Coconut Oil: Beyond Baking

Trader Joe's is now selling coconut oil and using it instead of butter in their cooking demo stations. Within the "crunchy" mommy circles, coconut oil has been such a hot topic. Using coconut oil for more than baking and for skin is something I keep hearing more and more about.

I started up on the coconut oil train after reading about it on Dr. Mercola's blog several years ago. I bought a tub from Whole Foods and used it primarily for baking or high temp cooking. I use coconut oil for making muffins or stir fry dishes. Ava's favorite right now is a vegan recipe with coconut oil, egg-free Maple Brown Sugar Oat Muffins. I make a batch and keep them in the freezer afternoon snacks at school.

Then I discovered homemade deodorant last year! The deodorant is a mix of coconut oil, arrowroot powder, and baking soda and it really eliminates stinky pits! Coconut oil is solid until about 76 degrees. It works well for deodorant because of the solid paste. And the antibacterial properties help eliminate any funky smells.

Coconut oil is also great for diaper rashes on baby's bottoms. If you're cloth diapering, you need to be careful about using traditional diaper rash creams because they cause the cloth to not absorb as much. I remember one of my daughter's care givers slathering diaper cream innocently and then it clung to our cloth diaper like crazy. You can use a diaper liner if you use a barrier cream, or simply use a small amount of coconut oil on the baby's bottom to heal her skin.

This week, Ava had I have had nasty colds and instead of using petroleum-based Vaseline on our noses and face, I used coconut oil. It's so soothing! I have noticed it's much more healing than any other lotion that I've used on a sensitive skin during a cold. And believe me, we have used loads of tissues on our noses this week.

I keep a very small container in the bathroom of coconut oil so it's convenient for skin applications and it won't be contaminated in our larger jar.

I really like the Nutiva brand (available at Whole Foods and Amazon). I also recently bought a giant 54oz tub from Costco that was about $15. A great value!

Have you tried coconut oil either in cooking or on your skin? What do you think?