Coconut oil, what's it used for ?? hearing good things

[Mumof3girlys]

Ok so I have been hearing great things about coconut oil, today at work (work in a quirky little deli/cafe only just started ) and a elderly came in and brought 10 jars of our coconut oil, overheard her saying she uses it for everything beauty/cooking etc and has done for years! She takes two teaspoons of it every morning and frankly for a lady in her 70's her skin was BLOODY AMAZING, so smooth and hardly any lines!

So I'm just interested in what you all use it for and what results your getting ?

I saw it in Holland and Barrett today it was £16!

Tesco £6.99

I eat it, cook with it, use it on my hair and skin occasionally. It's wonderful stuff

Its good on dry skin but health benefits are a myth spread by mercola. He was told by the fda to remove his claims.

this is what I use

it's ace for removing temporary kids tattoos

I get it from waitrose for £6.

Can someone talk me through this pulling thing??

bruffin - can you expand on what claims were disputed?

heart disease etc

Interesting I still rate it for my skin and have just started pulling my teeth

great to add to smoothies you can even spread on toast, fry eggs in it, anything.

Wow I'm def going to give oil pulling a try, 15-20 mins sound like a long time to me doing it for but will try it out in the shower tomorrow morning

Did my first pulling tonight whilst in the bath

Brufin, you'll get no argument from me regarding the dubious nature of some of Mercola's website...

BUT points to remember about coconut oil, trials done in the past used damaged (ie hydrogenated, oxidised, highly processed) coconut oil.

There are interesting clinical trials ongoing (proper randomised, crossover etc) for example into its use for Alzheimer's disease, so it will be interesting to see the results of that in the future.

Personally I think coconut is great stuff and very healthy (but then I think natural, unprocessed saturated fats are healthy!), and I use quite a lot of it for cooking, grain free baking but no food is a "miracle"... That's just a marketing claim to sell it.

I think it probably is really good for the brain due to the composition of the fats, I mean for everyone's brain, as our modern diets can be woefully deficient in the right kinds of fat... But it would be nice to see some more evidence regarding that!

I have a friend who is from the caribbean whose mum used to make her own coconut oil fresh from the palm. They use it for skin and never cook with it unless they were desperate. The health benefits are a over hyped marketing campaign.

We're using it for for skin, especially on DS (who's 2.8) and had horrible eczema as a baby. It mixes well with essential oils too (which was why I bought it in the first place) and the coconut smell seems to go really well with sandalwood.

If you really get into it, you can get enormous tubs (5kg+) on eBay (for a lot less than health food shop prices). I got my first jar in a local health food shop and the second one in the local supermarket, so it seems to be cropping up all over the place.

There's a good post on what you can do with it at wellnessmama.com/5734/101-uses-for-coconut-oil/

Please, please - what is this 'pulling through'?

It sounds like some dubious sexual practice or something.

Do you make it into a toothpaste or swish it raw in your mouth for a whitener?

dumpty - visit this website - and there's a video demo!
oilpulling.com/

Sorry, I'll try to make it into a proper link

www.oilpulling.com

I have read that coconut oil has a beneficial effect on the symptoms of autism, so for the past three months I've been giving my mildly autistic five year old a tablespoonful twice a day (1tbsp mixed into breakfast porridge with banana and 1tbsp mixed in with bedtime hot choc (tastes like Bounty Bar...mmmm!)). I have no idea whether he has come on so much in the last couple of months because of the oil or because he has started school and he's obviously getting a lot more stimulus now than he was at playgroup. Going to stick with it for now and see how it goes.

I've also read that it's good for diabetics because it helps to regulate blood sugar and also increases your metabolism. Mum's blood sugar has been out of control for a while, although she tries really hard with her diet and meds. For the last few weeks she's been having a small apple before each meal and 1tbsp of coconut oil with breakfast porridge and her blood sugar is almost under control for the first time in ages.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else is trying coconut oil for either autism or diabetes.

The mail on this shows a price of £2.85 - but the link takes you to Tesco at nearly £10.00. Any idea where the 2.85 price comes from?

I had some cheap stuff but bought some proper raw pressed stuff today for a humongous jar for 8.99,tastes like bounty bars!

That's odd - I buy mine from Amazon and it's the Raw, Virgin Organic one and it's amazing, but it definitely doesn't smell (or taste) of coconut.

In fact, it's pretty odourless.