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Coconut Oil: World’s Healthiest Oil

Calicut, KeralaImage via Wikipedia

What do you know about Coconut Oil? Many people including doctors have no idea what health benefits it holds for all of us. Here are just a few facts gleaned from the Coconut Research Centre and other research papers:

The many benefits of coconut oil are finally reaching the mainstream.

Benefits like:

* Promoting your heart health
* Promoting weight loss when and if you need it
* Supporting your immune system health
* Supporting a healthy metabolism
* Providing you with an immediate energy source
* Helping to keep your skin healthy and youthful looking
* Supporting the proper functioning of your thyroid gland

Back in the 1940s, farmers found out about this effect by accident when they tried using inexpensive coconut oil to fatten their livestock.

It didn’t work!

Instead, coconut oil made the animals lean, active and hungry.

Now, I know you are not a cow…

However, many animal and human research studies have demonstrated that replacing LCFAs (long chain fatty acids) with MCFAs (medium chain fatty acids) results in both decreased body weight and reduced fat deposition.

If you change to using more coconut oil in your diet, you may find yourself gradually losing those unnecessary pounds.

The reasons are simple:

1. The long-chain fats nearly always go to fat storage, while the MCFAs are burned for energy
2. Since coconut oil helps to stimulate your metabolism, you may burn more calories each day, helping to accelerate weight loss (and probably your activity and energy level, too)

Additionally, research has demonstrated that, due to its metabolic effect, coconut oil increases the activity of the thyroid. And you’ve probably heard that a sluggish thyroid is one reason why some people are unable to lose weight, no matter what they do.

Besides weight loss, there are other advantages to boosting your metabolic rate. Your healing process accelerates. Cell regeneration increases to replace old cells, and your immune system functions better overall.

You’ve probably heard that breast milk is jam-packed with nutrients and disease-fighting ingredients that help keep babies healthy.

Well, incredibly, coconut oil contains one of the same compounds — lauric acid — found in mother’s milk! And lauric acid is the predominant type of MCFA found in coconut oil. It is actually quite difficult to find lauric acid in any appreciable amounts in any other food source.

Fortunately for our health, lauric acid in both breast milk and coconut oil transforms when consumed into a substance called monolaurin, the actual compound responsible for helping to strengthen the immune system.

Skeptical? So were a lot of scientists, who’ve proceeded to test the heck out of this substance.

In fact, a great volume of research has been done establishing the ability of lauric acid to enhance immunity.

What researchers found was that this medium-chain fatty acid derivative actually disrupts the lipid (or fatty) membranes of the offending organisms.

The lauric acid in coconut oil is one effortless way to help strengthen your immune system.

If all this wasn’t enough, coconut oil has even more benefits: See the Coconut Research Centre for more a large list of benefits.

Just to get you started, here are a few things you can do with your coconut oil:

* Whenever you fry, stir-fry or sauté veggies, eggs, poultry, fish or whatever, use coconut oil for a health-conscious light flavor
* Toss some coconut oil into your smoothies or juiced drinks for a burst of lauric acid
* Make your own mayonnaise with coconut oil
* Use it on your salads for a tropical flair
* Try it on popcorn instead of butter

live a balanced life…   

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August 28, 2008 Posted by | 1 | , , , , , | 4 Comments

Fat Burning Foods = Negative Kj’s

This photograph shows two pink grapefruits (Citrus ×paradisi), one of the two cut in pieces.Image via Wikipedia

Yes, there are foods that give you a negative kj result and some of them even help you burn more fat and create more health, and I will give you a short list of the best of them right here:

  1. Grapefruit – now I am one of the few people I know that truly loves a fresh, cold grapefruit. These healthy citrus are one of my favourite fruits, I will admit that I like the pink or red variety as they are the sweetest. Grapefruit is well known in weightloss circles and with good reason, not only does it take more kj’s to digest a grapefruit than it does adds, they are so healthy for you. The pink and red varieties are rich in lycopene (anticancer antioxidant), Vit C, and bioflavonoids, and fibre. The best news of all for those wanting to slim down is that research has found that grapefruit contain special enzymes that cleanse the liver and burn fat and lower insulin levels.
  2. Coconut Oil – is a functional food because it provides many more benefits than its caloric content would suggest. It is the most misunderstood of all fats as it seems to be our worst enemy (a saturated fat), however this one contains no cholesterol and it raises your metabolism, enhances thyroid function and burns fat. When they added it to cattle food in feed lots thinking the extra fat would create fatter cows, they had an ooops! moment, within less than a month all the cows were stripped of excess fat and becoming more muscular, with no difference to their life in any other way. They had to remove all coconut oil from the feed and replace it with a different oil.
  3. Hot Peppers and Cayenne – Both of these foods contain capsaicin a natural compound that naturally speeds up metabolism and fat burning. Adding these to your recipes regularly adds zest and heat to your meals and that little bit of extra heat burns away those kj’s.
  4. Broccoli – Broccoli has been in the news for the past few years as researchers have found some amazing compounds in the humble broccoli. Natural compounds that can help you avoid and perhaps even heal cancer. Regular consumption has also been found to significantly lower the risk of coronary heart disease. So eat your ‘trees’ as my kids called them as they were growing up, you will be healthier and slimmer for it.

Live a balanced life…

April 27, 2008 Posted by | Wellness | , , | Leave a comment