Speaking of the oil with the most Internet celebrity temperament, it is coconut oil. Miranda Kerr said in an interview that “postpartum weight loss relies on 4 tablespoons of coconut oil a day”, which made coconut oil popular overnight.
It is said that Angelina Jolie, who is also good-looking and good-looking, starts every morning with a spoonful of coconut oil and a handful of cereals, and Zhong Liti, the goddess of youth, even drinks coconut. Oil detox.
So starting from the publicity of celebrities, coconut oil has become a superfood for Internet celebrities. It has been circulated on the Internet that “coconut oil is the healthiest oil in the world”, and various shopping platforms have high-profile claims that it is “suitable for the elderly, children, pregnant women and all kinds of people”, and has various magical properties such as “weight loss, bad breath treatment, constipation prevention, skin care” and so on. Curative effect, it is even recommended to drink it every day.
However, coconut oil, an internet celebrity, has been “diss” by authoritative health agencies. In its 2021 Dietary Guidelines for Improving Cardiovascular Health, the American Heart Association (AHA) clearly states that “Choose liquid vegetable oils over tropical oils (coconut, palm, palm kernel oil). ), animal oils (such as lard and butter), and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
This… the food that the major stars are calling crazy, the experts seem to deny it? Let’s see why.
Coconut oil, anyway, is oil, and its main ingredient is fat.
The oils we usually come into contact with are mostly vegetable oils, such as peanut oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, etc. They are liquid at room temperature. This is because these vegetable oils mainly contain unsaturated fatty acids.
And animal oils, such as lard, tallow, etc., are also solid at room temperature because the content of saturated fatty acids in these oils is relatively high. Coconut oil is a wonderful thing among vegetable oils. It is also solid at room temperature, because the saturated fatty acid content in coconut oil is as high as 87%, which is even higher than that of lard.
Do different fatty acids have the same effect on health?
Saturated fatty acids, what are the effects of unsaturated fatty acids on health? Experts generally believe that controlling the intake of saturated fat in the diet is of great significance for improving high and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL so-called bad cholesterol) and hypercholesterolemia, and preventing the occurrence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Therefore, the Chinese Nutrition Society recommends that the saturated fatty acid intake of Chinese adults, the elderly, pregnant women and nursing mothers should be less than 10% of the energy supply ratio.
If a woman consumes 1,800 kcal a day, that means consuming no more than 20 grams of saturated fat. But don’t forget that most of the fats in the pork, beef and mutton we usually eat and even the milk we drink are saturated fats. And this 20 grams is to include the saturated fat in these meats.
For example, if you eat 300 grams of whole milk (6.3 grams of saturated fat), 100 grams of pork (10.8 grams of saturated fat), one egg (50 grams, 2.3 grams of saturated fat) every day ), it already contains 19.4 grams of saturated fat. If you eat a little more snacks such as cookies, chips, and pastries, the saturated fatty acids will already exceed the standard.
Because most of these foods are made of oils with high saturated fatty acid content, look at the food ingredients list, shortening, palm oil, hydrogenated vegetable oil, etc. are all such oils represent.
Then what kind of oil should we eat? In fact, there are also fats that are good for cardiovascular health, and they are the unsaturated fat family: n-3 series of fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids. Representative foods rich in them are fatty fish, seaweed, nuts, olive oil, tea seed oil, etc. This type of food can be appropriate to choose some more.
That’s why, in the 2021 Dietary Guidelines for Improving Cardiovascular Health, it is recommended to “choose liquid vegetable oils over tropical oils (coconut, palm, palm kernel oil)”. Because palm oil and palm kernel oil are the same as coconut oil, they are mostly saturated fatty acids.
What should I do to eat oil healthily?
The most important prerequisite for healthy fat eating is that no matter what type of fat it is, the total fat intake is the most important. Too little fat will not work, it will affect the intake of essential fatty acids and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins; too much fat will increase the intake of saturated fat, cholesterol and energy.
The Chinese Nutrition Society recommends dietary fat for adults in the 2013 edition of “Reference Intakes of Dietary Nutrients for Chinese Residents”The energy supply ratio should account for 20% to 30% of the total energy.
On the premise of ensuring that the total fat intake does not exceed the standard, we will discuss the types of fat intake.
Finally summarize the tips for healthy eating oil:
1 Control the total intake, the daily cooking oil is 25~30 grams.
2 Ingestion of liquid vegetable oils can be eaten in exchange, preferably tea seed oil, olive oil, and canola oil.
3 Cook as low as possible to retain nutrients in fat and reduce harmful substances.