Use your coconut

Years ago, people here used to exclaim 'use your coconut' as an exhortation to be intelligent. Now, Filipinos who are literally using their coconuts might just turn their country into a major oil power.

I'm not talking about fuel or industrial lubricants. It seems that coconut oil, once maligned and derided, is a tonic for which there's a growing global demand. It would mean that all these years Filipinos had the secret to health and wealth growing right in their backyards, without knowing it.

Coconuts are ubiquitous here: we are the world's second-largest producer. Vendors sell them from pushcarts. We drink coconut juice, eat coco jam, use the oil for cooking and the milk - gata - as a creamy sauce for stews and desserts. When I walk out of the house, every now and then I cast a suspicious eye up a nearby palm tree, to check I'm not in danger of being beaned by a large, heavy nut.

The oil is most potent when it's virgin - that is, extracted through pressing without the use of heat. Virgin coconut oil (VCO) can be used to treat stomach ailments and skin afflictions; as a shampoo and ointment. Anybody making these claims a few decades ago would have been deemed out of his coconut. But then, centuries ago in Europe, the tomato was thought poisonous. And it took a determined man named Antoine Augustine Parmentier to convince the French to eat potatoes.

The chief advocate here is Conrado Dayrit, former president of the National Academy of Science and Technology. Actually, Southeast Asian nutritionists have known for decades that coconut oil was good for you. VCO is rich in lauric acid, which has antibiotic and antioxidant properties. It also has vitamins A, C and E, making it ideal as a dietary supplement.

My ophthalmologist, who studied in Heidelberg, takes a tablespoon of it before every meal. One gastroenterologist recommends VCO for patients suffering ulcers.