Organic unrefined virgin coconut oil is often said to be the best kind of coconut oil that you can eat.
Made from organically grown coconut and processed in the traditional way (without chemicals), it's a nutritious and delicious fat to add to your diet.
High in MCTs (medium chain fatty acids) which have been shown to have antiviral and antibacterial properties and tend to be easier to digest than other fatty acids, coconut oil can be a miracle food for people who are suffering from immune related diseases, including AIDs.
But coconut oil is also beneficial for people who are not suffering from disease. MCTs are an essential part of a healthy diet.
3 Tips to Find the Best Quality Product
1. Certified Organic
There are many brands and varieties of coconut oil on the market today, some of them certified organic, some not. A certified organic label will only be meaningful if the organization who did the certification meets standards that you feel comfortable with. Find out the name of the certifier and look up the standards online if you are unsure.
2. Unrefined
Unrefined should mean that the oil hasn't been processed with chemicals or altered in other unnatural ways. It will retain the taste and smell of the food it's made from.
Although there are many healthy oils on the market that have been refined in traditional ways, not with dangerous chemicals, the label 'unrefined' should mean just that. Keep in mind that some unrefined oils must be heated to remove excess moisture and deactivate enzymes that can cause spoilage.
Unless you're going to make the oil yourself and eat it quite quickly, some processing is necessary for safety. Don't believe a coconut producer who claims that their oil contains lots of live enzymes. If it truly does, watch out, it hasn't been processed properly and will spoil quickly.
3. Virgin
With the exception of the classifications for olive oil, virgin is not a standardized description of the properties of other oils that has been minimally processed. But if the company that you're buying from seems reputable then there is good reason to think that the virgin label is true.
Fortunately there is a growing awareness that the decades-long scare about tropical oils was based on misinformation.
Most people don't realise that one of the key studies that was used to label tropical oils as a villain was based on feeding animals *hydrogenated* coconut oil. That oil was further refined to make it completely devoid of any essential fatty acids. It's not a surprise that the animals would have major health problems in a short period of time.
Fortunately natural coconut oil has not been found to pose the same problems. Instead, it's a delicious and nutritious addition to the human diet, as it has been for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
