Who would have guessed that this rather sad looking hairy brown fruit or that a bold green one, when talking about a young one, is in fact a superfood.

Coconut has it all.

According to nutritionist Zoë Harcombe ‘coconuts are a perfect example of a natural, real food. They contain all the macronutrients – carbohydrate, fat and protein. As well as being absolutely delicious and full of natural fat, coconuts are a rich source of minerals, including copper, zinc, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and selenium.’

Lately I’ve been obsessed with coconuts, which is reflected in my recipes… I bake with it, I cook with it and I eat it raw 🙂 So imagine my surprise when one day a giant parcel arrived at my door step full of coconut goodies! A box full of totally different products with one thing in common… they were all made entirely from 100% coconut and absolutely nothing else!

The parcel was from Coconut Merchant, they stock all things coconut and I simply love their selection from such common products as desiccated coconut through items such as coconut oils, flour, milk, water, chips, syrup, sugar all the way to jam, yes that’s right coconut jam!

When you Google “benefits of coconut” you will be hit with 1000+ articles claiming lots of wonders:

• It helps prevent obesity
• It helps your immune system
• It improves heart health
• It improves digestion
• It’s high in dietary fiber
• It has low GI index
• It’s gluten-free
• It has antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and anti-parasitic properties

I don’t know if they are all true, I am not a scientist, but I am sure at least some, if not all of them, are.

For all I know from my own experience coconut products helped me to care for my two dogs… coconut oil, despite being an oil and full of fat has helped Lilly with her weight loss and only recently I cured Bunk’s giant hot spot only with coconut oil (it was a bit tricky as he wanted to lick it all the time but it worked without the need of a vet visit, antibiotics or other manmade gimmicks). After using it for over a year for the dogs I did a bit of research and decided that coconut products are obviously not only for dogs and we should benefit from it too… this is how my coconut obsession began.

Cooking with coconut based ingredients is tricky at times, especially when we are talking about coconut flour; it really likes moisture so it can’t be substituted 1:1 with regular flour… developing new recipes with it takes a bit of thinking, time and countless trial and error attempts but I think it’s worth it as the results are mouth-watering to say the least.

Now, I want to experiment with coconut sugar, which to be honest I didn’t even know existed. I use coconut flower nectar which has a liquid form but now I actually have a solid sugar. Yes, it’s still a sugar so it can’t be used in sugar free cooking but it’s unrefined, without artificial additives and it has a much lower GI index… I am looking forward to actually trying it in my cooking.

Do you love coconut?

Have you ever used anything besides desiccated coconut in cooking or baking?