Coconut oil and Nandy
I was quite surprised when I received a letter from Nandy Pacheco, founder of Gunless Society and Ang Kapatiran political party, and former communications director of the Asian Development Bank. He was writing not about our faulty political system, nor about the need for people’s spiritual revival, but about a magic cure — Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO). His letter is as follows:
“I’m now 87 years old, I’ve gone through major medical procedures: an angioplasty, a pacemaker installed for my heart, a tumor removed from my lung, prostate cancer surgery, gall bladder surgery, knee replacement, I slipped a couple of times and hit my head hard on the hard floor, I felt I would slow down, and I started to lose my appetite and strength. In the last two years my wife encouraged me to take Cocolicious virgin coconut oil which I now take 2 to 3 tablespoons a day. My energy level is higher, I go out a lot, my appetite has been good, my memory feels sharper. I hardly catch a cold or get a sore throat. I think the virgin coconut oil has been the major difference why I feel better.”
I’ve long been told that VCO does wonders for people, and because of Nandy’s “confession,” my husband and I are trying, taking a spoonful of the product after breakfast. We will see how the wonders will work on “oldies” like us.
Nandy has been taking the Cocolicious VCO, a product of his son, Reynaldo Jr. Pacheco. In 2003 Jun and his wife Patricia organized Organix Solutions Inc. (OSI) a coconut processing facility in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao to produce food and a cosmetic grade VCO employing cold and wet coconut processing using centrifuge technology. OSI produces VCO under the COCOLICIOUS brand as food supplement.
OSI’s workers are mostly indigenous workers from the Tiruray community. They work closely with coconut farmers in Maguindanao.
Jun has a bachelor of science in applied physics from the University of the Philippines, and an M.Sc., applied physics, from the University of Massahusetts, Boston. He cites the benefits of coconut oil.
1) Coconut oil is a superfood that contains in abundance a nutrient called lauric acid – a medium chain fatty acid, which is known to fight pathogenic viruses and bacteria.
2) Coconut oil is a food, and not a medicine nor a drug. It’s also called a super food because of the versatility of its uses and the health benefits it offers. It can be used for frying, in salad dressings, or as ingredient, and for consuming 2 to 5 tablespoons per day, a supplement.
3) It improves one’s memory. June notes that when coconut oil is ingested, the liver processes the lauric fatty acid and produces a substance called ketones – the preferred fuel of brain cells. Those suffering from Alzheimers disease have impaired brain cells which need to be supplemented by ketones to regenerate and function.
Jun says, “Coconut oil because it contains medium chain fatty acids or MCTS, can be burned or metabolized by the body quickly unlike other oils or fats. People with chronic metabolic conditions such as high triglycerides, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease can benefit from coconut oil. What should be avoided or minimized are carbs such as bread, rice, desserts. Exercise is very important together with a healthy diet. Carbs when not burned are stored in tissues as fats or triglycerides.”
Jun says, “The evidence of the efficacy of coconut oil is the coconut-eating populations in Thailand, the Philippines, Africa, India, Indonesia, South America, and the Pacific Islands that have flourished for centuries and have never been decimated or impaired by epidemics but has strengthened them. Eating coconuts have never been the cause or aided epidemics.’
Jun, however, cautions people to consult their physician for a qualified opinion on their specific medical condition.
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More from Jun Pacheco:
“Handwashing with soap and bathing are now must-do-protocols to reduce or eliminate any viral contamination we can acquire when we go out of our homes and get exposed to the quarantined community. Even before this age of quarantine, handwashing with soap and a daily shower and bath, are practices of good hygiene.
“Did you know that drinking coconut oil has the same cleaning or prophylactic effects against germs inside your body? To be specific, most of these germs – pathogenic viruses and bacteria – are coated with fat (called lipids in chemistry). To understand how coconut oil helps kill the deadly viruses, it would be helpful to understand how soap kills or removes germs from our skin or from our clothes.
“The chemistry of the fat cells which make up the soaps and detergent can be visualized as having a head and a tail. The head which is polar, a term which means it gets attracted to water, and the tail which is non-polar which means it gets attracted to another fat. When one washes with soap or detergent, the dirt and all the germs in the skin or clothing gets lifted off. The soap molecules disrupt the lipid coat on viruses and bacteria, thus destroying them. Each virus particle consists of genetic material called RNA or DNA and a protein, enclosed by a coating of fats (lipids), and because fat coatings are easily torn apart by soap, at least 20 seconds of thorough handwashing can remove bacteria and viruses.
“The science behind coconut oil’s effectiveness against fat coated viruses, lauric acid comprises about 45-50% of coconut oil. When one consumes coconut oil orally, key fatty acids of coconut oil, in particular lauric acid, and a related compound, monolaurin, are released.
“While ‘floating’ in the bloodstream, this is where the lauric fatty acids encounter cells infected with fat-coated viruses and other fat-coated pathogens (bacteria, yeasts). Similar to the action of soap, the lauric fatty acids non-polar tail gets attracted to the fat-coating of the virus, strips it off from the RNA and protein assembly, and exposes the RNA and protein prone for attack by the body’s immune cells.
“ Lauric acid is therefore an effective soldier in the fight against infection.”
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