Coconut oil and your opinion re fat loss?

I'm never a big fan of these 'fad' type things for me your always better off eating a healthy diet with a mixture of everything rather than excluding somethings and adding a tablespoon of this a day etc etc. Much easier to maintain in the long term and combined with a healthy lifestyle should see the average person ok.

I can understand it more for those into body building etc as your putting special demands on your body for a specific goal but the ret of us would be better of eating sensible portions of decent quality home cooked food and walking places instead of taking the car everywhere.
 
I can confirm that is is very nice in porridge. Melts nicely into the hot milk, and the oil is absorbed into the oats, so doesn't get a slick of oil on the top. Also as for the other worry I had, well bowels have not been effected.
 
I dont think anyones talked about short term fad diets.
And it's all about eating home cooked food. Just which oil to use and is healthiest.
 
Whilst we're on the subject of high fat/cholesterol foods, this study seems to suggest that high fat/cholesterol diets are preferable for brain health, and may provide protection against degenerative brain disease.

In this paper, we have highlighted that AD may also be caused by a deficiency in the supply chain of cholesterol, fats, and antioxidants to the brain. We have provided much evidence of the importance of these nutrients to brain function, and have shown that AD patients are deficient in cholesterol and fats in the cerebral spinal fluid. We suggest that a diet high in high-glycemic index carbohydrates, particularly fructose, and relatively low in fats and cholesterol, leads to a destructive process that begins with glycation damage to blood serum lipid supply as well as to proteins important to the metabolism of astrocytes. The impairment of astrocytes is accelerated by the excess energy requirements associated with increased cholesterol synthesis in the absence of a sufficient supply from the bloodstream. Neurons begin to suffer damage as well, once the astrocytes can no longer supply adequate amounts of cholesterol, fats and antioxidants.
 
Whilst we're on the subject of high fat/cholesterol foods, this study seems to suggest that high fat/cholesterol diets are preferable for brain health, and may provide protection against degenerative brain disease.

That's not a study.

It's a lit review. It's roughly on par with a Wikipedia article in terms of scientific evidence.
 
He doesn't want to listen. He's probably one of these people that believe cereal is good for you and that fat is bad for you, and has little idea of how metabolism works.

However he does have a point that for a clueless person who thinks eating x,y,z is good and then taking MCTs without understanding will result in improved health and fat loss is probably going to be disappointed.
 
He doesn't want to listen. He's probably one of these people that believe cereal is good for you and that fat is bad for you, and has little idea of how metabolism works.

You're clearly correct, he's probably a GP!:D

However he does have a point that for a clueless person who thinks eating x,y,z is good and then taking MCTs without understanding will result in improved health and fat loss is probably going to be disappointed.

Totally agree, natural fats including coconut oil are health enhancing foods, but they're only going to be effective in a carb controlled diet of non-processed foods, by carb controlled I mean elimination of processed sugars/grains and other junk foods.

Most overweight people are likely eating processed/junk foods high in refined sugars/fats etc, continuing along this path and expecting coconut oil to have a positive effect would have course lead to disappointment.
 
Agreed 100%

We eat and supply too many processed and refined foods in this country. We still think they're great since they came about during the war years and somehow still exist today.
 
He doesn't want to listen. He's probably one of these people that believe cereal is good for you and that fat is bad for you, and has little idea of how metabolism works.

That's not the case at all. As someone quite rightly pointed out to me early in the thread, it's a discussion forum, so I'm just participating in the discussion.

I didn't say it was a bad idea to use this in cooking, neither did I say that fat was inherently bad for you or anything like that. The main thing I took issue with was the idea that you should be eating this stuff off the spoon, which I stand by. That's simply not a healthy approach to eating, and although I understand that's not how most people are going to use this, it has been mentioned quite a few times in the thread.

I have to say though, the one thing that grates on me in discussions like this is people using publications as some sort of reinforcement of their argument without actually assessing the quality of the paper. Posting something like a lit review is just pointless. They're the sort of publications that are commonly written by people for the sole purpose of getting something published. Quite often they're done by students for extra course credit. The first author on that paper seems to be someone whose qualifications are mainly in computer science and electrical engineering - hardly relevant fields.

You can call me out on this all you want, but the thread started with a youtube video of some dude endorsing this stuff, making spurious claims to try and convince people it's worth their time. The guy in the video has zero qualifications beyond the fact that at one point he was a bit chubby and is now slightly less chubby. It's easy to write me off as an idiot because my view differs to the consensus in the thread, but discussions like this would be a lot more fruitful if, a) people had some appreciation for the quality of information or evidence they were using and b) people were more able to admit to the limits of their knowledge on a subject or their ability to access the quality of evidence. There's nothing wrong with not being an expert on science and medicine, but it's a lot more classy to just admit it rather than be the guy who argues ad nausem with the help of Google.

The funny thing is the "he's probably a GP" comment. There's a population of people, normally middle-income males who enjoy using the internet, who seem to think they're experts on everything. It's embarrassing. They go to their GP for advice on stuff like this, the GP brushes them off because there aren't any systematic reviews on the topic therefore from the perspective of the professional scientific community it is currently unproven, and it would be unethical and unprofessional to endorse it. You can then imagine the conversation that goes on as the said man returns to his wife and scoffs about how clueless his GP is because his view wasn't in line with the article he read on the internet/glossy magazine. Completely disregarding the fact that the GP is probably significantly more qualified than the authors of the articles he's read. Can you see the problem?
 
Can you see the problem?

Not really no, or not until you turned the discussion into an argument with your rude, arrogant attitude and insults.

No-one here is gullible enough to believe coconut oil is a miracle cure for anything or a magic weightloss elixir, also no-one is claiming or pretending to be a scientific expert. All we were doing was discussing the possible benefits of VCO and sharing our uses of it.

You've shown yourself up to be totally ignorant on the subject of nutrition and dietry fats in particular, you're obviously indoctrinated into the low fat approach to diet and there will be no swaying you from it, why not just keep out of a thread that you obviously have no interest in. You just pop in with nothing remotely constructive and just attempt to belittle and berate.
 
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Not really no, or not until you turned the discussion into an argument with your rude, arrogant attitude and insults.

No-one here is gullible enough to believe coconut oil is a miracle cure for anything or a magic weightloss elixir, also no-one is claiming or pretending to be a scientific expert. All we were doing was discussing the possible benefits of VCO and sharing our uses of it.

You've shown yourself up to be totally ignorant on the subject of nutrition and dietry fats in particular, you're obviously indoctrinated into the low fat approach to diet and there will be no swaying you from it, why not just keep out of a thread that you obviously have no interest in. You just pop in with nothing remotely constructive and just attempt to belittle and berate.

You're losing your temper because my opinion is different to yours. It's an open discussion thread so it's open to everyone I thought. You're basically strawmaning my argument in order to dismiss it, which it a pretty crappy approach to a discussion. If this was meant to be a massive circlejerk about how amazing coconut oil is without a look at the evidence then maybe someone should have said at the beginning.

For the record, I've said multiple times that I don't think there's a problem using this over any other oil for cooking, or that I think fat is 'bad' in a diet. That said, I'm not convinced that this oil is much better than any other for cooking, and even if it were, I doubt that it would have much of an impact on someone's health overall. If there were solid evidence to prove otherwise then it'd be a different story, but nothing I've seen so far qualifies as such.

You simultaneously say that no-one here is claiming to be an expert, then you state that you believe I've shown myself to be ignorant of the subject. If you aren't an expert, who are you to say my opinion is outright wrong? I don't think that there are many people that are bold enough to claim to be an expert on nutrition (unless they're trying to sell something), I've actually got a pretty decent education on diet and metabolism, but I wouldn't claim to be an expert to anyone. Here's the thing though: while I might not be an expert on nutrition, I'm pretty experienced at evaluating my sources of information. This is useful because it means that rather than me spend a bunch of time learning about a subject myself, I can await the opinion of someone that I know is worth listening to.

The anecdotal evidence in here is as much proof as the opinion of my mate Dave. Magazine articles are almost universally bias and written by journalists rather than experts. Even single scientific studies are generally poor forms of evidence when taken on their own. Until a proper systematic review of relevant research has been done (which I don't believe will ever occur) then I'll hold off spending my time and money on this. If you're happy to jump the gun without real proof then that's your prerogative - there's a massive industry out there that's eager to make a lot of money out of people like you.
 
It's an MCT it is fact that it doesn't generate an insulin response and that it generates a thermogenic reaction. So if used correctly it can and will help with weight loss. I know as it does exactly that with me. Admittedly my diet and lifestyle is definitely suited to this sort of dietary addition. However to say it's false is plain wrong.
 
Whilst I'm not a professional with lots of qualifications it's a subject I'm passionate about and read and research about a lot. Like any hobby and enthusiast. I'm interested in facts and science behind it and I'm sure of what I've read and experienced.
 
I think I've stated my case clearly enough now, Jolteh is just being deliberately argumentative, I've said previously that I make no claims whatsoever regarding coconut oils purported therapeutic properties. It is a food that I have used for nigh on 10 years along with other traditionally used fats, such as tallow, butter, Lard, Olive oil etc and I believe they have all served me equally well in that time.

I couldn't care less whether you (Jolteh) believe coconut oil or saturated fats in general to be beneficial or detrimental to health, it's a food substance that I know works for me.

During the years I've been using this high saturated fat approach to diet, I've had no flu's, colds, viruses or have had any need whatsoever to visit any doctor or GP (touching wood I'm not taking anything for granted). I have great energy levels in my exercise regime of running and weight training, and I'm in pretty good/lean shape overall.

Oh and I haven't lost my temper, I would have been banned by now If I had, infact it seems you (Jolteh) are the one who is rattled, maybe your cholesterol levels are too low! Anyway, I can't be bothered with this anymore, it's become pretty tiresome.

In short, I like coconut oil, I believe it is good for me and after 10 years of using it I'm hardly going to stop because of some pencil necked little keyboard warrior who thinks we should all fall in line with the indoctrinated and nonsensical dietry recommendations put out there by the ignorant for the ignorant.
 
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