Coconut oil is ‘pure poison’ to your body and packed full of BAD fat, expert warns
IT might be the go-to food for millennials and vegans, but drenching grub in coconut oil is like cooking with "pure poison", claims one expert.
In fact, the Harvard professor even says you'd be better off cooking with lard.
Dr Karin Michels this week said that the supposed "superfood" is "one of the worst foods you can eat".
Lots of people choose to cook with coconut oil instead of butter or vegetable oil because of it's high count of polyunsaturated fats.
Dr Michels has said cooking with coconut oil is more dangerous than cooking with animal fats.
"There isn't one human study that has found a positive outcome from coconut oil," she told an audience at the University of Freiburg.
The problem, she said, was the damaging effect that the oil's high levels of saturated fatty acids can have on the body.
Other foods high in saturated fat include things like butter, cream, and sausages.
The NHS says that eating foods high in saturated fat can increase your risk of developing things like coronary heart disease.
In the UK, Public Health England recommends the average man eat no more than 30 grams of saturated fat a day and women should eat no more than 20 grams.
Saturated fats have been found to raise the risk of LDL cholesterol, or “bad” cholesterol.
High levels of bad cholesterol can increase the risk of atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries), heart attack and stroke.
A 2016 study of 120,000 people from the Harvard School of Public Health found the more calories someone gets from saturated fats, the greater their risk of heart disease.
In fact, this isn't the first time that experts have slammed coconut oil for raising the risk of "bad" cholesterol.
Last year, the American Heart Association (AHA) warned that the trendy oil could be as bad for your heart as beef dripping.
The AHA said that coconut oil is 82 per cent saturated fat compared to canola oil which is just seven per cent.
The same paper also advises replacing saturated fats such as butter, lard, beef dripping and palm oil with healthier oils such as soybean oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil and walnuts.
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It is worth saying, however, that coconut oil does work in a slightly different way to most fats.
The majority of fats have long-chain triglycerides, whereas coconut oil has medium-sized ones.
Medium ones go straight to the liver and are used as a quick source of energy - rather than being stored in the body (adding to any existing fat!).
Leading , , told The Sun that while coconut oil has received a lot of mixed press over the past few years, "it can be very unhelpful to label foods as 'good' or 'bad'.
"There is a place for coconut oil in our diet but being that it is high in saturated fat, it is wise to use it in moderation and not as the only oil in your household," she explained.
"The NHS state that most of us already eat too much saturated fat and men shouldn’t have more than 30g a day and women 20g.
"Another oil that has a high smoking point is olive oil, which has some reassuring evidence behind it.
"The monounsaturated fats help protect our heart health by maintaining good levels of HDL cholesterol while reducing levels of what we call bad LDL cholesterol.
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"It is important to note that we need some fat in our diet to help with a number of functions, for example the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
"It is a good idea to mix up your cooking oils to increase the variety in your diet and not get hooked on only using one type of ingredient.
"Olive oil has the most research behind it and is a component of one of the worlds healthiest diets, the Mediterranean diet."
And olive oil is not only known to be healthier for you, it's a lot better for your wallet too.
Tesco sells 500ml bottles of olive oil for £2.35, compared pots of coconut oil - the cheapest of which goes for £3 per 300ml.
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Victoria Taylor, Senior Dietician at the British Heart Foundation, told The Sun: “Coconut oil is about 86 per cent saturated fat, about one-third more saturated fat than butter (at 52 per cent).
"We know that diets high in saturated fat are associated with increased non-HDL cholesterol in the blood, and high cholesterol is a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke.
“There has been speculation that some of the saturated fat present in coconut oil may be better for us than other saturated fats, but so far there is not enough good-quality research to provide us with a definitive answer.
“What we do know is that replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats like vegetable oil, olive oil and sunflower oil, and their spreads, has been shown as an effective way to help reduce LDL cholesterol levels, so this would be a healthier choice.
“For the time being, if you like the taste of coconut oil, then, as with butter, it’s fine to use it every now and then.
"However, it’s best to restrict yourself to small amounts and use unsaturated oils as an everyday choice instead.”
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