There are many super foods I have talked about in the past- today I want to highlight the benefits of coconut. If someone is looking to go move to a more dairy free type of diet, drinking coconut milk is one option. Now, you can easily go to your local market and pick up coconut or any nut milk. However, the taste and consistency of these drinking is not pleasant. I find that the carton in our fridge stays around for a long time because no one wants to use that much. Well fast forward the the beginning of 2017 when we decided to go less dairy and add coconut milk to our everyday meals. Home made coconut milk. Yes, that's right, getting a fresh coconut from the grocery store, cutting it open and making coconut milk. What a huge difference ! Like night and day. Drinking coconut milk is super refreshing and it fills you up, and its very very tasty.
Coconut is packed with medium fatty acids and lauric acid as well. What is significant about lauric acid? Lauric acid is converted in the body into a highly beneficial compound called monolaurin, an antiviral and antibacterial that destroys a wide variety of disease causing organisms. Therefore, consuming coconut milk now helps protect the body from infections and viruses. How is coconut nutriently beneficial? Coconuts are rich in fibre, vitamins C, E, B1, B3, B5 and B6 and minerals including iron, selenium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and phosphorous.If you are lactose intolerant, you can also drink this milk because there is no lactose in fresh coconut milk.
Here are the Simple Steps To Making Coconut Milk:
Break Open the Coconut - You can use a hammer or the back of the knife. Keep hitting it especially at the seams.
Next Take out the coconut Meat. I just use a stainless steel knife to do this. I stick the knife into the coconut and pull away. Be very careful with your sharp kitchen knives. See my instragram video on arc4lifehealth.
Next Take this coconut meat and put it into your high efficiency blender (like a Vitamix) and add a few cups of water.What I do exactly is use 1/2 of the coconut meat and add 3 cups of water. I save the rest for my next batch of coconut milk. Blend it at a high speed for a good 2 - 3 minutes. Next get your strainer out with a cheese cloth. Add this coconut pulp through this seive. Squeeze out the coconut milk. This is a very refreshing drink by the way. Oh and did I mention that its healthy too !!!
Now you will have all this desicatted coconut pulp that has a very mild flavor. What to do with that. DO not throw it out. It can be repurposed very easily actually.
- Use it in your morning oatmeal
- Put it into your smoothies
- Add it to your pancake batter
- Make coconut ice cream
- Make Coconut Flour
Additional Reading and Viewing:
Part I: How to Open Up a Coconut to Make Coconut Milk
Part II: How to Take out the Coconut Meat to Make Coconut Milk
Part III: How to Mix the Coconut Meat and Water to Make Coconut Milk
Part IV: Making the Actual Coconut Milk
Part III and IV: How to Make the actual Coconut Milk: See Below
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