I'm seeing coconut oil for sale everywhere. Have you used it for cooking and do you believe coconut oil to be a fad or a trend with staying power?

If you are old school like me and cook popcorn in a stock pot on the stove try using coconut oil. Mind=blown. You want to use unrefined and I’d treat it like butter. I’m a olive oil guy myself.

I buy coconut fat for soap making. Also, I study long chain fatty acids. Our bodies need a variety of fats to keep our nervous system functioning properly. Lipids and cellular metabolism relies on it. Cooking with a variety of fats is a very good habit to get into. Eating them in small amounts cold over a salad, stir frying all good. Avoid fats that have been changed from their natural liquid state to solids. A process call hydrolysatation. Some new processes are better but the old process isn’t healthy and right now there is no mandatory label to let the consumer know. Also, never heat oils to “smoking point”. Very unhealthy for both your lungs and to consume.

I bought popcorn from Costco that’s made with coconut oil. It tastes like coconut. I don’t like it.

I use it for a bunch of stuff. I cook with it, it does add a hint of flavor that’s different. I use it as a moisturizer sometimes, I use it with beeswax and/or Shea butter when I make my own Vapor Rub, Bug Bite Balm, Sleep Balm, and antiseptic balm. I sometimes use it instead of butter on toast.
I love the stuff. I try to get the organic, unrefined stuff.

Other than your popcorn you prefer olive oil? @ARE_you_kidding_me? I mainly use olive oil and butter now.

Almost all the coconut oil I see is solid, @cazzie. The liquid I see is clear. I’m uncertain what your information is telling us? Has the solid undergone hydrolysatation and the liquid been refined?

That’s my fear, @jca. I’m not interested in coconut flavored savory foods.

Organic, unrefined, @canidmajor? Solid, liquid? Shelf stable? I get the toast, but what if you wanted to saute some asparagus with garlic? How would coconut oil work?

@ibstubro The real unrefined stuff is just solid at room temp. Temps above 75 degrees or so will melt it. It appears clear when melted and cloudy when solid. I like it on toast, sometimes when a recipe calls for butter I’ll substitute coconut oil. I throw a spoonfull in stir fry sometimes. Yes, I’m the cook in the household

I would never purposely cook in coconut oil, because a lot of packaged food already uses it, and I still have in my head it’s very bad for the arteries. Maybe that science was completely wrong, but for now I’m not adding any extra coconut oil to my diet.

Will it be a fad? I say absolutely. I said the same about olive oil, and basically I was right.

I like coconut, but when the oil is used on popcorn and some other savory foods it tastes fake to me. I guess I mean I can tell it’s not butter, and not old school margarine.

With coconut the natural state is a solid. The liquid coconut is called fractionated and is fine too but has a different make up.
Sorry I should have been more clear.

@ibstubro, In the summer (over 76 degrees) it’s liquid, otherwise solid. Seems pretty stable to me, but I buy big containers, keep it in the fridge, and put it in a smaller jar for day to day use.
@JLeslie: Olive oil has been popular for over 30 years. We must have different definitions of “fad”.

I used it in place of regular oil for my son’s strawberry birthday cake.

I definitely noticed the difference, and it was amazing. So, so sweet and moist.

I’ve never seen it in solid form, though the jar assures me that’s normal. It’s always too hot here.

I buy the ultra hard stuff. It comes in bricks of 250g and is kept next to the blocks of butter and margarine in the fridge section of the grocery store. I’ve seen the softer stuff in jars, but our summers never get so warm it goes liquid. :/

https://hau.clickncollect.no/media/catalog/product/cache/11/image/460x440/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/d/e/delfia.jpg

Coconut oil is one of the most stable and long lasting. It doesn’t oxidise and go rancid as fast as say, grapeseed oil or olive oil. Keep it dark and cool and it will be happy for ages. If you use it in soap, it makes the bar harder and adds loads of bubbles. You don’t want too high of a percentage, though, as some people think it makes the soap too drying.

@canidmajor Good point. Probably we need to define fad. I would say you are right that olive oil has sustained many years of hype, and the medical community was on board, but now the information has been out for a while that only the first cold press might be healthier, and what makes the Mediterranean diet healthier is most likely the vegetables and use of whole foods, and not the oil. In fact more and more information coming out that most Americans really need to cut down on all fats period.

@cazzie It does interest me that coconut oil is so stable. From what I understand when oil goes rancid or is heated and changes, especially reheated, that causes the carcinogenic properties.

@JLeslie I have a feeling the health affects of Mediterranean diet and the french paradox are due to the fact that people in those cultures walk around all over the place instead of drive around like we do.

@JLeslie This is why I fry with butter or olive oil and all other oils are in dressings or baked in food, like cakes.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/104393/20151109/scientists-recommend-cooking-with-lard-butter-frying-with-vegetable-oil-releases-toxic-cancer-causing-chemicals.htm

@ARE_you_kidding_me I definitely think the total lifestyle helps. I also think there might be better genes for heart disease. The Mediterranean diet was mostly about heart disease research.

My mom always points out Asians are thin, have low rates of heart disease, and live to an old age, and eat a lot of white rice. Yet, all of a sudden here in America starch is taboo, and white rice is unhealthy. She heard that brown rice has more poison, so those too together she sticks with her white rice. Lol. She has all sorts of “science” and research to support how she eats. She’s not stupid, it’s something she actually is fairly well read on.

I’m not a fan, my house mate is one of those heath nut freaks that swears by coconut oil and takes about $400.00 worth of various supplements a month. Every other week she is into something new, gluten free, salt free, pepper free, msg free, caffeine, free, alcohol free, ( someone just needs to release her into a forest somewhere and let her live on lichen and berries ) and uses coconut oil in everything. Washes her face with it, outs it in her hair, anoints her body with it. Every-single dish, cup and bowl in the house and the kitchen sink is constantly coated with fucking coconut oil.

Drives me insane. lol
It’s okay for some baking but not my cup o’ tea on a daily, obsessive basis.

Oh, once, because I was home alone and a little drunk, I tried oil pulling with coconut oil. You know, for science.

That’s some disgusting crap, right there.

I have recipes where I use ½ butter and ½ margarine, @ARE_you_kidding_me. I’d be interested in swapping the margarine for coconut oil.

@JLeslie “Coconut oil is one of the few foods that can be classified as a “superfood.”:http://authoritynutrition.com/top-10-evidence-based-health-benefits-of-coconut-oil/
That cuts it…I’m buying some.

Thanks for the solid/liquid info, @cazzie & @canidmajor.

@JLeslie & @canidmajor I use olive oil almost every day. It’s my go-to oil (butter aside).

Yes, I’m definitely going to try coconut oil in cake, when I get some, @Seek. To bad Xmas I made the cake that take a stick of better an one of margarine.

I think we’re mainly talking about sane people, @Coloma. ~

Okay, @cazzie, as I read it, your link recommends for frying (top best):
Coconut oil
Olive oil
Rapeseed oil
Butter/lard

Other vegetable oils were bad to heat.

@ibstubro I’ve read most if that (provided on your link) before. I still am hesitant. When they start doing studies in people like me I’ll be more compelled to believe it. What I mean us I have high cholesterol on a diet that most people don’t. Bad genes. When they so studies on the average person, or using random samples of a cross section of people, I don’t feel it accurately addresses the risks for people like me. Recently, I heard there was a study done saying we don’t have to be so afraid of cholesterol if your cholesterol numbers are ok. Um yeah, I have said that for years. The study also is basically saying some people do need to worry about it. It’s like some people can eat salt or sugar, and some can’t.

Another example is the shingles vaccine. I don’t know if any study for people who repeatedly get shingles. My assumption for now is the vaccine won’t help us, yet I have had people at pharmacies try to tell me I should get the shot, and nurses too.

@ibstubro LOL..yes, well…sanity is subjective isn’t it? Did you mean Grape seed oil or Rape seed oil above? I use Grape seed oil for high heat cooking,

@jca It really depends on the coconut oil you use for the popcorn. Organic Extra Virgin unrefined cold pressed is best for cooking and baking but not frying. Refined is better for medium to high heat frying.
I also put it in my coffee some times. It’s actually quit good. Only don’t drink the coffee if its steaming hot. It will make the oil on top burn your lips and tongue.
The things, I use coconut oil for besides cooking.
1. condition my hair once in a while and do a deep scalp massage.
2. condition the tips of my hair
3. skin conditioner (great for help scabs stay soft and heal)
4. Brush my teeth. Will make them white and aids with gingivitis. I use it to reverse the damage gingivitis has cause my gums. My dentists was shocked at how well my gums were at my last visit and how little tartar I had. (It aids by binding with any trap food particles and sugars and bacteria so it doesn’t flourish in you mouth. At least something like that.) All I know it works.
5. People with intestinal problems say it helps. I will say that I have acid reflux and it helped me a great deal with that and my husband has colitis and he said it has definitely helped him go less to the bathroom. But his colitis was under control before that and he was in remission before we started on coconut oil.
6. Oh, I also use it as a lip moisturizer sometimes. All lip moisturizers, that have balm or vasoline make my lips feel swollen. Coconut butter doesn’t.
7. I tried it also on my skin when I went to the beach in Costa Rica, and I got a nice tan and didn’t burn. Plus you smell like a sweet coconut. :)

So for me. Definitely not a fad.
But you do have to be careful in how much you use in your food if the food you are making shouldn’t taste a little sweet. I have use it in my white rice and it just makes the rice taste a tiny bit sweeter. But when I add beans to my rice, I don’t even taste the coconut.
It’s great for baking too. For recipes that have a lot of butter it can reduce that highly saturated butter feel and heaviness.

I love sweet coffee, so the coconut is a plus.
Oh, You can fry foods in it, but if you are looking for a crispy brown texture on fries, or onions, then coconut oil is not idea. You food will come out pale looking instead of brown and not have a crispness that butter or oil will give you. Coconut oil cooks best in medium to semi high heat.

A good friend of mine uses it regularly and when we’ve had dinner together she used it both for frying and on the string beans.

However, she puts it in the blender together with regular butter (salted) and then transfers it to smaller containers.

I didn’t notice any difference in taste in savory dishes but I’m assuming that’s because of the 50% ratio with the butter.

I did like the fact that there was still a little saltiness from the butter but not as much as regular salted butter. But it still had all the nice butter flavor so it was a winner all way around.

I don’t know how it would taste without the butter.

Another interesting tidbit I heard on Dr. Oz was that there were two things you can do to reduce the calorie count in rice. The first was to add a TBS of coconut oil and the second was to refrigerate the rice for at least 12 hours prior to eating. Apparently this changes the starch to become a more resistant type of starch (ie: slower to digest) and therefore about half the calories. Next time I cook rice I’m planning to try it out.

@Pandora You must know my room mate, you two are the coconut oil twins. lol

Your roommate is really smart. LOL
I started with just one small jar, and now I have two really large jars. My favorite over oil and sometimes butter. Oh, I even fry eggs in it. AWESOME! But really awesome in coffee. You can taste a little of the coconut but it brings out the taste of the coffee even stronger and I use less sweetener with it.

@Pandora It is pretty good in coffee I agree. Oh we can top you over here, there must be about 20 jars of CO here the pantries loaded, if you run out just holler. lol

@Coloma Will do. That is a lot. You guys win. LOL

I often combine coconut oil with a larger portion of another oil like canola that tones it down a bit.
I use the combo on beans (added after cooking in pressure cooker), and in the fry oil for stir-fried greens.
It suggests at sweetness without sugar added, and adds some coating power for oil-born spices

Rapeseed, @Coloma, per the link.

Okay, okay.
I’m going to buy some coconut oil and give it a try.
ONE, @Coloma. I’m going to buy one container.

@ibstubro Sure, sure, until you find a sale. lol :-p

Here…I challenge you… @Pandora can join you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRM9ueYAQ30

Sorry, something is hinkey with my video abilities at the moment, @Coloma.

I’ll admit that I might need two coconut oil…1 refined and 1 unrefined. lol (Maybe fractionated?)

@Coloma , that’s just gross. I would puke.

Rape seed is Canola… just for clarification.

Canola is a another unique oil with a fantastic long chain fatty acid composition. In Canada, this was a weed. A plant that grew wild. It is in the mustard family. They took this plant and bred it to exploit the fantastic characteristics of the oil. Canola is a semi dry oil and when applied directly to damaged skin has a regenerative effect. Take the time to research it. It really is amazing. Also, it’s dietary benefits….. they did research with people with type 2 diabetes.

@cazzie I vaguely remember when I had a cardiac panel (blood test) done that one of the tests measured fats from things like canola oil. Does that sound right? Mine was high, but many of my cardiac lipid type tests are high. That cardiac panel made me realize that my body just is bad at clearing fats overall from what I can tell. I used canola as a “healthy” oil for years. I don’t use a lot of oil though. Mine almost always starts to change before I finish it. When you heat canola oil does it lose it’s goodness?

Just today they were talking coconut oil on Dr. Oz.
Apparently, it has properties which reduces the calories in rice by half or more.
I am thinking I might give it a go.
Tried to find a link for the Oz episode, but no luck.

I don’t know if this was mentioned above, but what I remember about coconut oil is it has an ingredient that is found in breast milk and coconut milk, and nowhere else. That’s what I’ve heard anyway.

Using Dr. Oz as a source for medical information is worse than WebMD. Please don’t.

I cringed at the mention of Dr. Oz, as well, @cazzie.

I think we have enough information here on this question to warrant trying coconut oil, and I’m going to get some this week.

@cazzie I’m not defending Dr. Oz, because I’m not fond of his show, but he is a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon and he studied at Harvard and Penn. If he was a doctor on Fluther or only in an office and not on TV, his word would be taken over jelly advice by a lot of jellies. You know, that popular line we see here by many many jellies, “ask your doctor not the web.” I sometimes tell an OP the same thing, “go to the doctor,” depending what it is, but my point is, sometimes jellies get it right, sometimes science, sometimes doctors. Sometimes no one.

Dr. Oz isn’t all junk science. His guests probably look at the same literature the jellies in this Q have. The problem I see in America is even doctors jump on fads, and then it can actually become a standard practice, without a real test by the scientific method.

Um, Oz should have lost his medical license years ago for the shit he pushes through his show, using his title for added credibility.

I agree DR. Oz is a snake oil salesman.

Dr. Oz got in trouble recently for something he said or recommended – I forgot what but it was some ridiculous shit.

@JLeslie when we tell people to go to the doctor’s office, we do expect some common sense. Doctor’s are not Gods, even though some think they are. The are just people with some tools at their disposal.

What I won’t and will NEVER accept is when someone who is in a position of trust exploits that trust and sells vulnerable people such a bad bill of goods, they have no idea they’ve been bamboozled repeatedly.

Diet pills, books that are based on so-called medical studies that have been discredited, vitamin supplements that are dangerous…. they’ve all been pushed by this quack. He’s not so much a Dr. Oz, as he is the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain, folks. Nothing great or powerful about him.

Costco has coconut oil. I’m not interested in it, but will check out the price for those who may be looking for comparison.

I also think it would be helpful if this q were moved to Social so that it’s not subject to modding. Much of what we discussed up there is relevant but a mod will say it’s not directly answering the question so they might mod it.

I don’t have a problem with moving to social, if a moderator thinks that’s necessary or desirable.
my 2¢ as I’m busy the rest of this day.

Happy New Year, all!

@cazzie My only point is he is still a practicing doctor.

I only mentioned Dr. Oz as a go to, not a god. I never watch him and only catch bits from the show occasionally while channel surfing.
I have had doctors not on tv do the very same thing, landing me with useless advice and harmful drug samples.
I don’t need to have the bath water thrown at me because I brought up the name or show. I specifically mention the names of my information sources so each reading member can decide for themselves how much credibility they want to associate with each source. There is no reason to take on a tone. I was not praising Oz, only mentioning what I saw.

@Here2_4 Well said.

I will never understand how people take personal offence when they are presented with facts. I wasn’t throwing any bath water at anyone. If you ‘hear’ a tone from reading words on a page, you are attributing it.

[Mod says] Moved to Social with OP’s permission.

@Here2_4

I saw the same show you did and included that info in my post above. Altho he did mention adding a TBS of coconut oil I wasn’t quite sure why. The important aspect of halving the calorie count for rice was refrigerating it for at least 12 hpurs or more.

This changes the nature of the starch grains so that they become more resistant (meaning they don’t digest as quickly and convert to sugar).

I think that’s the important part and he really didn’t specify exactly what the coconut oil did.

BTW: For those who are calling him a “snake oil salesman” I’d be curious to know what specifically he is selling?

Yes, I frequently see his pic in websites selling some questionable stuff but it’s DEFINITELY NOT with his endorsement or permission.

He has mentioned this NUMEROUS TIMES and cautions people all the time to not listen to them or buy that stuff.

If he were benefitting financially in any way, it makes little sense for him to specifically warn people away from it, don’t you think?

I’m not saying he’s the be all and end all of medical info and if you don’t like him, that’s your right. But suggesting that he’s profiting from gullible people is getting close to slander.

If he were doing anything underhanded or illegal, Columbia certainly has the power to discipline him and certainly wouldn’t be obligated to granting him operating privileges.

Regardless of whether you like it or not, he’s still an MD in good standing and does not have any financial stake in any of the products trying to ride on his coattails.

If you have proof to the contrary, why not present it instead of just name calling?

The Dr. riding the profit bandwagon isn’t this one. It’s Dr. Phil and his wife and son with his book company and her line of beauty products. Talk about a cash cow…Wow… just Wow.

The snake oil he sells comes in the form of bad, false or misleading medical information: See here

He abuses his position as a medical doctor and medical celebrity in presenting these quack treatments on his show. His audience depends on him to present useful and sound medical information.

Dr. Phil violates his viewers’ trust in the same way.

@Inara27 I looked over your link, and everything on there is things I think everyone knows isn’t really going to be a seriously “magic” pill. Weight kids and youth we know is a battle and he is just talking about natural things that he thinks show some positive impact. I personally am not into herbal/natural remedies like that, but I don’t think it’s that big a deal. If someone tried it and it doesn’t work they ditch it. Does Dr. Oz actually sell these things? I’m just asking, I don’t know. I don’t watch his show much, not do I frequent his website. I know people have used his image on websites illegally to sell stuff.

I’ve seen him encourage women to trust their gut about their bodies and argue back with doctors or seek second and third opinions. He believes us women that we get treated like shit and dismissed all the time by doctors. That’s appealing. Female guests who were right about their cancer, heart attacks, and on and on. This problem is epidemic in our country. I’ve seen him talk about symptoms for various diseases so the audience learns something new.

What I don’t like about his show is I do think sometimes his advice is off, but I think about all doctors, but generally speaking his advice probably won’t cause great harm, and people should talk to their own doctors and get tests.

He usually bores me. His show is too elementary for me with his visual examples that are like 5th grade science projects.

I think he has been very important for a specific audience that is fairly ignorant about health and medicine about weight. For three generations there has been bad encouragement out there to stay fat. When I was young it was the big is beautiful campaign, and that we should not shame far people, and we need to help them feel psychologically good about themselves. Then that kind of coasted and I would hear very overweight people saying they are healthy, they just went to the doctor and the doctor said all their numbers are good. Then we moved more recently into a complaint that the media doesn’t represent the average person, more specifically average woman, in regards to weight. Our average weight in the country is now overweight! Dr. Oz is talking about this overweight problem, which I think is good.

I don’t want anyone to be shamed, and I want people to feel good no matter their size, but I really don’t want people 50 pounds overweight to think they are healthy. It’s not fair to them, that is misinformation that Oz is trying to fix.

@Buttonstc: I just did a quick google search “Dr Oz critics” and many articles came up from legitimate sources such as NBC, CNN, NPR. Too many to discuss or link here.

So, does anyone know if adding coconut oil to race does anything more than keep it from sticking together during the 12 hour refrigeration period?

@ibstubro

As I said, I’m not sure why he included the coconut oil in his comments about halving the amount of calories from rice. He didn’t say what the contribution of coconut oil is to the process. But it’s just a TBS so I can’t imagine it doing any harm.

@jca (and others)

Of course a general term like that will bring up tons of references from reliable news sources because that’s their job…to report the news and his critics abound.

@JLeslie
I agree with you that some of the weight loss stuff is unproven, so I basically ignore it. And he would be fine with that because, as you said, he’s constantly telling people to follow their instincts.

And, I have yet to see or hear of any credible proof that he has financial ties to any of these. Since he is so prominently on the radar screen of numerous critics from every walk of life, I find it difficult to imagine that if he were personally being bribed by the makers of, for instance, Garcinia Cambogia, they wouldn’t have a great deal of difficulty proving it in this day and age.

That is the definition of “snake oil salesman” by the way. The salesman makes money from the products that are sold.

I’m sure he makes plenty of money from the TV stations, but that’s true for ANYONE on TV whether they sell something or not. Last time I checked, there’s nothing illegal or unethical about someone being paid a big salary from a TV program.

I found the Huffpost article to be accurate as far as it goes in terms of the products that they cited. There was no suggestion nor proof that he is personally being financially enriched by the makers of any of them.

However, I found their overall tone was rather condescending toward anyone who would even watch his program as if they don’t have the brains to think for themselves.

I don’t have a problem taking whatever is helpful and just leaving all the rest.

As @JLeslie mentioned, there are sites all over the net who would love to have his endorsement but if they claim anything other than that he mentioned it on his show. I know that he has a passel of lawyers on standby waiting to send “cease and desist” letters because he mentions if frequently and even did an entire show about his visiting some of them in person telling them to stop. And he is constantly telling viewers to check things out for themselves and follow their own instincts. That’s hardly the behavior of a “snake oil salesman” who is being financially enriched from those products.

And nobody seems to ever point out the fact that he and his staff are meticulous to never have brand labels showing on anything (not even Vitamin E or the like) They are covered over with a large black and white label that merely states the product name NOT who sells it. If he were getting kickbacks from any of these companies, don’t you think their brand name would be left displayed?

And last I heard, Cardiothoracic surgeons make plenty of money as is. They really don’t need to be selling any snake oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU

@cazzie

I happen to like John Oliver so I quite enjoyed that clip.

I guess you missed the part where I acknowledged that most of the weight loss stuff he presents is UNPROVEN therefore I IGNORE IT.

if you don’t care for him and never want to watch one minute of his show, fine. That’s your right.

But until someone has credible proof that he’s making a dime off these supplements (and with all the negative publicity he’s getting over it, surely someone could find out if there’s unethical money lining his pockets, come on. That’s what good reporters dig up.) I don’t think it’s fair to label him a snake oil salesman because he is NOT SELLING anything.

@Buttonstc I don’t think making money is the litmus test to his credibility. I think pushing these things the way he does and that he’s a dancing monkey for the fraudulent and dangerous ‘nutritional suppliment’ corporations is proof enough for me.

Okay, I bought a fairly large (30 oz) container of refined coconut oil this evening for $4.

Now what do I do with it?
Use it mainly for frying? By frying, are we actually talking mainly about sauteing?

If you mix it half and half with butter, you can also use it the same way you’d use butter. You can spread it on bread or use it for frying eggs or grilled cheese sandwiches.

By mixing it with butter, you will help the butter not scorch. Really good for frying eggs to get that edge crispy.

It doesn’t taste like that fake popcorn butter?

The Heart Foundation on coconut oil. For those of you who have high risk for coronary troubles like me, you might be interested.

Harvard study.

I think if I was to start adding more of it to my diet I would get a lipid panel, or better a cardiac panel done within a month and look at what it really is doing to me and not guess.

Basically, my usual advice, get a blood test. Get one before, and 3–4 weeks after, and find out what something really does to you as an individual. Don’t trust pseudoscience, or even good science, because both talk in averages, and you may be outside of the average.

I’m going to try coconut oil, if nothing else because of it’s longevity and relatively high heat tolerance. I’m interested in heating coconut oil and then adding my #1 fat choice, butter, so that I might be able to cook food at a higher temperature than butter alone.

It’s not a make-or-break thing. After all, how many decades did the medical establishment recommend hydrogenated vegetable oil (margarine) as a safe alternative to butter/lard? And then heating that to the smoking point, to boot.
Generations were not wiped out.

I tested my blood yesterday, Yup. Still red.
:-)

Coconut fat is a saturated fat, but there is something odd about it where it doesn’t act like a typical saturated fat in the body. I’ll see if I can find the study I read. I found an excerpt: ‘Natural coconut oil is made of 90 percent saturated fat (butter, a distant second, contains a comparatively puny 64 percent saturated fat), but the kind of saturated fat matters just as much as the amount. About half of virgin coconut oil’s saturated fat is lauric acid, a medium-chain triglyceride that turns out to have a number of health-promoting properties, including the ability to improve levels of “good” HDL cholesterol.’ But because it is a saturated fat, they need to do more studies on long term heart-health. Just remember, there is no such thing as a ‘super food’. Don’t eat anything obsessively.

(lauric acid is what makes a bar of soap hard and gives it a nice ability to lather, which is why I put it in my soap.)

Also, you can do the ‘raise the burning point of butter’ trick with almost any oil. I do it mostly with olive oil.

@JLeslie your Heart Foundation recommendation was from New Zealand. They are making recommendations to people of mostly Pacific/Polynesian decent whose cultural food is different as well as quite a different body type and risk of diabetes than an Ashkenazi Jew, for example. The Pacific Island population in New Zealand has rampant obesity, diabetes and coronary disease and tend to eat a very limited diet full of fatty processed meats, like spam and fried carbohydrate. Their traditional diets have been hijacked by cheap, imported food-stuffs. Someone with a balanced diet, who has fried foods on the weekend and wants to add some coconut fat to their butter but also fries in olive oil, eats a variety of fruits and veg isn’t going to have the same problems.

The high smoke point is a big plus for me, and if you cook Indian, the flavor really complements the spices.
If you Google it, you’ll find a zillion recipes and tips for it. I’ve been using it for about 5 years, and I haven’t keeled over yet. ;-)

Yes. I’ve been mixing olive oil and butter, @cazzie. Coconut oil give me a new option.

@cazzie Which is why I say get a blood test and find out what your own body does. I am not obese, but my cholesterol total is 270 if I eat an average diet. My ratio is borderline for HDL v LDL. Studies mean very little to me, because they are rarely done on a good sample of people like me. My body is probably like a typical obese person who eats crap food with what it has to handle.

My first foray into frying with refined coconut oil:
I put my non-stick skillet on the gas burner on medium heat, and added a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. When I could feel the heat radiating, I added a couple tablespoons of butter, and bumped the temp up to medium high.
After shaking them in flour, I put my boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the skillet where they immediately began to sizzle, even though the butter (although melted) had not begun to brown. Chicken browned nicely, I turned them over and schootched them over so I could add sliced mushrooms. After a short while, I turned the heat to high (to keep the mushroom juices from stopping the frying process) and added a shot of vermouth. When the meat and mushrooms were done, I removed them, added a Tbs. of flour, and then a cup of chicken broth. Returned meat and shrooms to pan and entree complete.

Ease of cooking: A. much better than mixing olive oil and butter – higher heat.
Smell: B- I love the smell of butter and olive oil. There was some butter smell, not a lot.
Taste: Who cares? I don’t eat meat! (Reviews were good, lol.)

I was pleased with the coconut oil, and I think maybe I just need to adjust the ratio so that there is more butter than coconut oil.

I’m now in the market for unrefined coconut oil to try in baking.

I bought a jar of unrefined coconut oil yesterday. I shopped around and it was packaged the same as the products at the health food market and had the same appearance, but was only $4 at Big Lots for a16 oz. jar.

Q: It’s cold here so the oil is solid. It would be much easier to measure as a liquid. Does anyone know if warming the oil and then letting to cool changes it? Will it separate or crystallize? Not heating, but maybe placing the jar in warm water until I can pour off enough for a recipe?

FYI: Big Lots had a plastic gallon jar of refined coconut oil for $12. Cheap from what I saw in my shopping. Again, I wonder if it would change the oil if it was melted and poured into a glass jar.

I actually saw mine solid the other day. I just left it on the stove when I was preheating the oven, and that warmed it enough to melt so I could measure ¼ cup.

I’ll grant to you that I live in a place where normal room temperature is 80 degrees instead of 72, but still, I don’t think such a small temperature change is another to cause a chemical change to the oil, particularly because it has such a high smoke point.

If yours varies, @Seek, that’s good enough for me. I’m not going to nuke it, but gently warm as you say.
I know some solid oils will granulate if you heat and cool them, was why I asked. Even that may not effect the use, it just unnerves me.

Coconut oil can be used for natural lubrication for certain activities.

(Or so I’ve heard.)

That’s silly cone, @LuckyGuy!

@ibstubro you do know how to measure solid shortening with water, don ‘t you?

Yes, @Here2_4, and it’s not just the ease of measuring, but the incorporating, too.

I even have a mixing bowl that’s a scale. You add an ingredient and tare it out, add another. You can select whatever measurement you need (cups, etc.), and it measures for you by weight.
Pain in the ass.

Niiiiice!