\u2019 sweet treats and using canned coconut milk for Asian curries.<\/p>\n

Whilst I was in a local organic produce shop I came across a small jar of virgin coconut oil<\/strong> which I experimented with in stir fries and then bought a second jar which I kept in the bathroom and used on my skin.\u00a0 During the Summer months, when temperatures inside the house can reach above 26\u00b0C (78.8\u00b0F) the oil is liquid but at the moment it is a solid mass.<\/p>\n

I was delighted when I started googling the benefits of virgin coconut oil and found that it is probably one of the best oils to use when frying because it is heat-stable, this also means it is slow to oxidise and resistant to rancidity, plus lots of other positive information.<\/p>\n

The FDA, WHO, British NHS, American Heart Association and other health organisations around the world still recommend limiting the consumption of significant amounts of coconut oil due to its high levels of saturated fat.\u00a0 However, as our understanding increases, newer studies have now shown that coconuts and their oil have many health benefits that include :<\/p>\n