Coconut Milk and Saturated Fat

Jonny303

In the kitchen last night cooking my lunch for a day or 2 and used coconut milk for the first time. Baiscally cooked a creamy chicken spicy "thing", which is going down a storm.

Doing the sums afterwards, was getting ROUGHLY per 450 kcal serving, 50g protein, 30g carbs (beans and couscous mainly) and 13g fats.

very happy with myself until i read the coconut milk tin to discovery most of its fats are saturated. for me that strugles to keep my fat levels down i was delighted with this combo as a bulking meal until the sat fat thing.

so to bring up the question again....how bad is the saturated fat, or have we in general moved onto hating trans fats ect?

Colm_OReilly

The fats in coconut oil are medium chain triglericerides (sp?), which have the wonderful properties of being used as energy or excreted. I certainly wouldn't worry about cooking with the stuff.

Patto

I was on holidays in Malaysia a few years ago. I remember a tour guide saying that Malaysia has a huge rate of heart disease because of the amount of coconut oil they use in their curries.

I reckon butter and coconut oil are not quite as bad as we've been lead to believe and I know they do remain more stable when used is cooking compared with unsaturated fats but I've never fully figured this one out. I think its a case of a little is not bad and maybe even good for you but you can probably easily overdo it, espiceally since coconut tastes so good in curries.

Colm_OReilly

Well if a tour guide said it, it must be true

Joking aside, are there other factors in the Malaysian diet/lifestyle that have changed? Influx of sugars from Western culture, reduced amount of farm labour?

I don't know, but the lipid hypotheses has been fairly debunked at this stage

Jonny303

Said id keep this to a thread i started to avoid the polloution:rolleyes:

Rite, my bulking diet is going ok, constantly thinking, whats next, how can i get more into me.

It has occoured to me tho, that maybe im concentrating too much on protein for my bulk, and ignoring carbs a bit too much. I way in about 195lbs. Just going off yesterday i pulled in about 3000kcals. Now i no this aint enough, but ive made improvements today already.

But yesterday worked out at a split of about 33% across the board. about 110g fats, 240g carbs and 230g protein. Im cutting back to semi skimmed milk to try pull my fat down a bit, but should i be targeting more protein or does that level seem ok, or really up the carbs.

Colm_OReilly

You're trying to gain weight and you're reducing your fat intake? Sounds odd to me. If you're looking to get extra calories in fats are calorie dense.

Jonny303

understood, but does eating around 30-35% fats not fall into over doing it?

what kind of split would you recomend while bulking?

Colm_OReilly

Some top level athletes (CrossFitters) I know are nearly at 60% fats for their diets. There ratio is 4:2:20 PCF on some meals (Going off zone blocks)

Might be a good idea to have a look at RobbWolf.com and find a few of his posts on Zone and Fats, particularly athlete zone.

Granted all this advice is based off knowing nothing about you.

cozmik

Jonny303 wrote: »

.how bad is the saturated fat, or have we in general moved onto hating trans fats ect?

No we haven't moved on! Trans fats are bad news but so is eating too much saturated fat. Increase the good fats in your diet like nuts seeds avocados olive or nut oils oily fish and eggs.

Jonny303

colm,

so am i correct in saying then that the people who you are talking about, are basically fueling off good fats rather than carbs?

all_smilz

supervalu's and some healthfood stores do a reduced fat coconut milk!:)

Colm_OReilly

Jonny303 wrote: »

colm,

so am i correct in saying then that the people who you are talking about, are basically fueling off good fats rather than carbs?

Yeah,
I know the likes of Pat Barber are on serious amounts of fat blocks.
http://games2009.crossfit.com/competitors/athlete-profile-pat-barber-4-in-2008.html

Transform

just look into mary enig and sally fallon for more info on the truth about saturated fat and its benefits.

They have been banging on about it for years yet the low fat brigade keeps pushing their nonsence!!

Without adequate fats (obviously no trans, hydrogenated fats) you will be injured more often, you will be more overweight, higher cholesterol, greater risk of HD, less muscular and on and on.....

What i see with about 90% of the clients that come to me is a diet totally lacking in any quality fats (saturated and omega 3's). Get reading or keep going round in circles

figroll

Hi Folks,

This might be going slightly off the point here but i googled 'lipid hypotisis' as i just wanted to know if it was ok (for someone attempting to eat half-decently but likes to eat out every now and again) for me to have a chicken curry made with Coconut Milk on Saturday lunchtime with stir fried veg!?... :-)

...and this is what i found


Its fairly long to read (but worth it! - i was horrified!) but i just want to know if you wise people think that we should throw out all of our 'low low' make-believe butter spreads, drink full fat milk and eat a fair percentage of saturated fats: because not least that they don't cause cancer (won't go into why it here) and they actually help you use the fats within your diet more effectively for fuel?

So is coconut milk ok to eat in a curry etc if your trying to 'watch it'? ;-)

Thanks,
Figroll

Fozzy

all_smilz wrote: »

supervalu's and some healthfood stores do a reduced fat coconut milk!:)

Read the label, all it is is watered down coconut milk. You can do that yourself with a normal tin and get twice as much