How about coconut oil?
Submitted by fyl on Wed, 2013/03/13 - 09:54.
A blog in Smithsonian Mag talks about what one Gringo is doing in Ecuador and why it makes health sense. As I read the article I saw so many parallels to Nicaragua -- from the smell of burned vegetable oil near typical fritangas to an ample supply of coconuts.
First, here is the why:
Nordeng first visited Vilcabamba about five years ago. In his early 30s at the time, he was a health aficionado interested in natural healing and cleansing methods. He met a woman here whom he would eventually marry, and he began returning regularly, from his home in Washington State. Nordeng wasn’t infatuated with local cuisine. He found it bland and too greasy, and he also felt sure that refined vegetable oil—a staple component in Ecuadorian pantries—was having negative effects on the nation’s health. Diabetes is a leading killer and crippler of Ecuadorians, and Nordeng blamed the prevalent fried foods. In the interest of maintaining his own health during his sojourns to Ecuador, Nordeng cooked frequently—and he rarely returned from the United States without a few jars of coconut oil, which has shown effective as an antifungal agent, strengthens the immune system and can help the body positively manage its insulin levels—a point relevant to a diabetes-stricken nation like Ecuador.
The rest of the article talks about his production facility, complete with photos. It's small-time and too expensive right now but it's a start. One problem he has is the cost of coconuts. I think we can do better here. And what he has done shows how you can start small with little investment. While you may not replace vegetable oil in the supermarkets, just adding this locally made product helps the local economy and the local health.
not just for cooking
I'm glad to hear there is plenty to be found, as I plan to make some soap for myself and this is needed in almost all soaps to produce lather. 1000 cords a gallon seems high? I hope that I can find a cheaper source.
Costs
While I don't think a big factory is the solution, I do think there is some room for improvement on the production end. One thing, mentioned in the article, is deciding what to do with what is now waste. I see two parts that can be turned into products:
I am sure there are other uses as well. Integrating the use of all parts of the coconut should lower the cost of the oil as well as producing more local work.
Yes - The ultimate cure all.
Coconut oil has been claimed as a cure all for quite a while & anybody with a retail front in SJDS is swamped with offers to sell on consignment. Everybody knows a family that grows & produces the best oil. Alzheimers is a potential problem (heredity) for me and a year or two ago a very popular video claimed this a complete cure so obviously I researched it. I wish the benefits were real but so far nothing repeatable has been documented. Lots of anecdotal stories but no follow up to verify anything. Prices were in the range of C$1000/gallon so I bought a small bottle to cook with - Seemed OK.
This is another case of onus probandi - The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim - Not for someone else to disprove.
Snake oil
Where there's a financial incentive, there should always be doubt. Or is it that only true believers are the healthy ones (the survivors)?
There were the Dark Ages, and later Enlightenment. Let the light of science shine in, here too.
"In God We Trust" is on money for a reason - everyone else needs to prove their claims.
fyl, its everywhere down here (south)
both farmers markets have at least one vendor and here in SJdS there were coco oil wars for a time.
I researched the health benefits etc and as usual it was quite contradictory.
Strange That I Happened
to see cocomut oil in Costco on my way back home and bought some a couple of hours before this thread appeared. It's from either the Phillipines or Sri Lanka, and cost a few cents less than $16 for 1.5 liter "can" (plus the PRK 10% sales tax).
I was looking for somehting to try baking with, bread primarily, but other stuff too. I've been trying to get the bread my mother used to bake in Iowa, with the thick chewy crust. She used Crisco.
I had some pretty decent success making bread this trip, using butter. I'm going to try a loaf with the coconut "oil" as soon as things quiet down. What I have is a little stiffer than Crisco, with a wonderful fragrance.
How exactly is the oil made? Is it simply pressed from the coconut fruit, or is there some additional refining process required?
Your question is a concern
Read the original article and see how "the Gringo" does it. It is cold pressed -- much like good olive oil. But, heat, chemicals, ... can be used to increase yields just like with other vegetable oils and bad olive oil.
...
The vast bulk of coconut oil from Asia is BDR -bleached, de-odourized and refined.
1000 Nicaraguan cordobas per gallon works out to $9.40 per litre. I think I'll be sticking to aceite de girasol, butter and olive oil for a while.
Speaking of fats:
My friend Melissa is now rendering lard from for pig fat that she buys from the local slaughterhouse in Jinotepe. I've tasted some of her baked goods made with lard and it is clearly a superior fat.
I remember that my mother's Calabrian friends on our street also used to make lard at home. They would only use pig fat that came from the kidneys, and they would never fry it out - they would put the fat in boiling water and melt it that way. Then they would sautee vegetables in it or smear it on home-baked bread like butter. For me it was a forbidden food because we were Jewish, and so when my school chums would have me come to their houses to eat lunch and snacks, it tasted so much better.
My mama and my aunties always used to keep flagons of chicken schmaltz by their stoves in their kitchens. Schmaltz is the fat that rises from the broth that you make when you make chicken soup from scratch. Mom would put the pot of hot broth in the frig for a couple of hours, and the schmatlz would eventually congeal on the top layer. Then she would skim it off the top and put it by the stove to cook with. It was a light, sweet oil that tasted of the spices and herbs and the root vegetables that she put in the broth, such as flat-leaf parsley, dried bay leaves, juniper berries, thyme, parsnips, carrots and rutabaga. It is a superb frying fat.
One dish that she and my aunties made from it they called fricassee (free-kuh-SAY, emphasis on the last syllable). This was chicken on the bone that had been cooked in schmatlz. In our neighbourhood fricassee was blue-colour food -- Mom's Calabrian friends used it the same way. I have since learned that high-end restaurants now use fat the same way and the dish is called confit, and you will pay a pretty penny for it.
Schmaltz is known to Nicaraguan ladies of a certain age who learned to cook traditional Nicaraguan dishes before the Revolution / Civil War erased much of the peoples' traditional knowledge. They call it mantequilla de pollo - "chicken butter." They make it out of chicken feet. Very few Nicaraguan ladies are around these days who know how to make it this way.
Now let's talk about beef fat.
Before the ascent of nutritionism and global franchises, the family diners in my neighbourhood in central Toronto would only use beef fat to make french fries. The fries would come out of the fryer deeply dark-brown, almost black. They tasted smokey and their exteriors were silken and not dry like franchise french fries, and the interiors were much more moist, almost liquid. The taste and feel of each fry in your mouth was an explosion of potatoness. If you have never eaten thick-cut, beef-fat-fried french fries, I hope that one day you and I can get together and make us some.
I would love to buy these fats made fresh down here but they are not on the market. Nicaraguans are poor and fat is expensive.
I imagine that I could learn how to make these fats at home, but doing so would be very time-consuming and the art of it involves a long learning curve of many trials and errors. I look forward to the time when I no longer need to spend my time making money, so that I may spend it making fat.
As for the health effects of all this -- I did not come to Nicaragua to live a long life, I came here to enjoy life.
Suet is the fat around the kidneys.
Used for making dumplings, suet pudding etc.
A vegetarian suet is available, made with oil (palm oil or maybe coconut oil) and rice flour.
It's not very practical on a
It's not very practical on a commercial scale but the best oil I have ever had is rendered bear fat. My friends father takes all the fat from the years hunt and renders it down to an oil. His mom uses it in anything you can think of, incredibly light fluffy cakes, awesome french fries etc. Oddly enough his grandmother was plagued with dry cracked soles on her feet and the bear oil worked wonders. If there are any other hunters out there this is a great use of what many people leave as waste.
Aaaah, lard … could it be:
Aaaah, lard … could it be: The New Health Food? … & …and if so, ever wonder Who Killed Lard? …&… well, what to do, why not start with The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother's Secret Ingredient...Lard! … & … better yet, take a chef’s word for it: Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient. Unfortunately, in C.A. the lard that is sold is often not lard at all or is destroyed via hydrogenation (so it needn't be refrigerated). Best to know a butcher and acquire it or, better yet, render your own (as your friend does).
The pendulum swings back
Current nutritional thinking says we made a wrong move going to low fat and high carb diets, not that high high fat is good for you. It has been nice to see bacon and lard making a comeback to the point where I've bought doughnuts with real bacon crumbled on top - don't knock it until you try it.
Coconut oil initially had a bad reputation until it was discovered that most of the testing used hydrogenated coconut oil. Now it is considered to be one of the healthier ones. Where it is reputed to help with alzheimer's is for people with diabetes. They have actually called this type of alzheimer's, "diabetes of the brain", the theory being that if your body has trouble using glucose, your brain, which runs on it, will also have problems. I don't completely understand the chemistry but it has something to do with coconut oil breaking down into keytones, an alternate brain fuel.
Business interests?
All too many trends seem to be a result of studies funded by industry. While the FDA may require studies in order to introduce those new products, the studies get funded by industry, not the FDA. Thus, many tests are not exactly impartial.
Thus, we tend to see more highly processed foods end up on the good list. Refined oils are one such example. Corn, soy and rape seed oil are cheap to produce for big ag and big industry so they became the good oils. Olive oil has been on the good oil list almost forever but much of what you find is not good because it is not the first pressing and/or is heat or chemically extracted. I think we see the same thing with coconut oil where a natural product is good but that which is more readily available -- particularly in the first world -- is an industrial product rather than a natural one.
Interesting
Maybe people need to just start shipping it north.
As for the health benefits, all the "old" stuff I have seen says it is bad because it is saturated. Newer research seems to indicate being saturated is not what makes grease bad. The big plus is that it does not break down at typical cooking temperatures whereas must vegetable oil does.
Clearly, less fat is better but less damaged fat is a step in the right direction. And the general trend of "refined is bad" in not just fat is another indicator.