Coconut harbors oil as one of its constituents. There are many methods adopted to extract this oil. Expeller pressing is one such method. In this method the dried kernel of the nut is crushed under tremendous force expelling the oil. This method is not considered as productive because of the inability to extract all the oil from the kernel. Usually, only about 66% of the oil is extracted. Because of the low yield of the expeller pressing method chemical methods are sometimes used to extract the oil. These chemicals are called solvents and an example is hexane. In this process, extracted coconut oil becomes contaminated with other chemicals. Though, the method is unproductive, expeller pressed coconut oil is free of chemical contaminants.

Coconut oil consists of Medium Chain Triglycerides or MCTs. Examples for MCTs in coconut oil are lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid and their concentrations in coconut oil are 48%, 7% and 8% respectively. These are called fatty acids. These, and particularly lauric acid are very powerful antivital substances that are effective against many infectious microbial organisms. Lauric acid is of singular interest because it is the substance that is present in the breast milk of humans. Research has found that next to human breast milk the largest concentration of lauric acid is found in coconut oil. Hence, as a substance beneficial for human health, the anti infective properties of lauric acid in coconut oil are important. The other benefit of coconut oil in human health is its thermogenesis properties. Thermogenesis of a substance is its ability to generate energy and heat from food by burning calories. In this respect, research has found that coconut oil is a good thermogenesis substance that can effectively help in weight loss in humans.

The above stated health properties of coconut oil can be maintained intact only if it is not contaminated and masked by other chemicals. Hence, it is vital that when growing coconut no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used, that result in organic virgin coconuts. Thereafter, expeller pressing method should be used for extracting oil, to guarantee non contamination of the extracted oil.