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Appleton Associates Limited

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Suppliers of coconut oil

Virgin Coconut Oil: An introduction
For about 3960 years of the of the past 4000 years of the documented historical use of the fruits of the coconut palm as a food and a pharmaceutical, the news has all been good. It was seen as a sustainable resource from which the harvested materials influenced every aspect of the lives of tropical communities, but most importantly its fruit, the coconut flesh, water, milk and oil.

The use of coconut oil around the world in tropical regions is prolific: South and Central America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Micro-, Mele- and Poly-nesia and most of Asia. The uses are so respected that they were documented by Ayurvedic medicine in Sanskrit from 1500BC in all areas relating to the mind, body and spirit. Early European explorers including Captain Cook wrote affectionately about the beauty of communities across the Pacific using coconut oil as an integral part of their daily lives. During WWII the water of the young green coconut was successfully used as a substitute for a saline drip saving the lives of many allied soldiers. After the war, in England coconut oil was sold as "margarine" and in the USA as "coconut butter".

However, this all changed in 1954. In the social environment of the USA in which coronary heart disease (CHD) was becoming the primary cause of mortality in the adult population, the young researcher David Kritchevsky published two academic papers. The initial research described the effects of feeding cholesterol to rabbits and indicated that this may lead to the formation of blocked arteries and thus contribute to potential heart disease. In his second paper he described the beneficial effects of consuming polyunsaturated fatty acids from the oil of corn, soybeans, safflower and sunflower seeds for the lowering, at least temporarily, of cholesterol in the blood.