Hi RubyMack,
If you want the skinny on fats (sorry, I couldn't resist), check out the web site of the
Weston A. Price Foundation. In the left-hand navigation area, click on the "Know Your Fats" link. If you want more in-depth reading, check out the books by two of the site's primary owners:
Nourishing Traditions and
Know Your Fats . It completely blew my mind when I read them the first time.
Regarding coconut oil, be sure to get the premium stuff that never reaches retail stores. I get the
unrefined, centrifuged variety from Wilderness Family Naturals. It's a lot better tasting, milder, and effective than even the stuff I got at health stores. By effective, I mean stopping my body from reacting to my own sweat with rashes, stopping my eczema, treating warts (really!), softening the elephant skin on my elbows, enabling all my skin to retain water better, and so on.
Make sure to get your CO in glass containers, not unlined plastic jars. Oils and plastic are electrically non-polar, meaning they will leach into each other, unless the container is lined. I checked with Wilderness Family Naturals, and they receive their shipments in plastic barrels with a food-grade lining, so there's no leaching. I don't know why anybody sells oils in unlined plastic containers, but that's a topic for another discussion.