The use of coconuts
The coconut has always been an important resource of nature for the tropical communities. Best known are the husk for ropes and the coconut flesh, water, milk and oil.
The use of coconut oil around the world in tropical regions is prolific: South and Central America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Micro-, Mela- and Polynesia and most of Asia. Early European explorers, including Captain Cook, wrote affectionately about the beauty of communities across the Pacific using coconut oil as an integral part of their daily lives. After the war, coconut oil was sold in England as “margarine” and in the USA as “coconut butter”.
However, this all changed around 1954, even though it has been known for nearly a century that coconut oil is more nutritious than other oils.
Over many decades coconut oil received bad publicity due to its saturated fat content, but what the proponents of “saturated fat is bad for you” did not do was to differentiate between the three different types of saturated fat. All the saturated fats were simply generalised under one category, ignoring the fact that some saturated fat is in fact necessary for human health. However, nowadays coconut is again considered as being highly nutritious and young coconuts have also been exceedingly revered as having medicinal qualities for heart, liver and kidney disorders.