A Case for Virginity

While doing research on a spa in the Philippines called Farm at San Benito, I noticed that they promote coconut oil’s health benefits—or rather Virgin Coconut Oil, because like olive oil apparently they’re not all created equal. This is scandalous by some standards. Didn’t we swear off fats, trans or otherwise, ages ago? Because some brands are recommended over others, at first I thought that, like Xango and Goji juice, it was another one of those multilevel marketing scams. I don't think it is.

Yet I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that it’s being touted to prevent heart disease, as the only fat that diabetics can safely consume, great for weight loss and loads of other miraculous-sounding claims, but apparently there are some altmed studies indicating that it’s very high in antioxidants. And if nothing else, they say it’s a good cooking oil because unlike vegetable oils, including olive, it’s resistant to oxidative rancidity. (Though I can’t help but think its powerful flavor has got to be a drawback those times you just don't fancy coconut flavor, and it wouldn’t work for non-Asian cuisines.) It’s also said to be good for the skin and hair, which sounds right.

For people like us, who truly ascribe to natural lifestyles and are considerate of what we put into our bodies, claims made for products like virgin coconut oil creates a mini crisis of belief. Just when we thought we had sufficiently beaten back the medical establishment’s fearmongering of anything not FDA and AMA approved, and after seeing—and experiencing for ourselves—how ancient cultures’ diets and natural healing traditions really do work, out comes a claim that sounds foreign to us and we’re all dubious again.

So I emailed my friend and steady source of medical advice, Dr. Stephen Devries. He’s a highly respected “integrative” cardiologist who’s breaking new ground by frequently prescribing alternative therapies, supplements and lifestyle changes instead of the usual regimen of drugs commonly prescribed but with deleterious side effects. I asked him what he thought about virgin coconut oil. He said he’s read the claims and can neither refute nor support them, which means either his Western creds are peaking though or he speaks like a true diplomat. But he didn’t blow it off either. So I’m not supporting virgin coconut oil here, necessarily. I found some websites of interest but nothing that I considered unbiased. This one, though still one-sided, lists several books and links to articles on the subject so you can make up your own mind.