My wife also likes the leaner side of paleo. A general aversion to fat I suppose. It does take a while to acclimate, but I think that most can easily adapt. For those who can't they may have some sort of legitimate metabolic derangement where they don't process fat as well. Its an understudied area from what I can tell. As to the allergy issue your going to have to do a bit of experimentation...ghee vs. butter vs. coconut oil vs. bacon grease ect. I'd start with what meats she can and will eat and work on things from there. She doesn't have to go from a 10% fat diet to 70% fat in one day. That will absolutely cause some abdominal distress. Slowly move toward whole foods without added fats and oils. Proceed from there.

I healed my lifelong chronic asthma on a Paleo/Whole Foods diet. I was on inhalers, pills and ER visits almost daily. Now I've been asthma-free for over 15 years, and eczema has cleared up, too. Problem is, your wife may be sensitive to the "yin," or expansive qualities of coconut oil. Coconut oil is tropical which gives it very "yin" energy. Since asthma is a yin disease, she may be sensitive to that expansive energy and so it sets off her asthma. I still can't tolerate any tropical foods or fruits for that reason. Try cooking with olive oil which isn't as "yin" and see if she still has that same reaction.

I have an asthma and I have been eating a very high fat very low carb diet for the past 5 years. Could be called a very low carb paleo with diary. I definitely feel that my asthma gets aggravated after eating a fat. Recently I have experienced these two events

1. Took the kids to the science center, spent a day touching everything, did a grocery shopping afterwards and snacked on a jar of nuts without washing hands - next day experienced an understandable consequences - diarhea, vomiting the whole thing. Curiously I breathed freely and a sense of smell lost due to chronic congestion returned. This lasted up to a week and gradually faded

2. Took a kid to a doctor, someone in the waiting room coughed at me, I ate a sugary food later which weakened my immune system and understandably I got sick. I decided to drop into deep ketosis and the first day ate nothing except for the 2 tbs coconut oil mixed with tea, 2 tbs mixed in a beef stock and another 2 tbs in a coffee and on the 2nd day repeated the same but also took a magnesium citrate before bed which resulted in a well known effect on the morning after. Again I observed that my asthma stopped - I was able to hold my breath for 2 minutes ( Yes, I timed it) and usually when puffing a ventolin I can only manage 30-40 sec. This effect also vanished after resuming a usual eating pattern

I am thinking that my asthma is caused by an immune system overreaction. The first instance helped because gut microbiota got expelled and the 2nd worked because not only they got expelled but coconut oil might have helped to lessen the inflammation. Connection to increased asthma while eating fat might then be the fact that fat acts as a carrier/enabler to carry an endotoxin through the gut wall thus facilitating the immune system overreaction.

I completely eliminated my asthma symptoms by getting my D3 blood level up to 80 ng/ml via supplementing 6,000-8000 IUs of D3. When I tried dropping the D3 and sunning only, my blood level dropped to 57 ng/ml and my asthma symptoms came back.

I used to get asthma symptoms triggered by the smell of high heat cooking, but no more.

A couple of other folk on this site have had a similar experience. D3 operates as an anti-inflammatory in the body at high enough levels.

I eat a Lacto-Paleo diet with organ meats and supplement Magnesium and krill oil.

There is definitely no one size fits all answer to asthma and allergens. Without too much rhyme or reason I would say if being around coconut oil or its fumes causes a flare up then it needs to be avoided.

You need to be a good partner and not have it in the house too.

Once you've eliminated it from the house/diet and not had any flare ups for a month, then you can start to find a replacement fat. Good quality butter or olive oil would seem like a sensible place to start.

Hmmm, Interesting question. Not sure I agree with the above comment. I have always had mild allergies to almonds, carrots, apples, and various nuts. Since I've been doing paleo I am not reacting to almonds or carrots at all, apples are about the same if a little better and some other nuts like hazelnuts are still bad. I get an itchy mouth and its very uncomfortable. As long as she agrees I would treat it as a science experiment for a while after she has been on paleo strictly for three months because she may heal in the asthma department and coconut might not be the problem. Just my opinion.