Coconut Oil & 50 Calorie Cookies

​Coconut oil is not BAD for you. Please don’t listen to the American Heart Association and eat genetically modified corn and soy oil instead.

So why do they say its unhealthy and why should you believe me rather than the AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION that makes their money off of people having heart disease?

Coconut oil is NATURALLY high in saturated fat. Saturated fat gets a bad rap for causing heart disease because it is believed to raise our cholesterol levels. Then with raised cholesterol the excess cholesterol will be deposited in arteries, leading to cardiovascular and coronary heart disease, right? Not necessarily. There are two types of cholesterol. HDLs are considered “Heart-healthy” because they remove excess cholesterol from cells and transport them back to the liver. LDLs do the opposite and carry cholesterol to all cells in the body. WE NEED THEM BOTH!!!! But the key is to make sure that we have a good balance.

The American diet was high in saturated fats before coconut oil was introduced.

Foods high in saturated fats: Butter Coconut (Oil. milk, shredded coconut) Cream (half & half, heavy, whipping, sour) Dark chocolate Fatty beef/lamb/pork Palm oil Whole fat milk Cheese Yogurt

The problem with saturated fat is when it comes in a nice little Twinkie package with other things like processed sugars (sorry Twinkie, you were the first thing to come to my mind). Also when you’re not consuming enough polyunsaturated (omega 3 and omega 6) and monounsaturated fats to balance out the saturated fats.

Our bodies need ALL TYPES of fats to provide us with energy, transport vitamins, make and balance hormones, form our cell membranes, brain, and nervous system. One single ingredient is not the root of the obesity epidemic we’re facing in America.

Take a step back and look at the big picture of your diet. If you eat a diet largely composed of foods that I listed above, try to replace some of those saturated fatty foods with foods high in monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats.

Foods high in Monounsaturated fats: Almonds Avocado Canola Oil Cashews Egg Yolk Hazelnuts Macadamia nuts Olives Olive Oil Peanuts Pecans Pistachios Safflower oil Sunflower oil Chicken & duck fat

Foods high in Polyunsaturated fats: Chia seeds & oil Cod liver oil Corn oil Fish & fish oil Grapeseed oil Hemp seeds & oil Mayonnaise Pine Nuts Sesame seeds & oil Sunflower seeds Walnuts

Eat real foods. Eat a variety of foods. Minimize the processed foods that have ingredients on the label that you don’t know how to pronounce.

Side note: I also love to use coconut oil on my skin and also to oil pull (take a spoonful in your mouth and swish around for as long as you can tolerate, building up tolerance over time). It’s an ancient Ayurvedic dental technique that helps to draw out toxins. I feel like it has made my teeth whiter and always feel more energized when I am consistent with it. Google oil pulling if you don’t believe me. You can use coconut oil in so many beneficial ways. Don’t fall for the #fakenews.

NOW FOR THE COOKIES

Ingredients: 1/2 cup oat flour (blend oats then measure) 3/4 cup protein powder of choice (I used a vanilla flavored one) 2 and 1/2 cup oats 2 large eggs 4 TBSP melted coconut oil 1/4 cup milk of choice (I used Fair Life Skim Milk) 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar 3/4 Cup Stevia 1 TSP Baking soda 1 TSP ground cinnamon 2 TSP Vanilla 2 servings Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate chips (32 chips) broken into smaller pieces 2 TBSP Walden Farms calorie free pancake syrup*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and mix well until you get a thick, doughy texture. Scoop onto tray and bake for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy 🙂

Macros per cookie (makes 56)** 50 calories. 6g carbs. 2g protein. 2g fat

*If you don’t have certain ingredients feel free to make your own substitutions. You can try regular maple syrup, honey, or agave. This was just the lowest calorie option I added in for a bit more flavor and to get a better consistency.

**Macros will obviously differ a bit with substitutions, but it will be negligble per cookie with a batch of 56 cookies. Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your cookies

That is all. Have a good weekend. Let me know if you make the cookies 🙂

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