Coconut Oil is bad for your health? Yeah... right?
About a month ago, USA Today posted an article in response to a recent report that the American Heart Association released stating that coconut oil and it's associated saturated fat content causes heart disease. This kind of talk isn't anything new. My mum, continually likes to mention to me that her wealthy friends cardiologist does not recommend coconut oil to her patients for this same reason. Now I am not a doctor or a cardiologist and this is just my opinion, based on the research done by many others and I think that the cardiologist owes it to her patients to finish the rest of the story. Saturated fats do not cause heart disease. And if we want to place the blame on something I think we need to follow the money trail and look into what doctors are recommending we eat more of (vegetable oils) and see that the statistics aren't really improving with this so called "expert" information. This is a long conversation on which there are many great books that I have read that do a lot better job at explaining these concepts than I do, and I will list them below for you to check out. In the meantime, check out this short podcast below (it's only 20 minutes long) between the author of one of these great books that I will be recommending below, Deep Nutrition by Dr. Cate Shanahan and the founder of TD Athletes Edge, Tim DiFrancesco, former LA Lakers strength and conditioning coach. I hope you take this information and realize that when we see these news headlines, not to take them as the gospel without first questioning the reliability of the studies. Kind of like that "What The Health" doco on Netflix that says sugar doesn't cause diabetes, what’s that about?
Recommended Reading on Saturated Fats and Cholesterol Myths:
Deep Nutrition by Cate Shanahan
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Grain Brain by David Perlmutter
How To Eat Move and Be Healthy by Paul Chek
The Paleo Solution or his latest Wired to Eat by Robb Wolf
The Paleo Cure by Chris Kresser