Coconut oil?

My wife read in some woman's magazine that coconut oil increases one's metabolism and energy levels, burning more fat. She went out and bought some. It's sitting on the kitchen counter now.
I always thought coconut oil was on the avoid list. I did find a link touting its 'magical' effects, but it's obviously biased: http://coconutoil.com/
Any thought's from the real experts here that I've come to love and trust more than anyone else?
Think it really works, or are the coconut growers just hiring expensive lobbyists?

[Nick Cummings]

I think coconut oil is on the good list. I don't know why though.

Ah, nevermind. This was just discussed.
http://www.crossfit.com/discus/messages/23/19481.html

About the butter oil:
When I was a kid, my very first job was at a movie theater, where I discovered that the "butter" for the popcorn was in reality butter fat.
Would this be the same thing?

(Message edited by 54ford on February 10, 2006)

[Garrett Smith]

Don,
I've heard that coconut oil can do wonders for some and not so much for others.

As butter is nearly all fat, I would say that butter and butter fat are the same thing. The butter oil is a low temperature, centrifuged extract of raw, grassfed butter. This is different from ghee, in which the milk solids left in the butter (the "floaties" and stuff at the bottom of the pan) are removed through heating the butter and decanting or filtering in some way.

The butter oil is a liquid (with some small solid pieces) at normal room temperature. Butter and ghee are solids at room temperature.

Considering the nutritional interests of movie theaters, I would guess that the "butter" was of the most suspect quality.

Hope that elucidated some of the differences.

Yes that cleared up a lot Garret, thanks.
Yeah, I kinda doubt we'd ever see grassfed organically grown butter popcorn at the movies.

Ya know, I've been doing fine with my fish oil, but the more I read the news, the more confuseder I git.

[Garrett Smith]

Don,
We need a little bit of everything. Raw fat from grassfed animals contains pretty much everything we need if you eat enough of it--EPA, DHA, and saturated fat. People got confused when we ruined our animals through grain feeding. This raised the total fat content 10-30x, completely flipped the Omega-3/-6 balance, and increased the percentage of saturated fats (which most people cook anyway).

If you get confused, try to forget what you hear and come back to the Paleo idea, always remembering that we want plants that grow in good soil (and have to defend themselves with things like bioflavonoids, an insect repellent in plants) and animals that eat what Nature intended them to. Then try to build the logic from there.

That and don't listen to obese, pasty-faced, red-nosed people trying to tell you what to eat. All too often this describes physicians and scientists of any background, including Naturopathic Medicine. My personal mission is to break that mold and blaze a trail by example.

I eat a fair amount of wild game, because I think it's better for me.
Then I hear a report that there have been a few cases of venison infected with something similar to mad cow disease. Yet another on wild ducks getting the bird flu.
But I've yet to hear anything bad about rabbits, squirrels, beavers, groundhogs, coons and stuff yet. I wonder what their Omegas are like, since they don't eat grains.

[George Shelton]

There have been cases of CWD(chronic wasting disease) in ungalates in North America. You can google it to get the distribution.
Small game that you mentioned is probably ok and very healthy with the exception of the omnivore scavenger types(coons/opossums etc). Also coons, possums, bears are very fatty.
Beaver, muskrat, rabbits, ground hogs all eat grass and roots. There have been cases of liver flukes in some rabbit populations so care should be taked there. Most people make the mistake of breading or dredging these meats in flour and frying them.
Baked, broiled, roasted, braised is the way to go.

[Chris MacFarlane]

I was told 4 years ago by someone that Coconut oil was fattening and bad for you. I don't believe he was an expert on this, by that I mean he wasn't a scientist.

The biggest problem I noticed these days if with all the technology we have has made alot of people "experts" about stuff. Which I thinkhas caused us more harm than good and made eating healthy way to complicated.

Maybe mom was right about what to eat.

[Garrett Smith]

What I wonder is, what was wrong with the whole coconut in the first place?:happy: