Saturday, December 1, 2007

Benefit Your Thyroid Hormones With Organic Coconut

The thyroid gland is one of the larger endocrine glands in the body. This double-lobed structure located in the neck produces hormones, mainly triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4). These are the hormones that regulate the rate of metabolism and affect the growth and rate of function of many other body systems. Hyperthyroidism (over-active thyroid) and hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid) are very common problems of the thyroid.

Most people with thyroid problems experience symptoms such as low body temperature, headaches and migraines, cold hands and feet, dry skin, slow heart rate, hair loss, joint aches, fatigue, constipation, and weight gain. Thyroid disease can affect almost every aspect of health, so it helps the understand them and the symptoms that occur when something goes wrong.

There are dietary oils that can negatively affect thyroid health. We cook with them almost every day and they are abundant in commercially prepared and packaged foods. It's very possible that they're among the worst and main offenders when it comes to the thyroid gland malfunctioning. These dietary oils are the vegetable oils which are polyunsaturated oils. The most common source of these oils used in commercially prepared foods is the soybean. Soybean has been proven to slow thyroid functions.

Unfortunately, organic coconut oil is not a thyroid cure alone...but it can help people with low thyroid function. Coconut oil stimulates metabolism and boosts energy. Organic Coconut Oil has medium chain fatty acids(a different type of fat), which are also known as medium chain triglycerides. Medium chain fatty acids are known to increase metabolism and promote weight loss. It can raise fundamental body temperatures while increasing metabolism. Used in combination with other factors, organic coconut oil has the potential to greatly improve thyroid levels. Organic Coconut oil has helped many people end their dependence on thyroid medication.

Next to Organic Coconut oil, Iodine is important for the production of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). It is in most foods that we eat such as diary products, fish and including iodized sea salt. When there's a deficiency of this important mineral in our blood stream it can cause hypothyroidism. Iodine deficiency is the number one cause of primary hypothyroidism and goiter on a worldwide basis, but this is one cause of the disease that is a hundred percent treatable.

Here's more about coconut health and thyroid treatment.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Coconut Oil Cooking, The One Healthy Oil For Cooking

Did you know that 99% of your supermarket vegetable oils change into Trans-Fatty Acid when heated. Whenever we cook food, we usually always add something to the pan, vegetable oil! Unfortunately, 99% of the oils on the market change into what is called a Trans-Fatty Acid when heated. Yes, even extra-virgin olive oil when heated turns into a "nasty" trans fat! The problem with trans fats is that they are like putting glue into your body! With many Americans already suffering from high cholesterol rates, high-blood pressure, heart disease, and weight challenges. No one would choose to add more trans fat into their diets if there was an affordable and great-tasting alternative.

With this in mind, extra virgin coconut oil is a wonderful cooking health solution. If there is any oil to be considered the healthiest oil in the world, I certainly would vote for extra virgin coconut oil. Coconut oil has been consumed in tropical places for thousands of years. Unfortunately, we "modern" people have lost a very important heritage, the understanding of nature's magic and healing power. I have no doub't that for every disease or illness, there's a remedy among the hundreds of thousands of herbs(many yet to discover), fruits, vegetables, roots, etc.

By remedy I mean that if we eat as many unrefined and raw foods as possible, we could prevent many of our "wellness" problems. We prefer to think about ourselves as the most intelligent animal on the planet. Yet, we deliberately..or maybe unknowingly destroy our body. We slowly (some faster than other) eat ourselves to a painful death. A key component of our daily intake of nutrition, should be essential fatty-acids. Not just any fat, it is extremely important that we consume right kind of fat.

Saturated fat is considered to be "bad fat", but in the case of coconut oil it's unique in its structure. Extra virgin coconut oil is 63% saturated fat in one tablespoon, but included in this is medium chain triglycerides. Which is the highest source of any naturally occurring vegan food. 50% of these MCT's are made up of lauric acid. This acid is most, if not the most important (EFA)essential fatty acid. It's key to building and maintaining the body's immune system. One of the other sources of high concentration of lauric acid, is mothers milk.

EFA's(essential fatty-acids) are the good, healthy fats that you hear about in the news and that often come from fish, such as cod liver oil. But here's the really cool part, coconut oil does not turn into trans fats even when heated or cooked with under normal conditions. As a matter of fact, the coconut oils ability to resist turning into a trans fat when heated is 10 times STRONGER than any other cooking oil on the market! PLUS, because essential fatty acids are important for the brain, heart and to keep your fat metabolism running smoothly. It actually will help you lose weight!

Coconut oil is a clean cooking oil, instead of the greasy "coating" that usually accompanies foods cooked in oil or soaked in dressing, coconut oil leaves a "clean" glaze on the food that brings out the natural taste of the food. It`s a good idea to replace your other cooking oils with coconut oil. Coconut oil has been considered the fountain of youth, cause people typically feel and look years younger after using extra virgin coconut oil. Recent studies, show that the medium chain fatty acids are more easily digested than fats found in other oils. They are immediately converted into energy, because they are processed directly in the liver. So you can use virgin coconut oil, to get a quick energy boost. And it is healthy too.

Throw out your old cooking oil and start your road to health and wellness with The One Healthy Oil For Cooking!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Coconut Oil Has Dramatic Skin Benefits

Coconut oil works well for protection against harsh chemicals and environmental toxins. By including coconut oil in your diet may be the internal help you need to make your dry skin moist and supple. Nearly one third of the world's population depends on coconut to some degree for their food. In the Philippines, for example, coconut has been a dietary staple for hundreds of years. The meat of the coconut is used in many different foods, and the oil is used in salads and cooking. Even though Filipinos live in a climate that exposes them to the sun year-round, their youthful, soft and wrinkle-free skin is attributed to coconuts.

The numerous extra virgin coconut oil health benefits:

* Coconut oil is an antioxidant and does not cause free radical damage, unlike the polyunsaturated fats used in the North American diet.

* It improves digestion and absorption of other nutrients including vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

* It has anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties that help prevent many diseases, including those of the skin.

* It softens the skin, relieves dryness and flaking, and prevents sagging, wrinkles and age spots.

* It helps prevent thyroid dysfunction, which often manifests in dry skin.

* It reduces the symptoms associated with psoriasis, eczema and dermatitis.

It has also been used to treat cardiovascular health, improve energy and metabolism, and is excellent for weight loss.

The dietary consumption of coconut oil to provide the nutrients and moisture you need internally and a good shielding lotion to protect against dry skin used by outside irritants is the perfect combination for dry skin care.

Enjoy the benefits of coconut oil and skin care.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Coconut Oil Nutrition Facts

For many years fats have been unfairly lumped together as being all bad. Fats by themselves doesn’t necessarily cause disease, and can actually play a role in its prevention. The fact is that some fats are very bad for us and some fats are actually very good for us.

The past has shown that diets that restrict all fats fail when it comes to weight loss. Ever since the end of World War II, we have been told that we need to restrict saturated fat in our diets. So we switched to margarine from butter, and did what we could to restrict fat. We have been constantly told that the reason for our health problems is that we still eat too much fat, especially saturated fats.

Since we have been told to eat a low fat diet to lose weight, the results are that nearly two thirds of adults are now classified as overweight and more children are overweight now than ever before. Something must be wrong with that "logic", probably because we need special kinds of fats in our diets that we're not getting.

Most of us grew up being told that vegetable oils were the good oils and saturated fats were the bad ones. Now we are finding out that it is just the opposite. Diets that are moderate to high in “good” saturated fats and oils such as coconut oil, grapeseed oil, and olive oil are actually very good for us. Note that only coconut oil, grapeseed oil, and butter are the only oils you should ever cook with. Olive oil is good for you as long as you do not heat it.

What makes these healthy oils great is that they raise good cholesterol levels and lower bad cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure. As a matter of fact, people who started adding at least 4 tablespoons of coconut oil to their diets every day, have found that they can now lose weight when they could not before on a fat restricted diet. Sometimes the addition of these oils even helps with their health problems.

Polyunsaturated oils should be avoided, they carry toxic fatty acids (long chain fatty acids or LCT’s). LCT’s tend to produce fat in the body due to there complexity, your body takes longer to use the fats so it ends up storing them in the body. Polyunsaturated oils are the vegetable oils we commonly see in the grocery store, such as soy, corn, cottonseed, rapeseed(canola) and safflower oils.

We've been told that they lower cholesterol, but the way that they do it is not healthy, as it ends up collecting in the liver. These oils are easily oxidized and damaged by free radicals. When cooked they become rancid in a few hours, even in the refrigerator. This causes damage to our body at a cellular level, this ends up showing itself as problems like diabetes, cancer, hypothyroidism, and heart disease. Not to mention these oils help us to get fat, lower the metabolic rate in our bodies, help suppress the thyroid function and cause our skin to age quicker.

Trans-fat is one of the WORST of the fatty acids. Trans-fatty acids often appear on ingredient labels as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. It is what they do to vegetable oils to make them into hard fats such as margarine and vegetable shortening. It's used in the prepared food industry in baked goods like cookies, cakes, crackers, most peanut butter, and just about everything else we eat. It's typically added to prolong shelf life, and it's a cheap way of doing it.

These bad fats are used almost exclusively in fast foods that are fried. These oils are also sensitive to light, and turn rancid while still sitting on your supermarket shelves. Unlike Coconut oil, grapeseed oil, and butter which are healthy fats/oils, safe to cook with, and can be heated. When any other oil is heated it becomes a trans-fat, and when eaten they turn into something like poison in your system. It's like eating krazy glue, your body can not process this kind of chemically made fat. Trans-fats not only increase levels of bad cholesterol, but they will decrease levels of good cholesterol in the blood stream and trans-fatty acids have been linked to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Fats such as margarine, shortening, and any hydrogenated oils should be avoided like the plague, as well as foods items that contain them.

The FDA finally put forward an attempt to do something about trans-fats, in January 2006 they required food products to have a label showing the amount of trans-fat they have in them. You should be aware that trans-fats are found in over 40% of the products on our supermarket shelves. Scary isn't it?

The fatty acid chains in coconut oil are medium-chain fatty acids (MCT’s) and they promote weight loss by increasing the body’s metabolism to create energy. Coconut oil has become popular lately, because it has been discovered that coconut oil is nature’s richest source of MCT’s. If you decide to add coconut oil to your diet be sure to only purchase organic extra virgin coconut oil because is hasn't been bleached, deodorized, or refined. This is usually found in health food stores, because it's from the best part of the coconut and has not been chemically and heat processed.

Even the saturated fat from animals isn't as bad as it once was thought to be, especially if it is from organically raised animals (free range and grass fed). Organic butter has a very high conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content, which helps us lose weight and gain muscle. But non-organic meats may still be dangerous because of the way the animals were raised or fed. Most grocery store meats are filled with hormones, pesticides, medicines and unhealthy fat that gets transferred to us when we eat it.

Organically grass fed and free range animals and animal products avoid these problems, and give us a much healthier source of protein and saturated fat. Organic saturated fats and oils are actually good for you and should be eaten daily. The body needs these fats for healthy functioning.

Fry and bake again while enjoying the benefits of coconut oil!