The "skinny" on coconut oil?

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The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby DianeJ » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:33 pm

I know, I know....NO added oils, period. My question is... is there ANYTHING to this coconut oil stuff? I just got off the phone with my sister who swears it is "changing her life"- more energy, weight loss and is sold on the supposed health benefits of it, she says its "different" from other sat. fats, something about the "chains". What can I tell her? I'm thinking either its all a good PR scam, or maybe its kinda like the " fish" of the oil world. You know, better than all the other meats, if you had to grade, but still not acceptable in our world. Thanks again.
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby JeffN » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:59 pm

DianeJ wrote:I know, I know....NO added oils, period. My question is... is there ANYTHING to this coconut oil stuff? I just got off the phone with my sister who swears it is "changing her life"- more energy, weight loss and is sold on the supposed health benefits of it, she says its "different" from other sat. fats, something about the "chains". What can I tell her? I'm thinking either its all a good PR scam, or maybe its kinda like the " fish" of the oil world. You know, better than all the other meats, if you had to grade, but still not acceptable in our world. Thanks again.


Here is my recent newsletter which I wrote on this topic

http://www.jeffnovick.com/JeffNovick/Ne ... t_Oil.html

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Postby DianeJ » Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:38 pm

Thank you. I will check there from now on. Great site. :)
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby kpolninja » Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:50 pm

that link doesn't work :(
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby JeffN » Wed Jan 20, 2010 3:57 pm

kpolninja wrote:that link doesn't work :(


http://www.jeffnovick.com/JeffNovick/Ne ... t_Oil.html

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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby Jaggu » Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:25 pm

from your article on COCO:
6) You are welcome to add all the coconut and/or coconut oil you would like to you diet, on one condition; you keep the total amount of saturated fat in your diet below 7% of your total calories (with below 5% being optimal). :)

If saturated fat is not essential, why allow even 5%? Did you change your recommendations, I thought it was 0%. If you allow 5% of the calories from saturated fat which almost will come from outside of plant based arena which means your total fat intake could be up to 12% + 5% = 17% ( assuming 10-12% is embedded in plant based foods)
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby JeffN » Wed Jan 20, 2010 9:35 pm

Jaggu wrote:6) You are welcome to add all the coconut and/or coconut oil you would like to you diet, on one condition; you keep the total amount of saturated fat in your diet below 7% of your total calories (with below 5% being optimal). :)

If saturated fat is not essential, why allow even 5%?


Because it is impossible to get "0" as all foods have fat and all foods have all 3 kinds of fat (Poly, Mono and Sat). Even oatmeal has some saturated fat, but the amount in the foods recommended here is very low.

Jaggu wrote:Did you change your recommendations,


No. :)

Jaggu wrote:If you allow 5% of the calories from saturated fat which almost will come from outside of plant based arena which means your total fat intake could be up to 12% + 5% = 17% ( assuming 10-12% is embedded in plant based foods)


I don't "allow" that. I said, that the AHA recommendation is less than 7% and based on long lived populations, I would say less than 5% wold be optimal.

Again, that 5% is what would come naturally when following even the strictest of the guidelines and principles recommended here.

You can see an example here, where a very strict McDougall type diet is around 1% Saturated fat.

viewtopic.php?t=10519

Oatmeal is about 16-17% fat with some of that coming from saturated fat. If you were to consume 2000 calories of plain old oatmeal, you would get in 8.7 grams of saturated fat, which would be 3.9%, which would occur naturally, and be less than the 5%.

Nothing has changed. :)

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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby VeggieSue » Thu Jan 21, 2010 4:40 am

Dr. McDougall did an article on coconut oil in his May 2006 newsletter:
The Newest Food-Cure: Coconut Oil for Health and Vitality

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/may/coconut.htm
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby Jaggu » Thu Jan 21, 2010 8:18 am

JeffN wrote:
Jaggu wrote:6) You are welcome to add all the coconut and/or coconut oil you would like to you diet, on one condition; you keep the total amount of saturated fat in your diet below 7% of your total calories (with below 5% being optimal). :)

If saturated fat is not essential, why allow even 5%?


Because it is impossible to get "0" as all foods have fat and all foods have all 3 kinds of fat (Poly, Mono and Sat). Even oatmeal has some saturated fat, but the amount in the foods recommended here is very low.

Jaggu wrote:Did you change your recommendations,


No. :)

Jaggu wrote:If you allow 5% of the calories from saturated fat which almost will come from outside of plant based arena which means your total fat intake could be up to 12% + 5% = 17% ( assuming 10-12% is embedded in plant based foods)


I don't "allow" that. I said, that the AHA recommendation is less than 7% and based on long lived populations, I would say less than 5% wold be optimal.

Again, that 5% is what would come naturally when following even the strictest of the guidelines and principles recommended here.

You can see an example here, where a very strict McDougall type diet is around 1% Saturated fat.

viewtopic.php?t=10519

Oatmeal is about 16-17% fat with some of that coming from saturated fat. If you were to consume 2000 calories of plain old oatmeal, you would get in 8.7 grams of saturated fat, which would be 3.9%, which would occur naturally, and be less than the 5%.

Nothing has changed. :)

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Thanks for the clarification. I understand your point better. For some reason I was thinking plant foods contain NO saturated fats. If you were consuming plants foods, that puts you at 7-12% calories from fat, do you think the saturated fat portion would be this high (5%), I would imagine most of the fat share would go to Poly and mono unsaturated fats.
Last edited by Jaggu on Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby JeffN » Thu Jan 21, 2010 8:27 am

Jaggu wrote: For some reason I was thinking plant foods contains NO saturated fats. .


A common misunderstanding.

Jaggu wrote: If you were consuming plants foods, that puts you at 7-12% fats, do you think the saturated fat portion would be this high (5%), I would imagine most of the fat share would go to Poly and mono unsaturated fats.


Correct again and more than likely it is going to be 3% or less.

However, it is possible, as I showed with the sample diet and with the oatmeal, that it could theoretically be as low as 1% or as high as 4-5%.

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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby kpolninja » Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:23 pm

Is there anything wrong with using it on the skin? It makes a lovely moisturizer and feels good on sunburns. Would we absorb the fat using it on our skin? (I feel like this is a dumb question, but I really have no idea!) :D
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby JeffN » Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:27 pm

kpolninja wrote:Is there anything wrong with using it on the skin? It makes a lovely moisturizer and feels good on sunburns. Would we absorb the fat using it on our skin? (I feel like this is a dumb question, but I really have no idea!) :D


It's a great question.

Here is a discussion on the topic..

viewtopic.php?t=5980

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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby Steelhead » Fri Jan 21, 2011 2:06 pm

Post removed for copywrite violation... Jeff


The. T. Colin Campbell Foundation is pleased that our students are sharing the information taught our Certificate Program in Plant-Based Nutrition - that's exactly what we want people to do when they graduate from the series! However, copying and publicly posting passages directly from the course transcripts is not the intended use for the course materials. That is why we label the course transcripts "For individual student use: please do not copy or distribute." It would be preferable, if someone finds the information compelling, to summarize and restate it themself, referencing where they got the information but not copying the actual text.

It's not like this one segment of one transcript would replicate the experience of being in the courses for people who read it. However, there's not a clear line we can draw if we were to make individual decisions every time we come across these kinds of situations. For consistency, and for the sake of TCCF's agreement with eCornell, we cannot allow any public distribution of any kind of any of the course materials.

If any one has any questions about this, they should feel free to contact Micaela Cook, Executive Director, at [email protected].
No matter what genes we inherit, changes in diet can affect DNA expression at a genetic level." Michael Greger M.D.

Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition - eCornell & T. Colin Campbell Foundation.
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Re: The "skinny" on coconut oil?

Postby Chumly » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:09 pm

"For some reason I was thinking plant foods contain NO saturated fats."

Plant foods contain no cholesterol. That may be why you are thinking that.

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