Is coconut milk fattening?
Another point of confusion you might run into is that tropical oils like palm oil and coconut oil are now being used to replace the newly-demonized trans fats in processed foods, so there’s a lot of information being thrown about by marketing people who might being thinking more about sales numbers than health. The basics of fat: saturated ones are typically solid at room temperature (think butter, that white blob on the side of your steak, etc.) while unsaturated ones are liquid at room temperature (think canola, peanut oil, etc.). You can turn an unsaturated fat from a liquid to a solid by adding hydrogen: partial or complete hydrogenation. When science figured out that saturated fats are bad for the ol’ arteries, the food companies started using unsaturated vegetable oils in their processed foods. But to get the textures right, they needed solid fat, not liquid, so they had to hydrogenate the oils. That’s where you get shortening, traditional margarine, etc. The thing is, the hydrog
Hmmm….look at people who eat tons of fat from coconuts like the Kitavans. I hope you will do more research on this. You will find that there are plenty of reputable studies and scientists supporting the idea of coconut as a health food and that the idea that fat is fat and calories are all that really matters is hotly contended. It’s not just food manufacturers vs. scientists…..it’s scientist on scientist action. I only wish I had gotten to this thread sooner. It makes me very sad to see posts like vytae’s. This issue is very complex. Coconut has many interesting phytochemicals…it’s definitely not just about the saturated fat here. It’s an incredibly satisfying food and people who consume lots of it generally don’t eat lots of calories. Maybe that’s why culture’s that survive on it are so healthy. For me, it was learning about these cultures and others that eat high saturated fat diets like the Masai and Himba and
