Love coconut? Discover its origin and many uses around the world with educator and cultural insights speaker, Laura Lovelock.
Coconut oil was all the rage in the U.S. about a decade ago when Paleo and Carnivore diets were in vogue. Is it the health food that influencers claim? We’ll come back to that, but I didn’t know how important coconuts were to the people of the Pacific Islands until I heard Laura Lovelock talk about the origin of coconuts on my Viking journey. Lovelock is an educator and cultural insights speaker who engages the audience with delightful tales from the countries we are visiting on our world journey.
Coconut is “the Swiss army knife of the plant world,” says Lovelock. Its versatility as a food, beverage, and building material made it valuable to the people in Indonesia, the Philippines, and India, and still is to this day. “Coconut is one species but there are many different varieties, yet they all are an essential crop, and 61 million tons are produced every year,” says Lovelock.
Coconut was described as a “canoe crop” that provided water for long ocean travels. Coconut water became popular as a sports drink in the U.S. when active people were looking to cut down on sugar and find a more “natural” source of hydration. “Coconut water is found in the young coconut and is 94% water containing minerals calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. It was even used as an IV drip in WWII when IV solutions were in short supply,” reports Lovelock. Today, there are many brands of coconut water on the store shelves and an 8-ounce serving has about 60 calories from carbohydrate and naturally occurring sugar, 500 milligrams of potassium (about the same as a medium banana), and 45 milligrams of sodium (lower than found in most sports drinks), but drinking coconut water and including a salty snack will replenish the electrolytes lost in sweat, so coconut water is a good beverage for active, sweaty people.
Coconut water may have been crucial for survival for early people traversing the oceans, but coconut trees and husks also provided strong building materials as well as the fibers from the husks for rope and fishing lines. “Coconut was the ideal crop for the early people as it traveled from place to place because it is waterproof, light, buoyant, and it thrives in warm, tropical places,” says Lovelock. And coconut is not a nut. Coco is a Portuguese word for head or skull but the British added the word nut, but is botanically a fruit, a drupe, like peaches or cherries, adds Lovelock.
Coconut milk is not the liquid inside the coconut (that would be coconut water) but is made from the grated pulp of the mature coconut meat. It is high in oil or fat and is a traditional food in many parts of the world, imparting a unique (and delicious) taste to many dishes from southeast Asia, Indonesia, and parts of Africa. Today, Western countries produce a skim milk version of coconut milk and even use it to make milk beverages, similar to almond milk or other plant-based milks found in the dairy case. Coconut cream is not the same as creme of coconut which is a product of the Caribbean, best known for that tropical drink, the pina colada, which is decidedly not a health drink!
But back to coconut oil? Is it a healthy food? Claims from celebrities and social media influencers say it reduces belly fat, curbs appetite, boosts immunity, prevents heart disease and halts dementia. (As an aside, a red flag for me is anything that claims to prevent or cure more than three health conditions is too good to be true.) Coconut oil enthusiasts point to lower rates of heart disease in Indonesia and other parts of the world where coconut oil is a mainstay of the usual diet. But there are many other characteristics of the people who live in the regions where coconut oil is used…. lower body weight, more physical activity, low sugar intake, and high fiber intake. Adding coconut oil to the typical Western diet is unlikely to have health benefits as it is high in saturated fat which can increase the bad cholesterol.
If you like the taste of coconut oil, use small amounts to sauté veggies or add a teaspoon or two to sauces or curries, but use other heart healthy oils, like olive oil, for most of your cooking.
Thanks to Laura Lovelock for sharing her insights with me on the fascinating coconut!
