The Best Price for Coconut Oil

Recently, I read through and joined in on a discussion about healthy oils on Kim Coghlan's blog, Life in a Shoe. Many people buy their coconut oil from Mountain Rose Herbs, where it costs $165 for a 5-gallon bucket of organic, unrefined coconut oil. Shipping up here to Alaska is about $80. That puts the cost right around $50 a gallon.

From what I've heard about coconuts, they're not a high-pesticide crop, so the organic aspect isn't all-important. (I tend to concentrate on buying organically the Dirty Dozen foods and highly genetically modified foods, such as corn and wheat.)

Glory Bee Foods has a 5-gallon container of extra virgin, inorganic coconut oil for $153. If I remember correctly, shipping to Alaska was no more than $40, putting the price per gallon at just $38.50 - a saving of almost $12 per gallon (nearly $60 total!) from the Mountain Rose Herbs price!

I split the 5-gallon container of coconut oil with Tait's mom, and we use it for all cooking and frying in our household (except for rare times when butter is preferred) because it is a healthy oil that keeps its stability under high heats. Olive oil gets used for raw foods like salad dressings and such.

The Weston A Price Foundation, Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions, and Lindsay Edmonds' website Passionate Homemaking are all great resources for healthy oils and healthy eating! They all dispel some of the health food myths and politically correct diet ideas that are so prevalent today!