"Coconut oil is pure poison," says Dr. Karin Michels, a Harvard professor who is also director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She claims that coconut oil is “one of the worst foods you can eat” due to the damaging effect the saturated fatty acids in coconut oil have in the body. She claims it is worse for your health than lard. In the past few years coconut oil has become popular as a superfood and promoted to be beneficial for heart health, to reduce the risk for Alzheimer's disease, and as an immune system booster.
Is coconut oil a superfood or is it a poison? In my opinion, neither. If it were a poison then people who live in countries where this oil is used extensively in cooking, for instance Thailand, would be dropping dead left and right. But the average lifespan in Thailand is 75 years, which is higher than most countries. I am not a big fan of using a lot of additional oil in cooking. I don't think the human body was meant to ingest a lot of oil at one time. I prefer to eat olives rather than use a lot of olive oil. I think small amounts of oil are fine, especially when necessary for cooking (and hopefully at low temperatures in order to not destroy the chemical makeup of the fatty acids). However, I do not see the need to purposely add coconut oil, or other oils, to one's diet merely with the hopes of improving health. One exception are omega-3 fatty acids such as those found in fish oils. If any type of oil is deficient in the American diet, it is fish oils. Read more information and a summary of the latest studies regarding coconut oil.