Coconut products: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Coconut oil, virgin
Benefits
`Virgin coconut oil good for both health & wealth'
Paul Fernandes The Times of India Mar 04 2015 Old Goa
Coconut oil may have been grandma's remedy for pain, healing wounds, stronger muscles and other ills, but she may have hardly known about benefits of its virgin oil for cholesterol, Alzheimer disease and other ailments. While the whole world is going gaga over the many health benefits of virgin coconut oil (VCO), production expertise and awareness about it has trickled in too slowly into the state, despite its large coconut production, say agriculture scientists.
The pure and colourless liquid, extracted after boiling milk of mature coconuts for a couple of hours, looks like water, but just a spoonful of it daily can keep the doctor away. “VCO is considered the mother of oils and has many health benefits. It is a powerhouse of anti-oxidants and is good for brain degenerative diseases, converts bad cholesterol into good one and builds up immunity comparable with mother's milk,“ Sunetra Talaulikar, subject matter specialist (home science) Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) complex, Old Goa said.
Coconut has been the state's important crop and the kernel and oil extracted from copra a vital food ingredient since times immemorial, but little known VCO may be just what Goans need to pep up their troubled health and employment.
In Kerala, many small scale units and households are tapping the growing market for VCO, considering its potential in healthcare, cosmetics and food industries.
Goa is just beginning to show interest in VCO, even as a few traders buy stocks from Kerala and retail it here.ICAR scientists were pleasantly surprised after many bhatkars (land-owners), coconut farmers and others queued up for a workshop on the subject at Old Goa. Krishi Vigyan Kendr (KVK) of ICAR is trying to popularize the technology among farmers and women to provide them livelihood and empower them. “Extracting VCO is nothing sophisticated and a housewife engaging a labourer can easily earn `1,500 per day with a small investment of just `30,000 for machinery ,“ Talaulikar said.
The equipment comprises three units, a scraper, a screw press for milk extraction and a thick-bottomed vessel for boiling the milk to extract oil.“Bhatkars who have a good supply of coconuts have an advantage, as they will save on purchase of raw material,“ she added. C K Mathew, a Goa Velha-based progressive farmer, said the authorities should promote cheap machinery .“This will help them to tap the market better,“ he said.
Director, ICAR complex (Old Goa), N P Singh said, “VCO has good potential for export as well as domestic market since it has a lot of medicinal properties.“
To be taxed as hair oil or edible oil?
Dhananjay Mahapatra, Dec 19, 2024: The Times of India
New Delhi : A three-judge bench of Supreme Court solved a 20-yearold riddle that plagued levying of excise duty — whether pure coconut oil is to be classified as an edible oil or under cosmetics as hair oil?
This question had got a split verdict from the bench of the then CJI and Justice R Banumathi. While Justice Gogoi, who retired as CJI in Nov 2019, was of the view coconut oil in small packaging was appropriately classified as edible oil, Justice Banumathi opined that coconut oil packed in small containers are to be classified as hair oil.
A bench of CJI Sanjiv Khanna, and Justices Sanjay Kumar and R Mahadevan, aware of the dual use of coconut oil in different parts of the country, said the classification would depend on the branding of the oil as edible to meet the criteria under food safety regulations, and conform to a different criterion under Drugs and Cosmetics Act to be classified as hair oil.
Writing the judgment, Justice Kumar rejected argument of revenue dept that pure coconut oil should invariably be classified as hair oil and said, “We are of the opin- ion that pure coconut oil sold in small quantities as ‘edible oil’ would be classifiable as edible oil”. Revenue dept had said the bunch of appeals involved Rs 160 crore in terms of excise duty, penalties, redemption fine and interest.
SC said, “The fact that such edible coconut oil was sold in smaller containers would not, by itself, be indicative of it being packaging of a kind fit for use as ‘hair oil’.”
“One may choose to buy one’s cooking oil in small quantities, be it for economic or for health reasons or due to inclination to use fresh oil in food preparation, and the smaller size of the packaging of such oil cannot be taken to mean that it is to be used as ‘hair oil’ without any pointer to that effect, be it by way of a label or literature or by any other indication that it is to be used as ‘hair oil’,” it said.
“Small-sized containers are common to both ‘edible oils’ and ‘hair oils’. Therefore, there must be something more to distinguish between them for classification of such oil, other than size of the packaging,” the bench said.
