It is often said that coconut oil is rich in cholesterol and may lead to heart diseases. Is it true ?
In 1986, the American Soybean Association, afraid of competition from coconut and other palm oils, launched a campaign to boost soybean sales, by warning the health-conscious American consumers that coconut oil and palm oil were health hazards. According to them, the high percentage of saturated fatty acids in the oil tends to increase the levels of serum cholesterol, one of the causes of coronary heart disease). An editorial in the New York Times referred to coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil as ‘the cheaper, artery-clogging oils from Malaysia and Indonesia’.. However, cholesterol is not a vegetative product. The human body obtains part of its cholesterol from the consumption of animal fatty products. But the greatest part of the cholesterol is produced within the human body itself, by the liver, mainly from the consumption of saturated fatty acids. Coconut oil does not contain cholesterol, it is rich in saturated fatty acids. Due to the specific composition of these fatty aci
