Canola Oil: Heart-healthy Hero, or Malignant Miscreant?

I think I was a really annoying kid. I always liked to ask questions, sometimes the kind that parents aren't ready to answer yet, like "Hey Dad... Santa's not real, is he?" As I got older, and was finally on my own, I started asking questions about my food. These are usually harder to answer, because most often, regardless of what the powers-that-be say, the true answer is "Well, we really just don't know."

Using Coconut Oil

So you've decided to try it; great! Now you need to know what to do with it.  

Coconut Oil: A saturated fat than can help you get healthy?

Coconut oil has had a bad rap over the years. A few decades ago, a scientist fed some hydrogenated coconut oil to some test-rodents, and they got sick! Well, the thing is, this hydrogenated oil (read: trans-fat!) was actually completely devoid of any necessary fatty-acids. That's like blaming scurvy on the ale on a ship: the sickness wasn't coming from what they were eating, but what they weren't!

Now, there are pros and cons to everything in the food world. "Saturated fat" is probably the dirtiest phrase in a food dictionary! Had a heart attack? Cut back on the saturated fats! But consider this: saturated fat (like many other nutrients in life) has its uses. Our bodies use saturated fats to build cell walls. In fact, without enough saturated fats, your body can't function properly.

OK, why in the world have I started in on saturated fats? This post is supposed to be about coconut oil! Well, coconut oil is approximately 90% saturated fat. You read that right, 90%. So you may wonder how I can be recommending you use a fat that, by its very composition, is everything that is evil in the world of (if I may borrow a phrase from KitchenKop) "politically correct" food.

So let's look a little more closely: