When the Natural Gourmet Institute invited me to take one of their public cooking classes, I couldn't WAIT to get my hands on the coconuts we would be using in the "Cracking the Coconut" class. Although I learned a ton from instructor Myra Kornfeld (including a ton of great coconut-based recipes), the most valuable thing I took away from that day was how to use coconut oil. It turns out coconut oil (both the virgin version and the refined version) are absolutely GREAT for cooking–especially if you want to cook healthy and lose weight.
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To be honest, coconut oil almost sounds like magic. A jar of coconut oil can last up to 2 years after opening and it's a very stable oil, which means it can go from the semi-solid creamy form in the jar to melting easily into a typical oil to actually hardening if you put it in the fridge.
According to Chef Myra, coconut oil is anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial and has long been considered to have healing properties. It consists of 90 percent saturated fats, which some consider to be the biggest nutritional evil, but we have been consuming coconut oil longer than almost any other cooking ingredient. Plus it's got essential fatty acids, so it's great for digestion and regulating your metabolism for weight loss.
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Now, as for cooking, here's where the oil differs: virgin coconut oil is the one that's going to have the most coconut-y flavor, so this one's better for soups, stews and baking since you'll actually want a little bit of that flavor. However, the trick is to use filtered or refined coconut oil for cooking and frying because it has a smoke point of 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which means you can go pretty high on your stovetop.
I've since become obsessed with both types of coconut oil, replacing most of the other oils I have used for this much healthier oil instead. My favorite ways to use it are virgin coconut oil to make stovetop popcorn (perfect with just a hint of that coconut-y flavor!) and my abuelita's platanitos maduros fritos by pan frying them in the refined coconut oil (I swear even she wouldn't disapprove!). It's been a really fun and, most of all, delicious and diet-friendly conversion.
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