Coconut oil, of course, comes from the meat or skin of the inner coconut, the white stuff. Coconut water as discussed before is very healthy and a great source of electrolytes for rehydration, but coconut oil is just as important health wise. Coconut oil serves a wide variety of health functions such as, skin and hair care to moisturize the skin and hair, but it’s most important function is cooking with it. The reason why it’s so great for cooking is because 66 percent of its fats are medium chained –triglycerides (MCT) which are composed of glycerol and three fatty acid chains. The reason why medium chain triglycerides are better than long chain or very long chain triglycerides is that MCT passively diffuse from the GI tract to the portal (liver) system (longer fatty acids are absorbed into the lymphatic system) without requirement for modification like the longer chained triglycerides. While most fats in the diet require bile salts from the gall bladder to be absorbed, MCT do not require them, hence a person without a gall bladder can absorb fat easier without the side effects (people without a gall bladder know what I’m talking about). Also people that have malnutrition or malabsorption syndromes are treated with MCTs because they do not require energy for absorption, utilization, or storage. Increase or high levels of standard triglyceride (long chain triglycerides) have been linked to and cause, diabetes, hypothyroidism, kidney disease, pancreatitis, and metabolic syndrome. If you're going to use oil, coconut oil rules the realm.
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