Virgin coconut oil is full of saturated fats. That is a fact. An undisputed fact. So, having said this at the start, it should have you running for the hills in fear! But hang on, I haven’t finished yet, so come back and read some more. You might be pleasantly surprised!

When exactly was it, when we became terrified of saturated fats? I’m not really sure, but it certainly changed the way that we think about certain foods like butter and cheese. The trouble is, that in this sound byte age we only really hear one part of any message. However, it could also be that vested interests want us to believe that things have only 2 sides: one side good and one side bad. Saturated fats are bad and all other fats are good. On the basis of this we all ditched butter and headed for margarine, only to find out that there is actually another side to the story: the deadly trans fats found in margarine.

Sometimes we don’t know which way to turn or which things to believe. Some of it is science that is made up of half complete knowledge and at other times it is slick advertising. Where do we turn? One thing we do know, is that ‘Saturated fats are bad for us’. Wrong again! What it should say is that ‘most saturated fats are bad for us’. The thing that is missed out is that there are certain saturated fats that appear to be very good for us indeed. Where do we find these good saturated fats? Why, in virgin coconut oil of course!

To appreciate this we have to first understand why ordinary saturated fats are bad for us. It is not that the saturated fats themselves are bad; it is the fact that they get converted into bad cholesterol. This bad cholesterol causes heart and vascular disease. So, if there is bad cholesterol there must be good cholesterol. Right? Well in this case, it is right: the bad cholesterol and good cholesterol fight it out and the winner does what it wants. Yes this is true! When there is too much bad cholesterol you get heart disease and when good cholesterol is the winner you get less or no cardiovascular disease. Coconut contains a different kind of saturated fat. This particular fat does the opposite of ordinary saturated fat. It acts a little more like a polyunsaturated fat and in doing this it leads to an increase in good cholesterol which in turn reduces the amount of heart and cardiovascular disease in the body.

Hopefully you should now know one reason why coconuts are really good for us. The good saturated fats in virgin coconut oil can help us in many ways and there are also many other helpful substances in coconuts. To find out all of the other ways that coconuts are used to improve our health take a look at: How to use coconut cures for a healthy life