Popcorn: Friend or Foe?

What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

Coconut oil is naturally saturated and is an excellent frying and baking medium for foods. Based on the following article by Jane Heimlich, coconut oil has many health benefits of which you may not have been aware. Read on!

Who is Jane Heimlich? Author of the best-selling What Your Doctor Won't Tell You, she is the wife of the famous Dr. Henry Heimlich, inventor of the "Heimlich Maneuver" anti-choking technique.

Like millions of movie-goers who eat popcorn at the movie theater, you probably were as shocked as I was to see recent news articles singling out popcorn as the latest nutritional villain. It's the saturated fat in coconut oil which raises blood cholesterol and clogs arteries, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a Washington, D.C. - based consumer group that specializes in food and nutrition issues.

In response to the brouhaha about the hazards of eating popcorn made with coconut oil, AMC (American Multi Cinema) theater owners promised to switch to partially hydrogenated canola oil; others took a more cavalier stance---after all, a little sinning doesn't hurt, right?

After evaluating the research on coconut oil, I have concluded that this entire popcorn flap is based on such faulty (I'm tempted to say "phony") information that I can't let it pass without telling you the truth about coconut oil.

Here are the facts:

• Coconut oil does not raise blood cholesterol. This is a "myth" (to quote George Blackburn, M.D., a Harvard Medical School researcher) dating back to early flawed experiments in which animals were fed coconut oil exclusively. The small amount of essential fatty acids which coconut oil lacks was not provided and, consequently, the animals' cholesterol went up. In more recent experiments, where coconut oil was given as part of a normal mixed fat diet, animals' cholesterol levels did not increase.
• Coconut oil has a neutral effect on blood cholesterol, even in situations where coconut oil is the sole source of fat," says Dr. Blackburn, who testified such at a congressional hearing about tropical oils held on June 21, 1988.
• Coconut oil in and of itself does not cause heart disease. Populations, such as the Polynesian Puka Puka and Tokelau islanders, that get most of their fat calories from coconut oil have an exceedingly low rate of heart disease.
  
  "These [tropical] oils have been consumed as a substantial part of the diets of many groups for thousands of years with absolutely no evidence of any harmful effects to the populations consuming them," says Dr. Mary Enig, Ph.D., an expert on fats and oils who blew the whistle on margarine and other hydrogenated oils.
• Not all saturated fats are bad for you. Coconut oil's saturated fats are made up mostly (65%) of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). (Triglycerides are the chemical forms in which fatty acids occur in vegetable oils.)
  
  MCTs (also found in palm kernel oil) are easily digested, as Dr. Whitaker discussed with you in the July 1993 issue (see p.3) of Health and Healing. In fact, patients with malabsorption problems who cannot digest conventional fats are fed Mead Johnson's Portage, a formula containing MCTs---a fractionated coconut oil. A formula containing MCTs is also a lifesaver for premature babies.
• Coconut oil is less likely than other oils to cause obesity. That's because the body easily converts coconut oil into energy rather than depositing calories as body fat. You won't get a spare tire around your mid-section just from eating foods containing coconut oil.
• Coconut oil kills germs. Like mother's milk, coconut oil contains a component that is anti-microbial. Coconut oil users who dwell primarily in the tropics, an ideal environment for parasites, are protected from infections. In a recent medical article, Dr. Enig proposed giving coconut and palm kernel oils to AIDS patients.

Why Coconut Oil Is So Maligned

So how did coconut oil become the despised artery-clogging nemesis? Credit the American Soybean Association (ASA) and its friends.

In 1986, the ASA sent a "Fat Fighter Kit" to soybean farmers enjoining them to write government officials, food companies, etc., protesting the encroachment of "highly saturated tropical fats like palm and coconut oils...not only stealing U.S. soybean oil markets, but ...a threat to consumer health." CSPI joined the anti-tropical oil campaign that same year, issuing news releases referring to palm, coconut, and palm kernel oils as "rich in artery-clogging fat."

In October 1988, Nebraska millionaire Phil Sokolof, a recovered heart attack patient and president of the National Heart Savers Association, began running full-page newspaper advertisements accusing food companies of "poisoning America" by using tropical oils with high levels of saturated fat.

Major food companies, sensitive to consumer fear, reformulated hundreds of products, replacing tropical oils with partially hydrogenated oils. Today, coconut oil accounts for only 1.0 to 1.3% of the U.S. food supply. (My story in the October 1991 H&H discusses how hydrogenated oils increase your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.)

If It Isn't Popped in Coconut Oil, Don't Eat It

Next time you go to the movies or a ballpark and want to snack on popcorn, ask the vendor what kind of oil the kernels are popped in. If it isn't coconut oil, it's probably partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and that isn't good for you.

Source: Article by Jane Heimlich, author of What Your Doctor Won't Tell You, June 1994, Phillips Publishing