Why You Can Have Your Coconut and Eat it Too: Reevaluating Dietary Saturated Fats
Twenty years ago, one need only mention the word “coconut” to elicit gasps, shakes of the head, and wagging fingers from one’s acquaintances. It seemed like every dietary association, physician, and health magazine across the country had framed the tropical fruit as a ticking time-bomb of heart disease—after all, coconut contains more of the purported “artery-clogging” saturated fat (at 90% of its total fatty acid content) than is contained in butter, lard, or even beef tallow. Accordingly, the US Dietary…