Coconut and Palm Oils

Coconut and palm oils are both saturated vegetable fats, derived from the fruit of tropical trees. Because they are saturated fats, they have widely — and wrongly — been supposed to be unhealthy. The myth that they are bad for you was initiated in 1986 by the US soybean industry, in a classic piece of black propaganda which was almost entirely effective. In essence, the entire story was based on the fact that a single cow did not thrive while eating a diet of hydrogenated coconut oil.

Congressional hearings were held in 1988, at which the Surgeon General C Everett Koop dismissed the anti-tropical oil arguments as ill-founded and absurd. Yet the US soy industry won the day, and palm and coconut oils, until then widely used across the US food industry, were suddenly dropped and replaced with hydrogenated vegetable oils made from locally-grown soy, corn, sunflower and rapeseed.

In his Statement on Palm Oil to WHO by Nevin S. Scrimshaw, Ph.D., M.D., M.P.H., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President, International Nutrition Foundation, Senior Advisor, Food and Nutrition Program, United Nations University, Dr Scrimshaw argues that the saturated fats in palm oil behave like unsaturated vegetable fats in terms of their health qualities.

Also see the submission to WHO by the Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council, which argues that palm oil has been unfairly stigmatised, in that the saturated fatty acid palmitic acid, found in palm oil, behaves similarly to or better than unsaturated vegetable oils in terms of cholesterol levels, and quoting numerous studies in support of this view.

Under present conditions, however, I would not encourage a mass switch to palm oil: not because of health but because tropical forests of vital importance to the world's climate and biodiversity are being ravaged by the palm oil industry across southeast Asia and South America.

However coconut oil does not presently suffer from this problem: coconut groves in many parts of the world have been abandoned due to the low price of coconut, and farmers in producing countries such as the Solomon Islands left in poverty. In addition, coconut oil is not merely not bad for you, it is one of the healthiest fats in existence. Here's a quick rundown on the health promoting qualities of coconut oil:

• it is active against pathogenic viruses, bacteria and fungi
• it is good source of lauric acid, a protective substance found in
  mother's milk (and in butter, in lesser amounts), which boosts the immune system
• it protects against heart disease and cancer
• it has the lowest energy content of any oil — and so it is less fattening
• as a « medium chain » fat, it is not easily converted to body fat, but preferentially burnt for energy
• it guards against premature aging and wrinkles
• it is loaded with antioxidants
• it is anti-inflammatory
• it is safest of all cooking oils.

So it is that Sri Lanka, where coconut oil is used for cooking and people typically eat 120 coconuts a year, has the world's lowest rate of heart disease.

More information at TFX.