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Originally Posted by KT12
It's a bit more complicated than that. The saturated fat in coconut oil is not the same saturated fat you find in animal fat. The saturated fat in coconut oil is made up of 3 medium chain fatty acids which are caprylic acid, capric acid, and lauric acid. These 3 fatty acids have an antimicrobial, antifungal, and antiviral effect in the body. The saturated fat found in animal fat and most vegetable oil consist of long chain fatty acids, which do not have these same effects.
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Those are the fatty acids that have been well studied. I tend to think there's a lot more in food that hasn't been studied, and I can say with reasonable confidence that people haven't been looking for a lot of benefits in animal fat.
There are animal fats that have antimicrobial properties though. Stearic acid, for example, which is found in beef. By the way, the words "capric" and "caprylic" are derived from the Latin
caper, meaning "goat." They are named after goats because that's what they smell like. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that goat fat has a reasonable amount. I'm emphasizing animal fats because I haven't had any success with coconut oil - all it does is irritate my throat. Also, because of the dairy complications, I don't recommend butter or even ghee, though that may work for some people.
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In regards to lard, i've read that the content of the saturated fat depends on the diet that the pigs are fed. I don't believe many pigs in the West are brought up on coconut, palm oil, or butter. 
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Yes, that's true. But in general, I think most foods are improved over their original state when they become incorporated into the flesh of an animal.
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Besides that, livestock are pumped so full of growth hormones and antibiotics before they arrive on your dinner plate. Organic free range meats would be the better option, but I know they are expensive as heck to buy! I don't even buy them myself.
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I'm sorry, I thought that went without saying. I buy them whenever I can, but as I mentioned, I think even the lowest quality animal products are better than plant-based frankenfoods available to us. I'd rather eat beef that was given hormones than eat the phytoestrogens in soybeans, for example.
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Also, what kind of yogurt did you used to eat?
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Stonyfield plain full-fat yogurt. Towards the end, I started making my own yogurt with raw grass-fed milk. More recently I tried making coconut milk kefir, but with kefir grains from dairy kefir. It made me "drunk" for two days.