Is Coconut Oil Healthy or Not? There's a Lot of Misinformation Out There

The subject of this question is the source of a disagreement. Initially, the question was thought settled decades ago, when scientist Ancel Keys declared all saturated fats unhealthy. Coconut oil, which is solid at room temperature, is a saturated fat.

Today, advocates like Dr. Mercola and the Weston A. Price Foundation believe saturated fats should be entirely exonerated. Coconut oil is sold as a health food, and some eat it straight as a nutritional supplement. Literally eating a saturated fat like coconut oil from a spoon flies in the face of the recommendations of Ancel Keys, as well as the American Heart Association.

Saturated fat is not just one chemical; it's several. The structure of these chemicals is similar, but they differ in how many carbons they have. Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, a medium-chain saturated fatty acid with 12 carbons. Saturated fats in animal products tend to be comprised of palmitic and stearic acid.

There's been a lot of criticism about the health benefits of Coconut oil. I think big agra is pushing this disinformation campaign about Coconuts and this article does a good job in explaining what's wrong with just assume saturated and unsaturated fats like what you see on the government nutrition labels are not as simple as they'd like it to be.

Like that article states we are talk about different fatty acids with different molecule structures. Coconut is a medium chain fatty acid and animal fat is longer chain fatty acid.

Anyone that has taken basic chemistry classes in high school knows that two molecules have have the same elements in them but one has an extra element will behave way differently and has different properties than the other one. For example, Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide, both have carbon and oxygen in them but the dioxide has two oxygen instead of one. The Carbon Monoxide is much more deadly gas and kills more people every year then Carbon Dioxide.

So the same knowledge can be applied to fatty acids. Some the body has been digesting for millions of years like coconuts and animal fat while others like soybean and canola oils the body cannot process very well and can damage the liver and heart if you eat to much of it.

This article does a good job and countering the narrative the media is portraying about coconuts. I suggest everyone read it.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/coconut-oil-myths-and-facts