\n
When I was about five-years-old, my mother brought home a whole, hairy coconut and sat down with me and my little brother<\/a> on our brick red linoleum kitchen floor in Houston, Texas.\u00a0 She let us examine the coconut.\u00a0 Then she brought out a hammer and nail to open it.\u00a0 I wish I could tell you more, but after that, the memory ends.\u00a0 I don’t know if I drank the liquid inside the coconut or tasted the coconut meat, but I like to imagine that I did.<\/p>\n A short time later my mother became very ill and incapacitated so the coconut memory is a treasure, one of the few happy times I recall with her.\u00a0 You might think that given the special memory, I’d have spent the rest of my childhood loving coconut.\u00a0 Well… thanks to the Passover holiday, and a certain company’s kosher for Passover coconut macaroons (which I believe had a shelf life of 40 years to represent the time the Israelites wandered the desert), I \u00a0have nothing but traumatic coconut associations.\u00a0 My family’s annual eight days of eating only kosher for Passover food left me half-starved and perplexed.\u00a0 After inedible boiled chicken dinners my grandmother would bring out those macaroons (the 11th plague!) that still tasted of the conveyer belt they came off of.\u00a0 They had a grainy texture and were sweet in a nauseating sort of way.<\/p>\n Though it’s probably been 20 years since I’ve eaten one of those macaroons, just writing about them brings back the chemical smell.\u00a0 I can only guess at their ingredients: partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, potato starch, shredded plastic with artificial coconut flavor, and some special powder that preserves freshness for generations.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s because those macaroons that I wrote coconuts off for decades.\u00a0 After my diabetes diagnosis in 2008, however, when I cut most carbohydrates out of my diet, I began to investigate non-carbohydrate food options.\u00a0 One that came up over and over again was coconut.\u00a0 And it seemed like the vegans and raw foodists that I admired were all preparing dishes with coconut oil.<\/p>\n It turns out, and it took me a long time to understand this, that coconuts are good for us.\u00a0 The macaroons are part of the reason I was confused.\u00a0 The other reason is that coconut oil is a saturated fat which until recently, I thought was a totally bad thing.\u00a0 But there’s a lot of room for debate on the saturated\/unsaturated fat issue.\u00a0 And the saturated fat in coconut oil (sometimes called coconut butter because it’s solid at room temperature) is different from the saturated fat in animal products.\u00a0 About half of the fatty acids in coconut oil are lauric acid, a medium-chain fatty acid that’s easily metabolized by the body.\u00a0 \u00a0 According to nutritionist Gena Hamshaw, author of the blog Choosing Raw<\/a>, “The saturated fatty acid chains make coconut oil resistant to oxidation and rancidity, and some of the medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil–lauric acids–may have anti-inflammatory effects.”\u00a0 Lauric acid is a component in human breast milk, and it’s been suggested that it has anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-acne properties.\u00a0 It’s also said to speed up metabolism.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most fascinating claim about coconut oil comes from Mary T. Newport, M.D., a neonatologist in Florida who says she has reversed symptoms of her husband’s Alzheimer’s disease with coconut oil.\u00a0 She’s written a book about her experience, Alzheimer’s Disease, What If There Was a Cure?<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 In the book Dr. Newport discusses the glucose connection to Alzheimer’s disease (sometimes called type 3 diabetes), and she explains and why the medium chain triglycerides found in coconut oil are a miraculous treatment for Alzheimer’s.\u00a0\u00a0 (For the short version of the Newports’ story see this<\/a> Tampa Bay Times article.)<\/p>\n \u00a0There’s not much in the way of scientific data to support any of the health-related coconut oil claims (and there’s not likely to be any scientific data produced on the theory that putting coconut oil in your nostrils can prevent seasonal allergies)<\/a>.\u00a0 I, however, can make my own anecdotal claim that’s pretty easy to prove – coconut oil does not raise blood sugar levels. \u00a0 And here’s another (far less dramatic) claim: It’s a delicious way to cook vegetables.<\/p>\n Speaking of delicious cooking, last year the New York Times food writer Melissa Clark<\/a> wrote about coconut oil<\/a>.\u00a0 She interviewed Thomas Brenna, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University<\/a> who has extensively reviewed the literature on coconut oil.\u00a0 According to Brenna, a considerable part of its stigma can be traced to the fact that most of the studies involving coconut oil were done with partially hydrogenated coconut oil.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Partial hydrogenation creates trans fats and destroys good fatty acids and other nutrients.\u00a0 So the key to keeping coconut oil healthy is to use virgin coconut oil, which has not been chemically treated.\u00a0 Watch out for coconut oil that has been bleached, deodorized, refined, or is labeled kosher for Passover and was used to manufacture macaroons in 1980s. (Note: Another important fact about coconut oil is that it’s stable at high temperatures, which makes it an ideal oil for grilling, baking, and pan-frying over heat.)<\/p>\n If this article hasn’t made you want to eat coconut oil, there are other good reasons to have some around your home.\u00a0 It can be used as hair conditioner, lip balm, shaving cream, hand cream, and eye make-up remover.<\/p>\n \u00a0For some terrific recipes using coconut oil check out Sarma Melngailis<\/a> of Pure Food and Wine<\/a>‘s recipe for Sweet and Easy Plain Cashew Milk<\/a>, and Carolyn Ketchum of All Day I Dream About Food’s Coconut Flour Cupcakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n