Coconut has gained and gained in popularity over the past several years with information about its benefits for weight management, brain health, hormones, blood sugar balancing and more. One quick google search will yield pages of articles titled “10 Benefits of Coconut Oil”.  I LOVE coconut and use this seed several times weekly but like any food, it isn’t a panacea and can’t actually do EVERYTHING. Seriously 😉

Is coconut oil a good moisturizer? Coconut oil is a good occlusive which means it creates a barrier that traps moisture in our skin, provided the moisture is already there. This means that coconut oil can help us be moisturized even though it’s not technically a moisturizer itself. Coconut has some great properties and I love to use it on my skin other than my face. It can be quite comedogenic (pore clogging) so I don’t love it on my face although some people can use it with few problems.  It is actually one of the most comedogenic oils available for use in natural beauty products so not a great choice if you have been prone to acne in the past, just good for off the face.

Does coconut oil kill Candida? Some constituents of coconut oil do have anti fungal properties like Caprylic acid and even Lauric acid. There is another fatty acid called Undecalynic acid or Undecanoic acid (found in Thorne SF722 anti fungal formula, derived from coconut). This fatty acid is a very potent anti fungal but there is not enough of this in coconut oil to really work the same way.  Alternately coconut oil might be a good carrier oil for some anti fungal volatile oils like thyme, yarrow, oregano, sandalwood etc. but for most topical applications like toe fungus, thrush and rashes, or most internal applications like a candida overgrowth, probably wouldn’t be strong enough on its own.

What’s better for brain health, coconut or flax oil? The brain needs omega 3 fats (not from coconut oil), cholesterol and a variety of other fatty acids. The brain may be 60% fat by weight and a quarter of that is cholesterol. When eating a low or no animal product diet the liver can use the naturally saturated fats to create cholesterol. While the liver doesn’t need coconut to do this it is one way to help bring cholesterol up if necessary. The body also needs these naturally saturated fats for our cellular health and nervous systems. The brain is a part of our whole bodies and the more health and nutrition we can provide ourselves, holistically the better our brains will perform and feel.

How does coconut help with omega threes? Does coconut contain omega threes?  No, coconut doesn’t contain omega 3s BUT it does contain myristic and lauric acid, both of which can increase the conversion of ALA found in foods like flax and hemp to the longer chain EPA/DHA that make us smarter!

When I ferment coconut milk should it get thick? If you are trying to make coconut yogurt with straight coconut milk from the can or made at home you will likely be disappointed. While the lactic acid bacteria can ferment this just as well as they can ferment dairy it doesn’t have the same effect on the viscosity of the milk. Only casein (milk protein) thickens when it is fermented because the casein molecules change shape and form a sort of grid with each other, much like what happens when we thicken with rice starch. You can use homemade coconut milk or coconut milk from a can to make yogurt by thickening it before you ferment it. The following things will thicken your yogurt in one way or another:

Coconut oil (adding more) or any other fat that is solid at room or refrigerator temperatures Agar agar (but will need to be boiled), Irish moss or irish moss powder, flakes or paste, tapioca starch, potato starch or arrowroot powder (but for the starches it will also have to be cooked)

I prefer to use a fat, a thickener and also something to set up the yogurt for example coconut oil, chia powder and irish moss all together. You can leave out the chia or replace it with arrowroot for a less grainy texture but you’d have to cook it.

What is the difference between coconut milk and coconut water? Coconut water is the juice from inside the immature young coconuts. These are the ones that we see with the white husks, usually wrapped in the refrigerator of specialty shops. They are also the coconuts with the large green outer shell that we can buy at the side of the road in beautiful tropical climates like those of Hawaii, Thailand, the Philippines and Mexico. Coconut milk is made similarly to almond milk in that it is the fresh or dried coconut meat from the mature coconut, ground up with water to emulsify and then strained.  If making coconut milk at home make sure to use fresh or frozen coconut or non-defatted dried coconut.

Why isn’t my coconut milk that I make as good as the ones in the cans? I assume by this question that people usually mean that their coconut milk isn’t as thick or as fragrant as the coconut milk in the cans. I usually have better results when using the fresh coconut meat from a mature brown coconut to make the milk rather than the dried flakes. If using the dried flakes make sure they are not defatted, as stated above.  This ensures you are using a primary coconut product rather than a byproduct of someone else already making coconut milk and then selling you the shreds.  Many of the desiccated coconut flakes that you can buy in the store have already been “milked” or pressed and will be no good for you to make milk of at home. I like to retrieve the meat from several “old” coconuts at once and freeze it in cup-sized batches to be ready to make milk. I was taught how to make this milk by hand with a mortar and pestle and a cheesecloth in some cooking classes I attended in Cambodia. Also try South Asian markets for frozen coconut flakes.  Fresh or frozen fresh is best.

Is coconut bad for the environment? I think any time we demand mono crops of anything whether it is soy, corn or even coconuts we can run into trouble, for those employed in the coconut industry and trouble for the environment.  This is not to mention shipping of course.  Consider hazelnuts and macadamia nuts, chia, hemp and even avocado fruit as alternatives to coconut.  Whatever is the closest to you or grown the most sustainably.  With the other oils solid at room temperature being cacao butter and palm oil I think I will stick with coconut for now. I don’t eat very much of it but I do use the

fruit/meat and the milk that I make from time to time.  Some lesser used butters that are technically edible and could be a substitute for coconut oil are mango butter and waxes like rice bran wax (a component of the wax they put on apples) but that’s getting a bit too processed for my taste. As for the coconuts themselves if I am going to use them I like to get the most sustainably harvested possible, in particular for coconut water which I use with the most regularity.

Does coconut have formaldehyde in it? Coconuts may be irradiated and dipped in a variety of preservatives to prevent the young coconut husk from going mouldy on their way to the store over the ocean. I’m not a big fan of preservatives but I’m also not a big fan of mould. I try to buy the frozen coconut water bottled at the source. When I do buy the fresh young coconuts I wash them before I cut into them for the juice. Do you have a system? Comment below and let me know!

What is the difference between a young coconut and a coconut?

Can I really eat the pink ones? Yes. I choose to eat the pink ones but not the grey/purple ones. Once in a while you will get a grey one where the young coconut meat is slightly dark. I don’t eat the grey coconut meat but the pink young coconuts are really just very immature and I do choose to eat these. You must of course make your own informed choice!

How can I open a regular coconut?  The old hairy brown coconuts will have three “eyes” and kind of look like a monkey face when you look at them a certain way.  Serious!  The mouth of this conceptual monkey-face is easy to punch a hole through.  Great to poke through the coconut first and take out any remaining juice before breaking into the coconut.  I like to leave the coconut out in the sun which helps to separate the meat from the skin. If you don’t want to get it too warm you can skip this step. Some people use their ovens to heat the coconut up as well. I take my coconut outside and throw it down on the pavement until it cracks, bring it inside and peel the fruit out. I think this is the easy way. Pictured here is what my partner Rutger thinks is the easy way.