Using coconut oil and coconut milk

A lot of people have questions about how to incorporate coconut oil into the diet. Steve still takes the mixture of MCT oil and coconut oil, roughly half and half. Since coconut oil is usually semi-solid, at this time of the year especially, I put the container of oil into a large pot filled with warm water and let it melt down, which takes about 20 minutes or so. Then I make a mixture in the quart jars that the MCT oil comes in. I measure out 16 ounces of MCT oil (half of the quart jar)and put it into an empty quart jar using a funnel. Then add 16 ounces of coconut oil to each of the quart containers. I also add a couple teaspoons of liquid soy lethicin to emulsify the mixture (purely optional). I give the bottle a couple of shakes before using it just in case the oils have separated.

Steve has no problem just taking the mixture straight, and sometimes takes it that way, but many people cannot handle that. For breakfast, I mix it into kefir (liquid yogurt that our local mainstream grocery store carries) along with some of his other supplements in powdered form, such as whey protein, L-lysine (which may suppress herpes simplex virus), and D-ribose, which I mention in another post. My daughter convinced me to get a Magic Bullet recently, instead of trying to mix this concoction with a spoon, and I have found it to be a very worthwhile investment for this purpose. [The connection between herpes simplex and Alzheimer's is the subject of another post a while back for those who are interested.]

Mixing the oils with soup is another great way to take it. The oil pretty much disappears with stirring.

Smoothies using coconut milk and/or blending in the MCT oil/coconut oil mixture can be very delicious. I just finished reading a book by Cherie Calbom, The Ultimate Smoothie Book, which has a section on coconut smoothies. She suggests adding coconut oil to the ingredients and blending before adding the ice, to avoid having coconut oil chunks in the smoothie. The recipes look wonderful. The great thing about smoothies is that you can alter them in any number of ways to suit your own tastebuds.

Cherie Calbom also has another book that would be very helpful with many great recipes called The Coconut Diet. For those who are worried about gaining weight by adding coconut oil to the diet, she offers a solution here. Even if you are not trying to lose weight, the recipes will be very appealing.