The Japanese military occupied the Philippines and other South Pacific islands, where bloody battles were being fought.
The supply of coconut oil was effectively cut off from the United States.
Although coconut oil had been popular both as a cooking oil and ingredient in numerous food products, the occupation continued to interrupt the supply for several long years as the war slowly dragged on.
Enter good old American ingenuity (in this case, not so good for your health).
Manufacturers began to develop alternative sources of cooking oils, and the polyunsaturated oils phase was born. By the time the war was over, there was a lot of money at stake in the promotion of these polyunsaturated vegetable oils.
By the end of the 1950s, public opinion had turned totally against saturated fats like butter (and coconut oil). Saturated fats were blamed for raising cholesterol, and cholesterol was now viewed as the evil enemy, the culprit responsible for the steep rise in heart disease.
Butter, eggs and coconut oil were out.
The new vegetable oils were in ... and erroneously viewed as "heart-healthy."
Coconut oil continued to be demonized by the vegetable oil industry throughout the ensuing decades. Adding insult to injury, the soybean industry began to condemn the use of tropical oils, particularly coconut oil.
And I'm sure you realize the reason why -- competition ... and millions and millions of dollars.
Unfortunately, the tropical oil industry, centered in poorer nations like the Philippines and Indonesia, could not afford to counter the negative propaganda spread by rich American industrial conglomerates.
Science and good health took a back seat to profits, as they have on more than one occasion ...
The truth about coconut oil is obvious to anyone who has studied the health of those who live in traditional tropical cultures, where coconut has been a nutritious diet staple for thousands of years.
Back in the 1930s, Dr. Weston Price, a dentist, traveled throughout the South Pacific, examining traditional diets and their effect on dental and overall health. He found that
those eating diets high in coconut products were healthy and trim, despite the high fat concentration in their diet.
Similarly, in 1981, researchers studied populations of two Polynesian atolls. Coconut was the chief source of caloric energy in both groups. The results, published in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, demonstrated that both populations exhibited positive vascular health. There was no evidence that the high saturated fat intake had a harmful effect in these populations.
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