Here's why coconut oil is 'pure poison,' according to Harvard professor

A Harvard professor called coconut oil “pure poison,” as shown in a viral YouTube video of the professor’s lecture.

The talk was entitled “Coconut oil and other nutritional errors,” by Karin Michels, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Michels claimed that coconut oil is not healthy for humans and went as far as calling it poison.

She said, "I can only warn you urgently about coconut oil. This is one of the worst foods you can eat."

Michels is also known as the director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology at the University of Freiburg in Germany.

Nutrition experts like her have stated that there is little evidence to prove the claims that coconut oil is healthy food.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the controversial food first gained attention in 2011 when it was advertised to successfully help people lose weight and to boost the immune system.

The impact of experts speaking against coconut oil had been shown through a report revealing that the sales of the ingredient had dropped in 2017.

Speaking with the New York Times, Alice Lichtenstein – a professor of nutrition and policy at Tufts University and vice chair of the federal government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee – said, “There’s virtually no data to support the hype.”

As for the medical director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, Donald Hensrud, he told USA Today in 2017 that "there’s a disconnect between people’s general beliefs and what the data actually show."

He went on to recommend a few alternatives like olive oil, avocado oil, and canola oil.

In other news, castor oil has been suggested as an effective way to remedy hair and skin issues.