MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
“This,” said Tikya, “is your first line of defense.”
She was referring to two accessories that would snugly fit in my pouch, not that there’s anywhere I can go with the pouch. Tikya’s present, a nasal spray and a mouth freshener, also in spray form, both made with virgin coconut oil or VCO.
It’s been months since the hot news of VCO being put on trial as a therapeutic food supplement for COVID-19 patients, promising a shorter recovery time (like two days), but if we haven’t heard more about it, we’ll just have to wait a wee bit longer for the results of the clinical tests.
Going by Tikya’s tip, the VCO sprays are logical frontliners if we follow the line that the virus enters the body through the nose and mouth. At the very beginning of the pandemic, I came across a UK report suggesting the use of mouthwash and baby shampoo for their antiviral properties against COVID. As fate would have it, I have always preferred mild and gentle baby shampoo over sophisticated adult versions. Is it fate or fancy that if you scramble the letters in COVID you will find VCO?
As a consumer for the last many years of cold pressed virgin coconut oil, I join the millions who look forward with great expectations to Dr. Fabian Dayrit’s announcement of VCO as a certified safe and effective anti-COVID food supplement.
Coconut is a national treasure which, unfortunately, has not always brought great fortunes to its growers. In the time of the pandemic, the farmers are on pins and needles waiting for their share of the Coconut Levy Funds. The “tree of life,” as a former first lady christened it, is just another crop as far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned. Back in the ‘80s Danding Cojuangco propagated a species that he called “golden coconut,” but for some reason it did not prosper.
Comes now the greatest killer of the century trailed by a hopeful host of vaccines and medications to wipe it from the face of the planet, so we keep our fingers crossed and our thinking coconut in a positive frame of mind, that VCO will eventually come into its own – and the industry along with it.