This article even went into the chemistry of coconut oil! It pointed out how virgin coconut oil’s saturated fat is largely made up of lauric acid, “a medium-chain triglyceride that turns out to have a number of health-promoting properties, including the ability to improve levels of “good” HDL cholesterol.”
Apparently these medium-chain triglycerides are particularly good for athletes since they’re easily digestible and thus provide much energy. I don’t really see why it shouldn’t be good for non-sportive people either, but fine. I’m also assuming that by “medium-chain” they are referring to chain length – that could have been made more clear.
Why wouldn’t long-chain triglycerides be even better? When we were discussing glycogen, we liked the increased energy potential because of more branching. Wouldn’t longer FA chains mean more potential energy sources? Perhaps our enzymes prefer a certain length…
I was pleasantly surprised to see a little chemistry content in this article, although I think it tended to stop short of really explaining the research it mentioned. Select additional details could have made it more educational to the readers.
Here’s the article:
“Is Coconut Oil Really All It’s Cracked Up To Be?”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/22/coconut-oil-healthy_n_5167057.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular