Coconut is everywhere these days. It is used as a butter substitute in vegan baking, a smoothie topper for natural health nuts and even a beauty treatment, for moisturizing skin and hair and improving oral health via oil pulling.
Many in the coconut business promote it as the "healthy" saturated fat, but this is a case where facts have been twisted into fiction according to a leading dietitian.
"People think that because coconut is natural it must be healthy, unaware it carries surprising amounts of calories and saturated fat," Helen Bond, a dietitian and spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said.
A Brazilian study in 2009 claimed that coconut oil can speed up weight loss, but Bond is not convinced.
"I can't see how it could aid weight loss,' says Helen Bond. 'Coconut oil has the same calories as olive oil, but 1 tbsp provides 13g of saturated fat, compared with 2.1g in olive oil," she said.
"A woman is recommended to have no more than 20g saturated fat in a day [and a man 30g], so that's a huge amount."
Even 'Keeping Up With The Kardashian' reality star Khloe Kardashian was said to be shedding some pounds after getting rid of coconut oil, which is a total opposite of what the study claimed.
When younger sister Kylie Jenner was asked about her secret to her perfect bikini body, she revealed more than just her secrets and also spilled out Khloe's.
“She actually found out, which is interesting — I don’t know if she wants me to tell people this, that she was allergic to coconut oil and she was cooking everything with coconut oil," Kylie claimed. "So then she stopped that and then she like, lost all the water weight. She’s doing really great.”
A photo posted by Khloé (@khloekardashian) on May 31, 2015 at 7:20am PDT
Coconut is a wonderful flavor and there’s no problem using coconut oil occasionally but it’s still not the best choice among the many available oils to reduce the risk of heart disease.
