This may surprise your readers but for all these years we have been told lies about coconut oil. The Americans were the first ones as they wanted to sell their RBD soya oil. The anti-coconut oil statements are so strong that people fear the term ' coconut oil' even until today. As one of our greatest leaders, Winston Churchill, has said, 'A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on'.

Let's talk about our palm oil. Please be aware of our typical RBD (it stands for refined, bleached, deodorized) palm oil. All the palm oil manufacturers use a very high temperature of about 400 degrees Celsius to make the oil. In this heat, all the good nutrients are stripped off, thus resulting in a clear oil. It means that the red colour of the palm oil has been destroyed. In reality, it is an empty, sterile, naked cooking oil.

All the manufacturers are totally aware of this. So is the Ministry of Health. The reason they are quiet is that Malaysia is now the world leader in the export of palm oil. This is a very big business for us. Because of this, no bad statements are said about our RBD palm oil. The manufacturers, realising this, add synthetic vitamin E and colour. They then use this in their advertisements.

The sad part is that our palm oil has lost all its tocotrienols (Vitamin E).This is a powerful natural anti-oxident. Due to this, our RBD palm oil is already rancid before one takes it home. The main cause is that the tocotrienols are missing or totally destroyed. It also loses its stability at very high cooking temperature plus all its carotenes (precursors to Vitamin A) that our bodies (if they are functioning properly) use it to convert to Vitamin A.

With all the above, we are faced with a big cooking problem. The only answer at this stage is to use other oils. Again, all other oils are manufactured the RBD way. These include soya, vegetable, natural and others.

The only oil for cooking is produced by the cold press technique. This is virgin coconut oil. In short, it is called VCO. It has all the goodness nutritionally. VCO is often called the 'healthiest dietary oil'. It is ideal for food as it is not hydrogenated contains no transfats and is very stable with a long shelf life. VCO can stand a cooking heats of up to 190 degrees Celsius. This is only cooking oil that can stand this sort of heat. All other oils fail.

VCO is made by the cold pressed manufacturing method. Coconut oil in general is thick and yellow in colour. This is also known as copra oil. This is manufactured the RBD way. Please note that VCO is water white in colour.

I am sure that there will be many questions that your readers would want answers to on my letter. They are welcome to e-mail me at: [email protected] .