The Coconut Oil Miracle (27 page)

When we bathe with soap and water, the protective chemical barrier on the skin is washed off, leaving the skin vulnerable to germs that can cause infections. Applying a layer of coconut oil helps to quickly reestablish this barrier. It also lubricates and softens the skin. I recommend you apply a
thin
layer of oil over most of your body. Don’t use too much, or it will sit on the surface of the skin and rub
off on your clothing. Massage the oil into your skin, focusing on areas where the skin is especially dry, red, infected, cut, or bruised. Working the oil into the skin helps increase absorption and speed healing. Massage the oil on the feet and work it between the toes. This is a great way to prevent and even treat foot fungus. Feet are often abused and neglected, causing them to be dry, cracked, and infected. People often tell me how wonderful their feet look and feel after using coconut oil.

To help control dandruff and improve the appearance of your hair, apply the oil to your scalp and massage it in. Work it into the skin. Let the oil soak into your scalp and hair for a period of time, at least 15 minutes; the longer the better. Then wash it out. If you like, you can apply a small amount of coconut oil to your hair after you get out of the shower. Use only a little. You don’t want your hair to look or feel greasy.

Don’t be afraid of applying the oil to your face. It will help your complexion. Coconut oil acts like an exfoliant and helps remove dead cells, giving the skin a shiny, youthful appearance. It is also good for treating acne. The oil breaks down into MCFAs on the skin, which can kill the bacteria that cause acne.

Coconut oil can help with all types of skin blemishes. I’ve had deep discolorations caused by injuries that were three or four years old fade away within weeks. Acne outbreaks become less troublesome. Wrinkles, growths, and liver spots start to fade. It soothes and speeds the healing of burns, cuts, insect bites, and other injuries. It keeps skin strong and elastic and is an excellent way to prevent or heal stretch marks after childbirth. For best results, the expectant mother should massage the oil into the abdomen every day. This
should be continued after delivery. This will prevent stretch marks. If stretch marks are already present you can reduce them significantly by applying coconut oil daily. The sooner after delivery you do this, the better the results.

In chronic conditions, you may or may not see immediate results. The oil aids the body in healing the skin. This usually takes time. Apply it daily, even two or three times a day if necessary. In a matter of weeks you will see improvement. For best results you should consume the oil as well as apply it to the skin.

In coastal Africa and South and Central America and other tropical areas of the world, people are known to drink coconut or palm kernel oil whenever they become sick. To them, the tropical oils are both a food and a medicine. Coconut oil can be helpful in fighting many common seasonal illnesses. In the case of a virus, which includes the flu, there is no medication that can destroy the organism. Medications given in these circumstances are primarily to relieve symptoms. The body has to mount its own defense, and you simply must wait it out. Even if you have a bacterial infection and are given antibiotics, your body must still fight off the infection. Whether you have a viral or bacterial infection, you’re going to need to eat. You might as well be eating foods prepared in coconut oil. This will provide your body with valuable antimicrobial fatty acids that will aid it in overcoming the illness.

Some people prefer to avoid drugs whenever possible because they don’t want the side effects that accompany medications. Coconut oil
provides a natural way to fight infection without harmful or unpleasant side effects. Whether you choose to use medications or not, coconut oil can help you fight the infection and get better quicker.

Although there is no standard guideline for what dosage to take when you are sick, I recommend 4 to 8 tablespoons a day until you feel better. Spread your dosage over the day by taking a couple of tablespoons at each meal. Many people have reported good results overcoming seasonal illnesses by taking a spoonful of oil every couple of hours throughout the day. A large person would need to take more than a smaller person. You can take it by the spoonful if you like, but it is more palatable if you mix it with food. A couple of tablespoons in a glass of orange juice is a quick and easy way to do it. Orange juice, or other beverages, should be at room temperature or warmer to prevent the oil from solidifying. Juice and oil do not mix well, so add the oil, stir, and drink promptly. If this is too much oil for your taste, you can use one of the recipes given in
chapter 9
. Remember also to get plenty of rest, drink lots of water, and take vitamin supplements, especially vitamin C, to help your body recover. Once you’re back to normal, continue to take about 2 to 4 tablespoons (28 to 56 grams) of coconut oil daily for maintenance.

If someone is very sick and vomiting, it may not be possible to take coconut oil orally. In this case, you can massage the oil into the skin. Oils are easily absorbed into the body through the skin. This bypasses the digestive tract, providing the body with needed nourishment, a source of energy, and antimicrobial fatty acids to fight the infection. Even if the infectious organism is not vulnerable to MCFAs, the nourishment the oil provides will strengthen the body, helping it to heal more quickly. I suggest massaging 1 to 2 teaspoons of oil over
the entire body two or three times a day. Several thin layers of oil are absorbed much better than one thick layer because too much oil in any one place saturates the tissues and limits absorption, and excess oil often rubs off on clothing and sheets. When applying the oil make sure to massage it into the skin closest to the most infected part of the body. For a sore throat, massage the oil around the neck; for a chest or lung infection, be sure to apply plenty of oil to the chest and back.

Self-diagnosis and treatment may be all right for minor illnesses like a cold; however, I recommend that before treating any serious illness you consult with a physician or other health care provider first. After reading about all the wonderful things coconut oil can do, it’s tempting to think of it as a panacea for all illnesses. While coconut oil is good, keep in mind that it’s not a cure-all. The MCFAs in coconut oil won’t kill all germs, and medical care may be needed.

I think the best use of coconut oil is as a potent nutrient that can help to prevent disease and illness. It is much easier to prevent an illness from developing than it is to cure it once it gets started. If you take 2 to 4 tablespoons of coconut oil every day and eat a healthy diet, you probably won’t get sick. If you do get sick, it will probably be from an infection that is not vulnerable to MCFAs. In this case you may want to use some other natural remedy or standard medication.

Scientific knowledge regarding the health benefits of coconut oil began emerging over 50 years ago. Since then its unique
health-promoting properties have been recognized by only a small number of researchers. Although products containing coconut oil derivatives have been used to nourish patients in hospitals for many years, the vast majority of doctors, nutritionists, and food scientists have been unaware of its potential health benefits. Consequently, they have often considered coconut oil a source of unhealthy saturated fats that raise blood cholesterol. Fortunately, this is beginning to change as knowledge of the many benefits of coconut oil increases. One of the purposes of this book is to educate the public, as well as health care professionals, about the great potential of coconut oil and to dispel untruths created by the marketing efforts of competitive industries.

Despite the evidence presented in this book, many health care workers and writers will continue to argue and say coconut oil is bad for you. It’s hard to accept a new truth when you have been conditioned to believe something else for many years. However, if you have an open mind and are willing to accept new truths, you will welcome the knowledge about coconut oil. There are too many benefits to ignore. I didn’t make up this stuff. The information in this book comes from published studies and clinical observations as well as historical and epidemiological research. The facts are there, and you can read them yourself if you want to wade through the medical literature (see the
references
at the end of the book). If you stop to think about it and use a little common sense, it’s clear that coconut oil is not harmful. People who consume large quantities of coconuts and coconut oil have been shown to be some of the healthiest on earth. However, you are likely to hear criticism of coconut oil for years to come. But who are you going to believe, the soybean industry and misinformed writers and doctors who are dying right and left from degenerative
diseases, or the healthy Pacific Islanders and the researchers making the discoveries? I put my trust in the facts and not the marketing propaganda of the soybean industry.

If naysayers don’t want to believe it, don’t let that hold you back. You have a great opportunity awaiting you. If you eat coconut oil on a regular basis, the power of these antimicrobial MCFAs will protect your body and support your immune system. Eating coconut oil may provide you with a harmless and inexpensive way of preventing or even fighting off many illnesses. Research may eventually find coconut oil to be just as effective as many of the antimicrobial drugs and vaccines that are currently used. It is definitely safer. Eating coconut oil has no undesirable side effects.

Keep in mind that doctors after graduation from medical school are, for the most part, educated by the pharmaceutical industry. The literature they receive and the seminars they go to are funded almost entirely by these companies. The information they are exposed to is naturally extremely biased, focusing only on drug therapy. For this reason, most doctors know very little about nutrition and even less about current research involving MCFAs. Most doctors will probably be completely ignorant of the research and developments regarding MCFAs for several years to come. They will continue advising you to avoid all saturated fats, including coconut oil, because they don’t know any better. They may never have even heard of medium-chain fatty acids or know that there are many different types of saturated fat. Don’t wait for them to catch up with you.

After reading this book, you are armed with knowledge that could greatly enhance your health and improve your quality of life. The simple act of eliminating refined vegetable oils from your diet and
replacing them with coconut oil will work wonders for you. You will be replacing a toxic substance with one that offers many marvelous health benefits.

This change should be a lifelong commitment. Eating coconut oil isn’t something you should do for only a few months, as so many people do with fad diets. To gain permanent benefit, you need to do it permanently. Ignore the negative comments you may get from others who know nothing about the health benefits of coconut oil. Have them read this book and let them discover the healing miracles of coconut oil for themselves. One of the best presents you can give a friend is the gift of health. Give your friends copies of this book. Not only will you help them gain better health, but you will gain friends who will encourage and support you.

If you still have doubts, I challenge you to try it for six months—just six months, that’s all. After six months, see if you don’t look and feel better than you did before. My challenge to you is to eliminate all processed vegetable oils from your diet, especially hydrogenated oils (including shortening and margarine). A little butter and extra-virgin olive oil is okay. Many people refrain from using butter with the belief that it is bad for them. Milk contains many of the health-promoting MCFAs, including lauric acid. Butter provides a modest source of this important fatty acid. Population studies have shown that when people remove butter from their diets and replace it with margarine their rate of heart disease actually increases! Use coconut oil for all your cooking needs, and use extra-virgin olive oil in your salad dressing.

I recommend you start off slowly. Try 1 or 2
teaspoons
of coconut oil first. Sometimes people take too much and their bodies are not
accustomed to handling so much oil, and they experience runny stools. Go slow and gradually build up to about 3 to 4 tablespoons a day. Take the oil with food. Use it in your cooking whenever possible. Add it to foods as you would butter. Use it on your skin.

The hardest thing about this challenge is that if you go out to eat in a restaurant, you often don’t know what type of oils they use. If you have a choice, request olive or coconut oil whenever possible. Choose butter over margarine. Otherwise, I suggest you avoid eating in places where you don’t know what you’re getting. Restaurants are notoriously negligent in regard to customers’ health, especially when it comes to oils. They often use the cheapest, degraded, processed oils around. Oils are often heated to very high temperatures repeatedly for days and even weeks at a time, causing them to become extremely rancid and highly toxic. Deep-fried foods such as french fries, chicken nuggets, and doughnuts are the most toxic foods you can get at a restaurant. If you have to have fried foods, they should be fried in coconut oil because it does not degrade into free radicals or create toxic trans fatty acids when heated, as other vegetable oils do.

Occasionally a person will tell me that he or she tried using coconut oil for awhile but didn’t see any appreciable improvement. Let me state again that coconut oil is not a cure-all. It will not remedy every health problem. Second, you need to give it a chance. When people tell me it didn’t work for them, and I ask them how long they tried it, the answer is three or four days. You cannot expect to see much improvement in just a few days, especially with chronic problems that may have existed for decades. Sometimes it may take weeks or months to see noticeable improvement in conditions that have existed for several years. And the results you get will vary to some
degree, depending on your lifestyle choices and diet. If you live on soda pop and doughnuts, you’re not going to experience the same degree of improvement as someone who eats more wisely. Coconut oil aids the body in healing itself. If you don’t consume adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, your body won’t be capable of healing, regardless of how much coconut oil you use. That’s just common sense.