(Guide to a Healthy Lifestyle)

This Victoria's Secret Model Is On to Something

While a few women in the modeling profession may resort to street drugs or diet pills to maintain their weight and figure, Victoria's Secret supermodel Miranda Kerr, 28, does not. A healthy lifestyle aficionado, she does yoga, light jogging, and eats steamed vegetables, fresh fruit, and fish. And, oh yes, she consumes four tablespoons of coconut oil daily.

Miranda says that the coconut oil is the key to her clear skin, shiny hair, and trim figure. She uses the oil on salads, in cooking, and in green tea.

The Dailymail website (UK) says that health food chain Holland and Barrett reported sales of coconut oil up by 50 percent. Much of that demand was recent.

Mainstream medicine however is aghast at this practice. The WHO (World Health Organization) and many doctors warn of the high intake of saturated fat and calories that this much coconut oil represents.

Keith Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at Children's Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine says:

"I cant say I'd want people consuming lots of coconut oil. You should use it sparingly."

Professor Mike Gordon, food chemist at Reading University says:

"Coconut is 50 per cent made up of a fatty acid called lauric acid which if consumed to excess can contribute to increased risk of coronary artery disease...I would be very cautious about advising people to consume large amounts of coconut oil".

There is a lot more to saturated fat than meets the eye. For instance, did you know that it can be broken down into short-chain, medium-chain, and long-chain fatty acids?

Short and medium-chain fatty acids or triglycerides are not processed in the same manner as long-chain triglycerides. Short and medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are burned for energy instead of being stored in your body as are long-chain triglycerides. Coconut oil is primarily composed of MCTs.

Cattle ranchers in the 1940s wanted to fatten their cattle; to that end, they fed them inexpensive coconut oil. But, much to their surprise and consternation, the more coconut oil the cattle consumed, the leaner they became.

Mainstream medicine and nutrition have always trailed the alternative medicine and nutrition movement in terms of what it teaches to achieve total health. One major reason, at least in the United States, is that outdated nutritional concepts die hard.

Traditional or mainstream nutrition still believes saturated fat is the major cause of coronary heart disease. Those in the alternative and natural health field know however that trans fats and vegetable oils are the culprits.

But even though mainstream nutrition realizes that trans fats are bad, and has taken action to eliminate its presence in food, saturated fat is yet villified. The fact that trans fats are entirely to blame for the high rate of heart disease is not accepted by mainstream medicine.

Website WebMD.com says the following:

"Diets rich in saturated fat and trans fat (both "bad" fats) raise blood cholesterol concentrations, contributing to clogged arteries that block the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart and brain".

Obviously WebMD.com is a part of mainstream medicine and nutrition.

When studies upon which these beliefs are based were undertaken, researchers failed to separate saturated fat from trans fatty acids. So they naturally assumed that both were bad. Or at least that saturated fat was bad though not quite as bad as trans fats.

Alternative health advocate Dr. Joseph Mercola states unequivocally:

"The demonization of saturated fat began in 1953, when Dr. Ancel Keys published a paper comparing saturated fat intake and heart disease mortality. His theory turned out to be flimsy, to say the least, but the misguided ousting of saturated fat has continued unabated ever since".

"Fortunately, the truth is finally starting to come out, as medical scientists have begun to seriously question Keys' findings," (Mercola.com.)

Dr. Al Sears, another alternative health practitioner, says:

"Saturated fats have been on the media hit list for over 50 years. Butter is just one example. Red meat is another. But one of the worst victims of this low-fat propaganda is coconut oil (Emphasis mine.) Like butter, it's been vilified for decades."

"But a new study shows that coconut oil can lower your total cholesterol, boost your HDL "good" cholesterol, lower your LDL "bad" cholesterol, and shrink your waist size," (Dr. Al Sears website.)

In regards to coconut oil, we can't ignore native populations around the world who eat a saturated fat based diet. Those who live in tropical regions like the south Pacific eat tons of coconuts and have much lower rates of heart disease than Americans. The traditional diet of the Masai of Kenya and northern Tanzania is meat, milk, and blood from cattle.

And let's not forget that in the early 20th century, Americans ate high amounts of saturated fat in the form of butter, red meat, cheese, and milk. The rate of heart disease then was much lower than it is today. As a matter of fact, heart disease began to rise sharply when American's reduced their consumption of saturated fat and ate a lot of vegetable oils (Read this article.)

Miranda Kerr is definitely onto something as her experience indicates. Though attacked by mainstream doctors as engaging in a dangerous practice, she is ensuring her continued health and slim figure by consuming the coconut oil.

Though not a nutritionist or doctor, Miranda's lifestyle will not result in her suffering from coronary artery disease or an abbreviated life.

I daresay that her critics who are probably consuming polyunsaturated vegetable oils in abundance and avoiding coconut oil like the plague will age quicker and find themselves victims of heart disease. As a staunch proponent of coconut oil, I predict that Miranda will have the last laugh.

As a caveat I hasten to add that if you want to derive the same benefits from coconut oil that Miranda enjoys, limit your purchases to organic, extra-virgin coconut oil.

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