Unless you’ve been way off the health and fitness grid and dietary fat wars, no doubt you have seen and heard all the hoopla about coconut oil.
You may have even read that it would improve your lipid profile, or even help you to lose weight.
Jeff Novick, MS. RD. LD. LN., has written an enormously insightful and well presented piece on this very topic.
In his article “Marketing Junk Food: Don’t Go Cuckoo Over Coconut Oil”, Novick makes a powerful case by looking at the nutrition of coconut oil in reference to our definition of junk food. He argues that nutrient density is the best way to analyze food.
As a matter of fact, he compares coconut oil – a highly saturated fat – to that which often comes to everyone’s mind first as the quintessential “junk food” – sugar.
Nutrient density is defined as a ratio of nutrient content (in grams) to the total energy content (in calories). According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, nutrient-dense foods are those foods that provide substantial amounts of vitamins and minerals and relatively few calories.
The formula would look like this: ND = N/C
ND= Nutrient Density
N= Nutrient Content
C-=CaloriesThe nutrient density of any food can be calculated for a single nutrient (i.e., calcium) or for the overall nutrient density. I prefer to look at the overall nutrient density of a food as this gives us a better picture of how well a foods overall nutrient composition meets the nutrient requirements of the human body. By defining nutrient density this way, a nutrient-dense food is a food that delivers a complete nutritional package.
Lets look at the nutrient density of coconut oil and compare it to a food that is well known and accepted to be a junk food, sugar. In fact, when I ask audiences to name a junk food, sugar is almost always the most common answer. We could even say that sugar is the epitome of a junk food and the reason is because sugar supplies nothing but empty calories, which are calories without any nutrients (essential amino acids, essential fats, vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc.).
Novick goes on to analyze the nutritional properties of coconut oil on the quest of finding some sort of nutritional salvation.
His conclusions?
1) Coconut oil has virtually NO nutritional value. It has not protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, or fiber.
2) Like all oils, coconut oil is pure fat. Of the fat in coconut oil, over 90% is saturated fat.
3) All oils, including coconut oil, are the most calorie dense food on the planet.
4) While there may be a rare example of some healthy and fit native population that managed to be healthy in spite of their consumption of coconut, this does not make coconut oil into a health food, or a food that Americans should consume with complete abandon as part of their already unhealthy American lifestyles. The coconuts may have been the only risk factor in the otherwise healthy lifestyle of these native populations. However, recent studies have shown the harmful effects of even one high fat meal when the fat comes from coconut oil.
5) While it is true that coconut oil may have some antimicrobial properties, this is not why we consume food, especially one that has so many other negative aspects to it. Remember, our main nutritional and health problems are not bacteria, microbes and infections, but being overfed and undernourished with too many calories and too few nutrients and the resulting weight and lifestyle related diseases. Coconut oil, which is extremely high in calories and void of any nutrients, only makes this already unhealthy situation worse.
Looks like just as with any other high fat edible, coconut oil as a small rare condiment in most people’s diets will be of little harm, especially if one can afford the calories and does not have a the problem of being overweight. Yet as the panacea much of today’s advertising would have use believe, it’s more likely clever marketing of an edible that is low in nutritional value.
Read Novick’s researched analysis in its entirety here.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Lani – what type of oil do you recommend? I haven’t tried coconut oil, but have seen all the talk about it recently — good and bad. I normally use organic extra virgin olive oil.
@Casey: Casey, you inpired me to work on an other post that’s been brewing… Thanks! For now, if you ARE using added free fats in the form of oils, EVOO, cold pressed and real olive-y tasting is probably best simply because it is higher in phytonutrients than more filtered and processed oils, along with flaxseed oil. More soon!
Thanks Lani!
Lani,
Did you know Coconut Oil is comprised of MEDIUM CHAIN FATTY ACIDS — MCFA’S. They are easy to digest and, unlike any other fat, are sent straight to the liver where they are used as energy and not stored as fat deposits.
How great is that?!?!? I say use healthy fats sparingly but reconsider how how much better this fat is compared to other refined fats. Fabulous info here:
http://www.aboverubies.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=269:health–nothing-but-the-best&catid=39&Itemid=63
@Julie in IN: I’m well aware of that of which you speak. It is true that a small portion of the fatty acids in coconut oil are “medium chain triglycerides” (MCT) and these fats do get oxidized more quickly and appear slightly less fattening than other longer chain fatty acids.
It doesn’t change the fact that CO is a highly processed food which adds unnecessary energy to the diet and is still a saturated fat that can elevate blood cholesterol. I experimented during the investigative process myself when once encouraging the use of CO and not only did my cholesterol levels spike, but I had no assistance in managing bodyfat levels. That combined with continued research and interviews with docs and nutrition specialists changed my tune. Cannot promote the use of same.
Thank you for your input.
Most university studies on food products are supported by food companies. I am cautious of their studies because the outcome usually supports what they want the consumer to think is healthiest.
For example, canola oil was propelled into the media as an ultra healthy oil as compared to vegetable oil. It was a study funded by the industry and canola oil sales soared then and continue to be high.
Your information has piqued my thinking to continue to study healthy oils. I appreciate your time.
@Julie in IN: Most studies on food products PERIOD are supported by food companies. Same with the research about CO. Yes, I know about the canola study.
My experience with research has been quite enlightening – it always raises more questions than it answers. Yet the investigation is usually useful.
Basically, the term “healthy oils” is an oxymoron. They’re a processed, fragmented product with high calorie to nutrient (other than fat) ratio and worth minimizing, though some may be less harmful than others.
Thanks for coming by!
Not all coconut oil is heavily processed. Some of it is made through traditional methods that simply involve allowing the coconut to naturally ferment, the oil rises to the top, and is separated.
Studies have shown that coconut oil can stop HIV, candidiasis, and even the common cold due to its anti-viral and anti-fungal properties.
It’s interesting that Novick compares coconut oil to sugar. Sugar has been proven in clinical studies to be the cause of heart disease, not saturated fats. This information isn’t widely distributed because of the legal implications it would have for governments that have stated otherwise for decades.
Knowledge is the best weapon of all!
@Jasmine: Any oil has been separated from fiber and is primarily fat, saturated or not. The point with the comparison to sugar is their similarity in being separated from nutrient and fiber, making them both highly dense in calories relative to nutritional content.
There are many people who cannot tolerate even high fat foods in their diets without seriously compromising their health. Others seem to be more tolerant. But the current marketing encouraging people to eat coconut oil as medicine and as a weight loss aid are highly misleading. People are more likely to gain weight by consciously adding this to their diets.
If high fat foods can be tolerated, best as flavor agent in its whole form.
Worth noting is my personal review of the literature with coconut oil a few years ago (extensive) and personal experimentation. My weight went up and my cholesterol spiked. Upon closer inspection, it became clearer that promotions were being done primarily by those with an interest in selling coconut oil. Fortunately, I have since had the opportunity to work with physicians whose specialty is reversal of heart disease, countering the pro-coconut oil position.
I’ll let the experts speak: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/may/coconut.htm
Hey can I copy and paste this post on my web site? What references must I give? You might give this info for other people too.
Oil is oil is oil. One of the Price Pottinger newsletters years ago had results of a study on oils. Coconut oil caused cance 13% of the time in that one. It’s good to not only read Dr. Caldwall Esselstyn’s book on curing heart disease “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” with a plant based diet, but to remember that his diagrams show that it’s not only the #1 killer in the U.S., but also that the oil causes foam cell buildup which is the first stage of cancer. Oils do not carry an electrical current in our bodies. Wlhy do we need an electric current? Our heart beats on electricity, our lungs billow when the diaphragm contracts with electrical impulses, nerves and muscles do the same. Why put something in your body that is a clarified oil that not even bugs will eat, that will cut off your circulation, clog up your pores, make your hair fall out after it gets grey/white and destroys your cells’ integrity? If people will turn down their a/c and sweat a little or a lot of the oils out of their bodies, they would come back to life! Get rid of the brain fog (oily starches and dairy) and lose weight (oil cuts off the ability of the villi in the small intestine to absorb and assimilate foods that we eat, and the oil also dissolves the lining (epithelium) of the arteries as well as coats the gut’s inside with slime and clogs up everything in there, surrounding the good nutrients in things like salad greens and making them useless.
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