WHAT IS VIRGIN COCONUT OIL?
Virgin coconut oil or VCO is derived through a "wet-milling" process. With this method, the oil is extracted from fresh coconut meat. "Coconut milk" is expressed first by pressing it out of the wet coconutmeat. The oil is then further separated from the water through the FERMENTATION Method.In the fermentation method the expressed coconut milk sits for a period of time, then the oil separates by allowing the heavier water to fall to the bottom of the container, while the lighter, crystal clear oil, remains on top. Coconut "curds" also form from coconut solids.
WHY IS VCO THE BEST?
There are other ways by which Coconut oil can be processed like:- Heat method,Refined/Hydrogenated Method and Expeller method but in all these other methods the natural components of Organic coconut oil is distorted and most of the nutrients are lost.
1) Processing coconut oil through Heat Method kills the Lauric acid in coconut oil which is the main healthy component in Coconut oil and also other vitamins and minerals are lost in the process.
2) Refined/Hydrogenated Method, The coconut oil are made from copra. Copra is basically the dried kernel (meat) of the coconut. It can be made by smoke drying, sun drying, or kiln drying, or derivatives or a combination of these three. If standard copra is used as a starting material, the unrefined coconut oil extracted from copra is not suitable for consumption and must be purified, that is refined. This is because the way most copra is dried is not sanitary.
The standard end product made from copra is RBD coconut oil. RBD stands for refined, bleached, and deodorized. Steam is used to deodorize the oil, and the oil is typically filtered through (bleaching) clays to remove impurities. Sodium hydroxide is generally used to remove free fatty acids and prolong shelf life. This is the most common way to mass-produce coconut oil.
3) Expeller Method is the method of extracting oil with a mechanical press rather than utilizing a chemical extraction process. An expeller press is a screw type machine, which presses oil seeds through a caged barrel-like cavity. This machine uses friction and continuous pressure from the screw drives to move and compress the seed material. The oil seeds through small openings that do not allow seed fiber solids to pass through. Afterward, the pressed seeds are formed into a hardened cake, which is removed from the machine. Pressure involved in expeller pressing creates heat in the range of 140-210º F (60-99º C).This heat generated by the machine results to the same process in heat method.
SO VIRGIN COCONUT OIL Processed through the WET MILLING Method is the safest and healthiest because all the natural components are still intact especially the Lauric acid and it's able to give our body it's full MCT's (medium chain triglycerides) which are supposed to assimilate well in the body’s systems. Lauric acid being the chief contributor, representing more than forty percent of the total, followed by capric acid, caprylic acid, myristic acid and palmitic.
COMING NEXT......THE Health Benefits of MCT's (medium chain triglycerides) and Why Virgin Coconut Oil.
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