"The Imperfectly Natural Woman"

I find it ironic that I grew up surrounded by copious quantities of coconut oil and mostly ignoring it, yet now I'm after a bottle there's none to be found anywhere.

It's all China's fault. Couple of years back, HK discovered that China was adding a bleaching solution to coconut oil that was turning it into a major carcinogen. And yes, Hong Kong, city of panic artistes, went into major Threatdown mode and, in consequence, two years later, I'm wandering the streets searching for a commodity that simply isn't to be found.

And to all those nice Fiji folk who will undoubtedly offer to bring me some when they turn up, en masse, for the HK7s next month, it's not really a problem - I think - because I told Jason's friend Saki about my woes and he says he'll look into it for me. Since he's a major importer of HK's Greek foodstuffs and commodities, I'm sure he'll know someone somewhere who'll be able to solve this problem.

The reason I'm urgently after a bottle is four-fold:

1) The book "The Coconut Diet" by Cherie Calbom - which is really quite frightening - recommends a teaspoon of coconut oil a day to restore and regulate a gluten-damaged thyroid:

2) Dr Mercola's books on healthy eating which recommend coconut oil.

3) Kiwi Fiona, my age exactly, has only just started to use coconut oil on her hair and skin and is already looking five years younger than me.

4) The book "Imperfectly Natural Woman" by Janey Lee Grace recommends you use coconut oil for just about all your beauty needs; skin, hair, etc, etc.

This latter book, which I can't recommend highly enough, is a very important read. It lists all the ways regular beauty products damage your health with all the toxic and carcinogenic chemicals found in them, and then suggests natural substitutes for everything:

Oh, Keith - being annoying and reading over my shoulder - has just told me something very interesting. He says that the orginal study on the health benefits of coconut oil was done back in the 60s in the Tokelau Islands (now underwater thanks to global warming) and that one of the families studied and found to be "to-the-core healthy" was ... dah dah! ... Opi's.

You know Opi! He's already featured several times in this blog, mainly for the music of his band Te Vaka and my favourite song "Manatu". Guess that's also a totally good claim-to-fame: that your entire family was once discovered to be "to-the-core healthy". But wait a moment ... mmmm ... maybe not so good! It's a lot to live up to. And wouldn't you feel awfully guilty if your own kids or grandkids were discovered to be anything less.

And on that subject, do you remember the post I wrote teasing my brother Gerald? That post about the Gurkhas? Let me see if I can find it. Here it is.

But anyway, that's my big thing at the moment: coconut oil. Just a pity that, here I am, all gung-hoed about it only to discover there simply isn't any to be had in this city that isn't adulterated by China.