Baby Coconut

So I have been slightly obsessed with coconut lately, do you blame me? With so many amazing health benefits I can’t find enough ways to get more coconut in my diet. After purchasing young coconuts numerous times at Whole Foods and simply eating the meat and drinking the juice I figured there had to be another way to prepare them. The idea of ice cream immediately popped into my head and I got right to work cutting my baby coconut open. As the ice cream was churning away I figured I would do a little research on exactly why I should be eating this ice cream totally guilt free

Benefits of Young Coconuts:

Coconut water is an incredible superfood filled with minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, amino acids, enzymes, and electrolytes.

Its unique combination of nutrients gives it incredible health-promoting properties.

Coconut water is effective in relieving dehydration, fatigue, constipation, and other digestive disturbances, kidney and bladder disorders, and vision problems such as glaucoma and cataract.

Coconut water also has an alkalizing effect on the body, helping to counteract or balance the effects of acidifying foods which are so common in our diets.

Research has proven that coconut water can improve blood circulation, lower elevated blood pressure, and reduce risk of heart attacks and strokes.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of coconut water is its chemical profile and mineral content. The primary minerals or electrolytes in coconut water are essentially the same as those found in human blood.

The best way to get coconut water straight from a fresh baby coconut.  Young coconuts are those that have not fully matured and are also sold in health food stores. They look very different from the mature brown coconuts.  Young coconuts have only a portion of the husk cut off, leaving about an inch covering the shell. The husk is white and often shaped like a large toy top, with a point on one end and flat on the other. They are perishable, so you will find them in the refrigerated section of the store. (source.)

Coconut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 young coconut meat and water

6-8 drops NuNaturals vanilla stevia

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 T coconut flaked

Directions: Cut coconut open (here is an instructional video if you have never opened one before). Pour water into a blender and scrape meat into blender as well. Drop in the liquid stevia and salt and blend until smooth. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturers directions about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with coconut and serve!

Here is the nutrition info for the entire coconut:

Calories 354.0 Total Fat 33.5 g  Cholesterol 0.0 mg Sodium 20.0 mg Potassium 356.0 mg Total Carbohydrate 15.2 g Dietary Fiber 9.0 g Sugars 6.2 g Protein 3.3 g

Cut the top off the coconut and pry open with a knife.

pour the coconut water into a blender.

Using a spoon scrape out the coconut meat and add to the blender

along with salt and stevia.

Blend mixture until smooth and pour into an ice cream maker.

Freeze the delicious mixture in your ice cream maker about 20 minutes.

Sprinkle with flaked coconut and dig in!

With all of the health benefits from the coconut AND the fact that this dish only has four ingredients you have absolutely no excuse not to give this delicious dessert a try. You will never want store bought ice cream again, I can promise you that. Just don’t blame me if you become a coconut addict.

Yup he is scraping the little flakes of overly frozen ice cream off of the barrel, brain freeze anyone? haha.

Questions:

Favorite ice cream flavor? Coconut (obviously) and peanut butter

Do you like/eat coconut? Yesss !

Favorite health food? Recently, coconuts, kale, and chia seeds.

Any recipes/foods you would like to see on the blog? I would love ideas and suggestions. Angie asked if I could post a recipe using coconut oil instead of butter and I have the perfect one in mind so look for that later this week and if you haven’t been to her lovely blog yet check it out!

Any other suggestions for the blog? I would love to continue to make it better and more enjoyable for you all

If you want another chance to win The Real Food Diet Cookbook head over to clean eating chelsey’ s blog !

Time to get back to work on my case study i’ll see you all later!