Comparing Palm and Coconut Oil

Many oils are often extract­ed, if not from one “source”, then at least from sim­i­lar ones. This is exact­ly the case with coconut and palm. They often side by side on store shelves and raise a rea­son­able ques­tion among con­sumers: what is the dif­fer­ence between them? This ques­tion was answered by our experts.

Similar Features

First of all, it should be under­stood that coconut and palm oils are prod­ucts of dif­fer­ent ori­gin. They dif­fer not only in their char­ac­ter­is­tics and com­po­si­tion, but also in the raw mate­ri­als used for their man­u­fac­ture.

What is palm oil? It is a prod­uct obtained from the fleshy part of the fruit of the oil palm. The pulp is processed by a press and the out­put is a use­ful pomace. Such pro­duc­tion does not require large finan­cial costs, is char­ac­ter­ized by low labor costs and has acquired sim­ply incred­i­ble pro­por­tions. By the way, this method of obtain­ing palm oil is much more prof­itable than the pro­duc­tion of a prod­uct from the seeds of palm fruits, although, of course, palm ker­nel pomace also has a place to be.

Coconut oil is obtained from the fruits of the coconut tree. Only nut pulp is used and it is extract­ed by press­ing: cold press­ing is con­sid­ered the most expen­sive and retains the max­i­mum amount of valu­able sub­stances. This method of pro­duc­tion is not mass-pro­duced and is always expen­sive.

If we talk about sim­i­lar fea­tures, then both species are unit­ed only by the fact that they grow in coun­tries of trop­i­cal ori­gin and are pro­duced from plants of the Palm fam­i­ly. And, more impor­tant­ly: both coconut and palm oils are slight­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to oxida­tive process­es, which means that the prod­uct does not become ran­cid very soon.

Main differences

Let us con­sid­er in detail the main char­ac­ter­is­tics of coconut and palm oils, which are actu­al­ly not sim­i­lar to each oth­er.

Benefit and harm

Although sat­u­rat­ed fats are con­sid­ered healthy on their own, when con­sumed in large quan­ti­ties, the risk of reduc­ing the qual­i­ty of the heart mus­cle and wors­en­ing the con­di­tion of blood ves­sels increas­es. This is due to the abil­i­ty of the com­po­nent to increase the lev­el of “bad” cho­les­terol.

The most dan­ger­ous oils for the body are those that have been par­tial­ly hydro­genat­ed. The whole prob­lem is the pres­ence of trans fats (added by almost every man­u­fac­tur­er), which can pro­voke dia­betes and obe­si­ty. Such prod­ucts, unfor­tu­nate­ly, are too often found on store shelves, so you need to care­ful­ly read the com­po­si­tion on the pack­ag­ing and choose the prod­uct that was made in a gen­tle way.

On the oth­er hand, with mod­er­ate use of coconut and palm oils, sat­u­rat­ed fats in their com­po­si­tion will only ben­e­fit the body: they improve the absorp­tion of vit­a­mins, increase the pro­duc­tion of hor­mones, and are an impor­tant par­tic­i­pant in most meta­bol­ic process­es.

ON A NOTE. Coconut oil con­tains a con­sid­er­able amount of lau­ric acid, which stim­u­lates the absorp­tion of the prod­uct in the intestines. Every­thing is more com­pli­cat­ed with palm oil: it can­not be com­plete­ly absorbed, which leads (when used in large quan­ti­ties) to slag­ging of the body.