North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

You can read about the canola oil health scares on pages that track urban legends and web scams, such as this:

 

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp

 

Are we really off topic?  Canola is pressed from seed from the fruit of a cruciferous plant.  And are we calling coconut a fruit or a nut?  I’m a nut.  Wait, that came out right.  Coconut oil is being touted as a health food because of its large percentage of shorter chain triglycerides, which are metabolized as carbohydrates.  Your body will metabolize about half of coconut oil as fat, and half as carbohydrate.  Bodybuilders use medium chain triglycerides as a source of slow-burning carbs to supposedly fuel workouts better than quick-burning sugars or proteins that are slow to produce serum glucose. 

 

The net is full of references to the many studies on the health benefits of coconut oil.  Most are preliminary or of suspect funding or cultural bias.  That doesn’t mean the positive effects they postulate aren’t present, just that there hasn’t yet been enough evidence presented.  There’s a lot of work, though, on medium chain triglycerides that should give insight into how that fraction of coconut oil is metabolized.  From those studies, it seems very healthy, but not necessarily the miracle food it’s made out to be.  And btw, cultural bias is a good thing in good research; you can look at why different fats behave differently in various populations, which can provide valuable insight.

 

There are some long-term dietary studies that indicate that different fat profiles benefit lipid profiles in populations with or without metabolic syndrome; those with metabolic syndrome may benefit from a low-fat diet where the fats are saturated, and those without from a low-fat diet featuring unsaturated fats.  It’s a good guess that monounsaturated oils like olive oil, and the saturated/mct combination that is coconut oil would be beneficial oils in either population. 

 

And for my title, ‘oil’s well that ends well’?  Much of this has to do with where the triglyceride molecules end.  N-6 vs n-3, and ratios of the two, for example.  This simple sizing of fatty acids has a lot to do with their metabolic activity.

 

Stephen

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From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of list@ginda.us
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 5:40 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: [NAFEX] off topic: Edible fats

 

 

On Aug 6, 2006, at 8:02 AM, "" <Lucky.Pittman@murraystate.edu> wrote:

. . .

Vegetable oil used here is usually peanut oil.

It may be 'urban legend', but with all the scary stuff I've seen about canola oil, I stay far away from any of the cheap vegetable oil products containing canola.

 

LLP

 

I avoid canola oil because it tastes nasty, but I've mostly heard about how healthy it's supposed to be. What scary stuff have you heard about it?