Veg*n Coconut Oil, Miracle Food!

[CavySpirit]

Glad to have a convert. When I went to WF the other day, I noticed their brand of c. milk was just about gone. I wondered if you got there before me!

So, how's it going?

I think the only thing coconut oil can't do is rub my feet and do the dishes.

No kidding.

Re: gallstones, the book the Coconut Cure indicates that it's good for gallbladder disease and gallstones. But, I would join (broken link removed) and ask more there. Dr. Fife sometimes participates on this group.

 

[muffin]

Wow, this all sounds so interesting.

I'd always thought coconut was a laxative, so that may be why some people have problems if they eat too much at once before their body is used to it?

 

[Emmett]

I finally tried the oil last night. To my surprise it tasted fine. Not much flavor which is good. I thought it would taste really sweet. Glad I finally opened the jar. If it wasn't for this thread the jar would probably be sitting in my cupboard unopened for another 2 years. Thanks

 

[Mommy Of One]

Really?
My mom had read some good things about it helping you lose weight, well she bought it and it made our hole family put on weight! She then read up on it again and there were numerous other complaints. Maybe there are different brands or something?

 

[CavySpirit]

Well, it has to be the right kind of Coconut Oil. And if you are too thin, it will help put on weight. And there aren't 'numerous other complaints.' You'll have to back that statement up with some links. And you can't be ignorant about what you eat, either. It still has calories and you have to be smart about your diet and exercise. For a 'family', if your mother replaced all her other cooking oils with coconut oil, you most definitely would NOT put on weight. If she started adding a lot of oil to your diet, then yes, you could put on weight.

I don't see any way you could put on weight by adding the recommended 3T of oil a day and being smart about what you eat.

 

[Love4Piggers]

I'm so glad to stumble upon this post. I have so many health problems that I was accepted for disability income at 21 years old. (I'm 24 now, and still quite ill.) I have to take so many prescriptions a day, as many as my grandmother who lives with us and is in stage IV cancer and under hospice care.
I became a vegan when I was a teenager, and for a while I decided to become a raw foodist. At the time, I read about the miracles of coconut oil, and bought some and used it every day in my fruit smoothies, (it's really good in a smoothie w/ banana and raw cacao beans, I used to love that,) and sometimes would just eat a tablespoon full on it's own, because I liked it so much. Some people even cook with it in the place of butter. And for years now, when baby coconuts come into season, I eat them like mad, I love them. They are full to the brim with coconut water, and it's so tasty. If you want, you can mix the meat and water together, and drink it like a shake. (The meat of a young coconut is very soft.) Anyway, though 100% raw foodism didn't work out for me, I continued to use coconut oil for a little while. But it kind of has become forgotten about, and has been hiding in the pantry for months now, untouched. And I see what you put in about it improving people with thyroid problems. Well, on top of everything else, I found out last week that I have hypothyroidism. So I have another pill to take, and have to get regular blood tests until my levels are normal again. My body just seems as though it's falling apart sometimes.

But any way, reading that info about it helping thyroid problems, has inspired me to want to start using it again.

Thank you so much for this great thread. There are so many supposed "miracle" supplements out there, but coconut oil has been proving it's claims to be true for years now. Not to mention it's delicious! Thanks again. You've got another convert. Or, well, "re-convert", should I say, hee hee.

 

[SkinnyPiggys]

I also have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and recently started using VCO. You might want to also take a look at:

Stop The Thyroid Madness » Index Page

 

[John4216]

I wanted to post some information here but first I wanted to say that I am not against the use of coconut oil. I do worry about the "claims" made by people that sell it. Since I can't post the entire letter I will post pieces of it from the Harvard Medical School letters.

"Q. I’ve read that organic coconut oil has health benefits. Could coconut oil improve lipid profiles if consumed every day?
A. I doubt that coconut oil has health benefits, especially beneficial effects on lipids, and I wouldn’t recommend that you consume it regularly.
For years, fat was portrayed as unhealthful. That’s not true. “Bad fats,” such as saturated and trans fats, are bad for you, but “good fats” — monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats — actually have health benefits."

The black-hat fats are a problem because they tend to increase LDL cholesterol levels, which in turn raises the risk of developing atherosclerosis and the heart disease and strokes that follow. True, they also tend to increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol, but not enough to compensate for the bad effects.
Dietary oils — canola, corn oil, and so on — are all forms of fat. But unlike most other oils made from plants, coconut oil, as well as palm oil, are high in saturated fat. Saturated fat comes in several varieties; coconut oil is rich in one called lauric acid. Some groups and self-proclaimed experts are hawking lauric acid as a wonder food that will boost your immune system, help you lose weight, fight cancer — you name it. Needless to say, the evidence is weak to nonexistent. A respected nutrition textbook on our shelves does refer to the possibility of it having modest cavity-fighting properties. By contrast, there’s a great deal of evidence that, like other saturated fats, lauric acid increases LDL levels.


There is more but I do not want to do any copyright problems here. they also have an article in their September 2007 newsletter that discusses FATS and coconnut oil is one of the ones listed. One of the comments from the doctor their about tropical oils is this:

"Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Harvard School of Public Health’s nutrition department, has been a leading proponent of a more fat-friendly approach to eating. His research also helped expose the harm caused by trans fat.

The tropical oils in small amounts are okay, and they’re certainly an improvement over trans fat. Americans were scared away from them because of their saturated fat content. But remarkably, coconut oil and olive oil have similar effects on the ratio of LDL to HDL."

So while science may not know everything, it never claims to. It just makes the statement that you have to have verifiable proof to claims you make.

So what does this mean to me? To me it means that in small amounts it probably will not be hurtful but it could be harmful if not understood and used correctly.


As a side note here is one example of what I mean by flawed "proof":

Heart Healthy
Population studies show that coconut oil lowers cholesterol, and
reduces risk of heart disease. Americans consistently have higher
cholesterol levels than coconut eating cultures.

This implies that coconut oil is the only reason why. Fallacy. As any vegetarian knows it is not just oil. It is the entire diet period as well as other lifestyle activities. You could subsitute olive oil in place of coconut and the result would be the same in the above sentence.


I am happy for those of you it is working for and hope it is beneficial to others as well. But I also hope people will be careful when approaching something potentially life altering as this can be.

 

[CavySpirit]

Since I recently referenced this thread, I thought I'd bring it current again.

And I want to counter John's somewhat downer last post with a link to a page that has other links to many scientific articles about Coconut Oil. There is a mountain of information available on the internet backing up the claims about its' health benefits, in addition to a number of books. I also highly suggest you do your own research and reading. You'll only be that much more convinced!

(broken link removed)