Coconuts Can Save Your Life

The first time I ran into anything coconutty was via a well known bar that is sold in Europe called a Bounty bar. These delicious chocolate covered sticky coconut treats, became an absolute favourite of mine. However, when I realised that my almost daily indulgences were causing my skin to itch and my chest to wheeze, I was devasted and I thought I'd never find anything similar again. Little did I know how untrue that was. It was during one of my nutrition courses that my favourite treat was about to become an old favourite of mine again, but without all the processed rubbish.

I am all to aware that for some, the taste of coconut is just a no no, but in writing this small piece I hope to appeal to those inner tropical paradisers among you who think it's as wonderful as I do, but also to appeal to those who find its taste less than palatable. I do hope you will reconsider after reading the following.

In Sanskrit, the coconut palm is know as "kalpa vriksha", meaning "the tree that supplies all that is needed to live". According to David Wolfe, no matter how badly you have treated your body, or what you have done, fresh young coconut flesh, coconut water and coconut cream/oil can save your life.

Coconut Cream and Coconut Oil
This causes some confusion in many raw food recipes, but really the two are interchangable and they are both extremely beneficial to your health.

The coconut oil is made by grinding the mature hard, white coconut meat into a coconut cream and extracting the oil out separately. Even though we would expect coconut oil to be a liquid, coconut oil will be solid at room temperature, but will become liquid when heated. For maximum nutritional benefits, the oil should be used raw. For the oil to remain raw, it must be extracted using a temperature no greater than 78 degrees Fahrenheit.

By weight, coconut oil has fewer calories than any other fat source and unlike the cholesterol soaked, long chain, saturated animal fats found in meat and dairy products, coconut cream and oil are made of raw saturated fats containing mostly medium chain fatty acids that the body can metabolise efficiently and convert to easily to energy. So just remember, not all saturated fats are bad for you.

Coconut cream is sometimes referred to as coconut butter. Coconut cream/butter is make from the hardened white flesh of the coconut. This meat is shredded and collected and put through stone grinders. Over a period of about 24 hours the meat is broken down into a type of nut butter which is what we have termed coconut cream. Nutritionally there is very little difference between a fat and an oil and they can both be used interchangeably.

More great news about coconut oil/cream is that they contain absoultely no cholesterol and can actaully help balance cholesterol levels. Recently coconut oil received recognition by many health professionals and has even been dubbed the "diet fat" because it helps the body to beak up accumulated fats in the system and metabolize them.

If that isn't enough to sway you, hopefully, the following benefits from are from coconut product in general:

Benefits
1. They are incredibly valuable to the immune system as they contain many antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial saturated fatty acids.

2. They improve the absorption of many fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E and K).

3.The improve the blood sugar levels by lessening the sympthoms of hypoglycemia.

4. They consist of 90% saturated fat (medium chain) - essential building blocks for every cell in the human body.

Ways of Getting Coconut into the Diet.

Coconut Water

Young coconut water is almost identical to human blood plasma and therefore makes an excellent universal donor.

It is also excellent for rehydration and makes a wonderful base for your smoothies.

It is also an excellent tonic for all ages and for infants in particular.

Coconut water is easily available in health food stores nowadays, which makes this wonderful product more accessible than ever.

Coconut for Cooking

Using coconut oil for all your cooking needs is the most valuable piece of information I learned many years ago. Coconut oil is the most stable oil (of any known butter/oil) at high temperatures. This means that you should definitely throw away the sunflower oils and good quality olive oils for cooking. When most oils are heated to the high temperatures needed for cooking they become carcinogenic, with the exception of coconut oil. This is one change to your kitchen cupboards I suggest you make.

Coconut Cream/Oil for Desserts

This is my favourite way of using coconut products. I just adore making raw desserts with coconut oil/cream and dessicated coconut. I have already posted my raw macrons on this site, but the following is another great dessert that was created by Sandy B from Chocolate Face.

Goji Coconut Balls
1 cup shredded coconut flakes
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1 1/4 cup hempseed
1/2 cup goji berry powder (I grind my gogi berries in a coffee grinder)
1 1/2 cup goji berries
1 cup tocotrienols (mechanically powdered rice bran that can be left out)
2 1/2 Tbsps. raw honey
1 pinch of celtic sea salt

Method
Grind seeds and nuts separately in a coffee grinder, then add the remainding ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and blend until turned into a mush. Roll this into balls and then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!