Recently I was listening to a lecture by an Australian naturopath about the benefits of coconut oil which I found most interesting. Like most people, I was always lead to believe that coconut oil is a bad fat because it is saturated and because of this everyone was grouping it in with the fatty fats, like lard and butter.

Coconut oil has been the staple fat for thousands of years in many diets around the world and is used in many products from cosmetics to cooking to oil lamps so is it all bad?

Bad Vs Good

This got me thinking – is coconut oil one of those fats that used to be on the No list but is now suddenly in vogue because they say it helps you reduce weight? Remember when you dieted in the past and raw nuts and avocado were off limits because they were ‘fattening’. Is this history repeating itself?

Well the reserchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, have recently done a study into coconut oil and they have found that it may indeed protect you against insulin resistance.  This is good news for people with Type 2 Diabetes. This goes someway to explaining what we have been finding and that is why people who have virgin coconut oil in their diet can reduce their body fat.

What is the Difference

Well as I have said, we tend to group all saturated fats together, however animal fats such as butter and lard, and that crackling on the roast pork, have long chained fatty acids and coconut oil has medium chained fatty acids.

Medium chain fatty acids are more beneficial to your muscles – without getting all scientific about it, the muscle burns fat more efficiently when given medium chain fatty acids as fuel. This is why some athletes are now having coconut oil when training instead of the traditional carbo load.

Moderation is Always the Key.

We are not saying a diet high in any fat is good for you and one word of caution with the consumption of coconut oil – it can lead to a fat build up in the liver, so as always moderation is the key.  It wouldn’t be sensible to take if you had liver disease or liver problems of any kind.

We know the body needs fat to burn fat, however if you have a diet that is loaded with saturated animal fats  like many people in the western world do indeed have, you may be heading for trouble. So please don’t add additional fat to your diet if you are not following a healthy eating plan such as the DietDitch Formula.

If you are following the DietDitch plan you will not be consuming hidden fats in processed food and your animal food choices will be lean, so you will be able to afford some of the desirable fats as in olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds and virgin coconut oil. If you want to give the ‘fat snack’ a go, our recommendation is a dessert spoon and it is always good to alternate between coconut oil and EVCP Olive Oil.

We have found that a dessertspoon of coconut oil around 4 pm helps with the pre or post dinner cravings that affect women especially. As always – we want you to find your own truth with your ‘steps not secrets’ so if you don’t think additional fat is for you that is always fine with us.