I am SO GLAD I found your blog! Only in the last two weeks have I been learning about coconut oil and it’s benefits to a healthy body. I stumbled across all this amazing info because I was looking into ingredients for homemade sugar scrubs. LOL!

This is all very important to me because I have Hashimoto’s disease, which is a type of hypothyroidism. Overweight for years, fatigued all the time, recurring yeast infections, hair loss, dry skin, on an on. The more I search, the more I’m learning; especially about the difference in long-chain fatty acids and medium-chain fatty acids and the way our bodies use them. Also, to finally understand why the yo-yo dieting has NEVER worked, and why I end up weighing more in the end than I did before I started a “new diet that really works.” Pft! If I had only know all this 15 years ago!!!

I first stumbled across virgin coconut oil on http://www.coconutoil.com, tons of info. And there is also a forum on http://www.coconutdiet.com where lots of people have posted about their successes and questions concerning coconut oil. I was amazed when I read how many different health conditions improved or disappeared altogether when coconut oil was introduced internally or topically. So COOL!

Thanks for this awesome blog, I will definitely be visiting here often!

Cassie

You’re not a bug! To answer your question, you’re right in that you don’t need as many calories as someone burning them like crazy, but there are certain calories you should limit (carbs) and certain calories you NEED like healthy fats.

Calories are not all the same, that’s a big thing to remember. They are utilized and burned differently, depending on what kind of calories they are. Read Gary Taubes’ book “Good calories, bad calories” for more and then I’d love to hear what you think. Saturated fats are crucial to good health.

Did you see the videos in this post? http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/09/big-fat-lies-fat-head-movie-review-real-food-wednesday.html They explain a lot more about how the saturated fat myth took hold and how messed up they are.

Life spans: medicine has come a long way, plain and simple – especially when it comes to fixing people up after accidents or injuries. Also, our knowledge about the spread of communicable disease has saved many lives and increased life spans. But look at the obesity, diabetes, heart disease epidemics – I know people personally with these issues who eat low fat everything – it’s not working.

By the way, your question is a good one that I hear often. Maybe I should do a post on this. Sorry this is kind of choppy, it’s time for bed!

YES, coconut milk is great for you, too, and SO IS THE SATURATED FAT. I know, it sounds crazy, but do some more reading here and see what you think:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/08/healthy-fats-oils.html

Feel free to comment again with any questions!!
Kelly

Check my blog at http://www.kitchenstewardship.wordpress.com for links on the Recipes tab to Whole Grain Cornbread, Homemade Biscuits and Homemade Tortillas. You can use either refined or unrefined coconut oil in any of them, and truly — the coconut taste doesn’t come through one bit. Here is my new FAVORITE pancake recipe that calls for coconut oil as well: http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2008/11/basic-whole-grain-pancakes-soaked.html. I don’t buy coconut milk, so I just subbed regular milk (assuming the vinegar would make the soaking acidic enough to be safe on the counter overnight) or a combination of buttermilk and yogurt. Seriously yummy, and they reheat great.

Katie’s last blog post..Food for Thought: America’s Food Waste

If it were something bad, I’d delete it for you in a jiffy, but this is fun!