Mandy Nolan’s Soap Box: I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts

Is there anything you can’t use coconut oil for? Apparently not. As it turns out the humble coconut is the solution to all our first-world problems. Supermodel Miranda Kerr swears it’s the secret to being such a hottie. She reckons she can’t go a day without ingesting at least four tablespoons. She even drinks it in her green tea.

Gwenyth Paltrow likes to use it as a post-soak moisturiser; Angelina Jolie has it for breakfast; Jennifer Aniston uses it to lose weight because as we all know she is so disgustingly fat.

You can throw away everything you own and simply replace it with coconut oil. No need for expensive lotions, soaps, hair shampoos or medications. Coconut oil is the solution. It’s a chapstick for cracked lips, a deodorant, a sunscreen, a laundry detergent – and a toothpaste.

And good news for mums: It’s also good for cracked nipples, torn perineums and nappy rash. It can even be used as a lice treatment; it can lower cholesterol; and according to what the internet loosely refers to as ‘research’ it can not only prevent Alzheimer’s but can reverse it.

Wow, all that medical research, all those clinical trials and all we had to do was change grandma’s salad dressing? I tried it on my nanna and she wasn’t impressed: ‘I’m not eating that shit’. That’s probably why she never looked anything like Miranda Kerr or Angelina Jolie.

For menopausal women suffering from the unfortunate condition known as ‘dry vagina’, may I suggest coconut oil? It’s also a wonderful sexual lubricant. (While I can see the merits, I don’t know if I’d want to use the same product for sex and toothbrushing as Nanna was eating on her breakfast.)

And before you think I’m being too simplistic, don’t forget we can also use coconut water. It’s not just good for your internal organs; if you use it to wash the car it eliminates rust. I used it on my car and you won’t believe it, after just three washes my Toyota Yaris became a Honda Civic. Now two years on I’ve got a Porsche.

With coconut oil you don’t need to fluoridate the water. Just a couple of drops and everyone has white teeth and well-lubricated genitals. It even doubles as vaccination. Coconut oil is also apparently good for depression. It works by giving someone so much coconut oil they eventually say ‘No more coconut oil’ and you take it away and they suddenly feel a bit better.

Coconut oil is also a wonder drug for the gut. Feeling constipated? Try the coconut water enema; it’s a little disturbing and does put you off ever eating another chocolate-covered coconut Bounty bar but it sure is effective.

I’ve substituted every product in my house with coconut oil. I even mop the floors with it. Sure, it’s slippery, but every time the kids fall over they get a full-body moisturising treatment. I even use it instead of petrol. The car won’t start, in fact the engine has seized, but the use of coconut oil has cut the emissions down to zero.

We’ve come along way since the euphemistic song I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts was composed as a novelty song in 1944. Coconuts and their amazing byproducts could save the planet. Of course there is the little problem of coconut miles and the subsequent negative impacts of transportation to import our trendy miracle oil.

As it turns out our obsession with coconut-based health products is impacting on the global supply used by millions of people in Asia and the Pacific. In fact we have been shaking so hard on their coconut trees that production growth is at least eight per cent behind demand growth.

In Indonesia alone, that would mean that an estimated 1.1 million acres would need to be planted out with coconut trees. I wonder what kind of impact that might have on existing forest or agriculture?

We greedy first-world health nuts are consuming coconut water faster than ageing trees can produce. Once again the Third World becomes the quarry for our mass consumption – this time in the form of a coconut grove.