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So why has coconut oil gotten such a bad rap in the recent past?  After all, much of the research supporting coconut oil as a healthy fat has been around for some time.  The answer is politics and economics.  Coconut oil was heavily used in the U.S. at one time, being used for baking, pastries, frying, and theater popcorn.  But starting in the 1980s, some very powerful groups in the U.S. including the American Soybean Association (ASA), the Corn Products Company (CPC International), and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) began to categorically condemn all saturated oils.  Faulty science was used to convince the public that ALL saturated fats were unhealthy, when in fact saturated fats rich in the medium-chain fatty acids like lauric acid are very healthy.

These organizations were are aided by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many of whose key personnel are recruited from and return to the vegetable oil industry.  The result was that most people switched to vegetable oils, and the main source of lauric acid from tropical oils in the American diet was lost.  The countries that these tropical oils came from, mainly the Philippines and Malaysia, were too poor to counter these untrue claims with advertising investments for the truth.  It is only recently that the health benefits of these tropical oils are starting to become rediscovered.

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