Among all the crops grown in the Philippines, the much-maligned coconut has the most serious image problem. In stark contrast to bananas, a crowd favorite in Japan and South Korea, Philippine coconut continues to receive bad publicity. It has been like that since the 1980s, when the American Soybean Association said tropical oils, including coconut oil, are saturated fats that can cause heart attacks.
Among all the crops grown in the Philippines, the much-maligned coconut has the most serious image problem. In stark contrast to bananas, a crowd favorite in Japan and South Korea, Philippine coconut continues to receive bad publicity. It has been like that since the 1980s, when the American Soybean Association said tropical oils, including coconut oil, are saturated fats that can cause heart attacks.
Coconut oil, in particular, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and has been criticized heavily in recent years. In 2017, the American Heart Association issued a health advisory discouraging the consumption of coconut oil, saying it could raise ones bad cholesterol level and cause cardiovascular diseases. A year after, epidemiologist Karin Michels of the Harvard TH Chan school of public health called coconut oil pure poison that should be avoided. Michels said coconut oil has a high proportion of saturated fat, which could raise the so-called bad cholesterol.
Two years after earning the pure poison label, coconut oil is again being put under the microscope. This time the brickbats came from a report published by the University of Exeter based in the United Kingdom. According to the study, coconut oil production may be more damaging to the environment than palm oil (See, UCAP defends PHL coco oil production, in the BusinessMirror, August 11, 2020).
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