Sri Lanka, April 18 -- Sri Lanka's coconut production during the year 2010 has fallen down by 536 million nuts year on year to stand at 2317 million nuts, marking the lowest annual production recorded in nearly 15 years. On an average, the sector should produce 2700 million nuts per year. Sri Lanka's highest nut production had been 3000 million nuts in year 2004.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil is extracted from the kernel or meat of matured coconut harvested from the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). Throughout the tropical world it has provided the primary source of fat in the diets of millions of people for generations. It has various applications in food, medicine, and industry. Coconut oil is very heat stable so it makes an excellent cooking and frying oil. It has a smoke point of about 360 degF (180 degC). Because of its stability it is slow to oxidize and thus resistant to rancidity, lasting up to two years due to high saturated fat content. The United States Department of Agriculture has published historical production figures for coconut oil for years beginning October 1 and ending September 30. Coconut oil makes up around 2.5% of world vegetable oil production. Coconut oil production over the last few years is given in Box 1.
Unique role
Coconuts play a unique role in the diets of mankind because they are the source of important physiologically functional components. These physiologically functional components are found in the fat part of whole coconut, in the fat part of desiccated coconut, and in the extracted coconut oil. Lauric acid, the major fatty acid from the fat of the coconut, has long been recognized for the unique properties that it lends to nonfood uses in the soaps and cosmetics industry.
More recently, lauric acid has been recognized for its unique properties in food use, which are related to its antiviral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal functions. Now, capric acid, another of coconut's fatty acids has been added to the list of coconut's antimicrobial components. These fatty acids are found in the largest amounts only in traditional lauric fats, especially from coconut. Also, recently published research has shown that natural coconut fat in the diet leads to a normalization of body lipids, protects against alcohol damage to the liver, and improves the immune system's anti-inflammatory response.
Clearly, there has been increasing recognition of health- supporting functions of the fatty acids found in coconut. Reports from the U.
S. Food and Drug Administration about required labeling of the trans fatty acids will put coconut oil in a more competitive position and may help return to its use by the baking and snack food industry where it has continued to be recognized for its functionality. Now it can be recognized for another kind of functionality: the improvement of the health of mankind
Heart disease and coconut oil
The research over four decades concerning coconut oil in the diet and heart disease is quite clear: coconut oil has been shown to be beneficial. This research leads us to ask the question, Should coconut oil be used to both prevent and treat coronary heart disease?
This statement is based on several reviews of the scientific literature concerning the feeding of coconut oil to humans. Blackburn has reviewed the published literature of coconut oil's effect on serum cholesterol and atherogenesis and have concluded that when coconut oil is fed physiologically with other fats or adequately supplemented with linoleic acid, coconut oil is a neutral fat in terms of atherogenicity.
After reviewing this same literature, Kurup and Rajmohan conducted a study on 64 volunteers and found no statistically significant alteration in the serum total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol/total cholesterol ratio and LDL cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio of triglycerides from the baseline values.
A beneficial effect of adding the coconut kernel to the diet was noted by these researchers. Kaunitz and Dayrit have reviewed some of the epidemiological and experimental data regarding coconut-eating groups and noted that the available population studies show that dietary coconut oil does not lead to high serum cholesterol nor to high coronary heart disease mortality or morbidity.
They noted that in 1989 Mendis reported undesirable lipid changes when young adult Sri Lankan males were changed from their normal diets by the substitution of corn oil for their customary coconut oil. Although the total serum cholesterol decreased 18.7% from 179.6 to 146.0 mg/dl and the LDL cholesterol decreased 23.8% from 131.6 to 100.3 mg/dl, the HDL cholesterol are increasingly being shown to be beneficial. Increasingly, lauric acid, and even capric acid, have been the subject of favorable scientific reports on health parameters.
In spite of what has been said over the past four or more decades about the culpability of the saturated fatty acids in heart disease, they are ultimately going to be held blameless. More and more research is showing the problem to be related to oxidized products. One protection man has against oxidized products is the naturally saturated fats such as coconut oil.
Conclusions
As we set our sights on what could happen to the coconut industry in the near future, there is much to be gained from pursuing the functional properties of coconut for improving the health of humanity.
On the occasion of the 30 anniversary of the Asian Pacific Coconut Community, it was concluded that efforts should be made to encourage the coconut community to continue its endeavours on behalf of all parts of the coconut industry. Coconut products for inedible and especially edible uses are of the greatest importance for the health of the entire world.
Coconut oil has an important role to play because it is a lauric oil. The lauric fats possess unique characteristics for both food industry uses and also for the uses of the soaps and cosmetic industries.
Because of the unique properties of coconut oil, the fats and oils industry has spent untold millions to formulate replacements from those seed oils so widely grown in the world outside the tropics. While it has been impossible to truly duplicate coconut oil for some of its applications, many food manufacturers have been willing to settle for lesser quality in their products. Consumers have also been willing to settle for a lesser quality, in part because they have been fed so much misinformation about fats and oils.
Desiccated coconut, on the other hand, has been impossible to duplicate, and the markets for desiccated coconut have continued. The powdered form of desiccated coconut now being sold in Europe and Asia has yet to find a market in the U.
S., but it is predicted that it will become an indispensable product in the natural foods industry. Creamed coconut, which is desiccated coconut very finely ground, could be used as a nut butter.
The industry needs to promote the edible uses of coconut, and it needs to promote the reeducation of the consumer, the clinician, and the scientist. Monocaprin is a natural compound found in certain foodstuffs such as milk and is therefore unlikely to cause harmful side effects in the concentrations used.
It is not monocaprin that is found in milk, but capric acid. It is likely safe at most any level found in food. However, the levels in milk fat are at most 2 percent whereas the levels in coconut fat are 7 percent.
Scientists have reviewed the increasing trend of atherosclerotic disease and type-2 diabetes mellitus in the Indians from both the subcontinent of India and abroad. They note that over the time when there has been an alarming increase in the prevalence of these diseases, there has been a replacement of traditional cooking fats with refined vegetable oils that are promoted as heart-friendly, but which are being found to be detrimental to health.
These astute researchers suggested that it is time to return to the traditional cooking fats like ghee, coconut oil, and mustard oil. There are a number of areas of encouragement. The nutrition community in the United States is slowly starting to recognize the difference between medium chain saturated fatty acids and other saturated fatty acids. It is predicted that in the near future, the qualities of coconut, both for health and food function, will ultimately win out.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Daily Mirror Sri Lanka.
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