Coconut cream vs coconut milk?

[bharminder]

Hello, I was wondering whether coconut cream is better or coconut milk. Maybe they both have benefits. I was looking for some advice and guidance about the benefits of one or the other....or both.


in this link:
http://www.life-enthusiast.com/index/Articles/Vonderplanitz/Recipe_for_Living_Without_Disease

aajonus recommends about 2/3rds of the way down on the page to juice the coconut meat from the brown coconuts and separate the water beforehand and to keep it separated.


However, I've seen this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIrbcaSqHvM

where John Kohler makes coconut milk. First he blends the coconut meat and water from brown coconut in a blender. Then he takes that mush and puts it through a juicer, whereby it makes coconut milk. He also had another video on making cream.

I used to take the young thai coconuts, and blend the water and soft meat from that and it makes a delicious thin smoothie. The brown coconuts are cheaper though so I want to utilize those. The water from the brown coconut is 1/2 the amount of water in the young thai coconut. And, there is like 3-4x as much meat. Thus if I simply make a smoothie from blending the meat and water from the brown coconut, it turns into a thick mush, which is not palatable.

I want to up my fat intake and avocados and coconuts will have to be a good % of that increase.

[RawZi]

aajonus recommends about 2/3rds of the way down on the page to juice the coconut meat from the brown coconuts and separate the water beforehand and to keep it separated.

The brown coconuts are cheaper though so I want to utilize those. The water from the brown coconut is 1/2 the amount of water in the young thai coconut. And, there is like 3-4x as much meat.

I want to up my fat intake and avocados and coconuts will have to be a good % of that increase.

    What kinds of fat are you eating now?  I'm not so sure about coconut milk.  I think fat digests better when not much water is present.  Aajonus also recommends to carefully check each coconut for mold.  I'm glad I don't need to eat coconuts, it sounds tedious.  It's hard to get coconuts where I live as it is.

    I do want to get coconut tomorrow.  Anyone familiar with the coconut lime penicillin thing AV is recommending now?  I have the limes.  Even if the penicillin thing is not precisely appropriate for what I'm thinking, I think it will still do good.

[bharminder]

Mostly fat from beef chuck roast, salmon, shellfish, nuts, dairy(mostly milk, but sometimes i skim the cream and make butter from it, also kefir w/o grains,yogurt), avocados, and coconuts.  Sometimes though I just eat whatever like regular butter or coconut oil or something that's not healthy in my eyes.

[TylerDurden]

I dont approve of artificial processing, even when the result is still raw. I have noticed that there are always some people who will react negatively, health-wise,to the processed product. In my own case, I had minor digestive  issues with raw ground meat, for example, during the first few months of going rawpalaeo as my digestive system was at the time severely wrecked from SAD diets.

[bharminder]

I was wondering did you grind it yourself or have it freshly ground?

I myself noticed stomach discomfort from eating ground meat but took it to be that (upon further research) the meat was ground before it arrived in the store and then was ground again at the store. That, and ground meats that are pre ground are from more than one animal whereas a meat cut is from one animal.

anyway, there are better staples of raw fat. this is what i am experimenting with right now.

[TylerDurden]

I was wondering did you grind it yourself or have it freshly ground?

I myself noticed stomach discomfort from eating ground meat but took it to be that (upon further research) the meat was ground before it arrived in the store and then was ground again at the store. That, and ground meats that are pre ground are from more than one animal whereas a meat cut is from one animal.

anyway, there are better staples of raw fat. this is what i am experimenting with right now.

No it was ground before sale and vacuum-packed.

[RawZi]

i skim the cream and make butter from it, also kefir w/o grains,yogurt), avocados, and coconuts.  Sometimes though I just eat whatever like regular butter or coconut oil or something that's not healthy in my eyes.

    I ate grassfed cultured pasteurized butter in a pinch, and at the amount of fat I need, it was a disaster.  I make raw butter regularly.

In my own case, I had minor digestive  issues with raw ground meat, for example, during the first few months of going rawpalaeo as my digestive system was at the time severely wrecked from SAD diets.

    I tried fatty ground grassfed meat from one of AV's favorite stores.  I got an issue from it too.  My digestive system was wrecked at the time too, but I had been vegan up till a few months earlier.

[bharminder]

Well I tried juicing the coconut meat from mature brown coconut (2 of them) and made a fairly decent yield of coconut cream that tasted good. An interesting note is that everywhere I had read info on making the cream or milk from coconut, there was always warnings about possible spoilage, mold growth, etc. with detailed descriptions of what to look out for.

I ignored it mostly because I thought it was like any other vegetable or fruit, if it smells bad or looks rotten, it probably is.

Anyways I discovered a bad coconut that wasn't too spoiled. It had slightly yellow meat(on the underside) and the water was murky. The water tasted ok... I made cream from this meat(before I realized it wasn't a good coconut) mixed with the meat from a fresh coconut. Moral of this story: Look out for spoilage from coconuts, even on the underside of the meat where it touches the husk before you pry it off.

[fireflysea]

Well I tried juicing the coconut meat from mature brown coconut (2 of them) and made a fairly decent yield of coconut cream that tasted good. An interesting note is that everywhere I had read info on making the cream or milk from coconut, there was always warnings about possible spoilage, mold growth, etc. with detailed descriptions of what to look out for.

I ignored it mostly because I thought it was like any other vegetable or fruit, if it smells bad or looks rotten, it probably is.

Anyways I discovered a bad coconut that wasn't too spoiled. It had slightly yellow meat(on the underside) and the water was murky. The water tasted ok... I made cream from this meat(before I realized it wasn't a good coconut) mixed with the meat from a fresh coconut. Moral of this story: Look out for spoilage from coconuts, even on the underside of the meat where it touches the husk before you pry it off.

What happened when you ate the moldy coconut cream? This afternoon I opened a mature coconut and the water tasted bad. I tried a chunk of the meat and it was soft and easy to chew but definitely tasted like mold but not necessarily BAD flavor? For some dumb reason. Because it was soft I was like well maybe it will digest better. As if mold would help ones digestion lol. I can be so dumb sometimes.  I blended the meat with water, pomegranates, and a handful of berries like berries and cream. Anyway just curious how this might effect me. And how it affected you?

[Joy2012]

I think you should throw away the moldy coconut.

[Iguana]

Some molds can smell and taste fine in certain cases. 

Terminology should be clarified :

- Coconut water is the sweet liquid contained in the nut.
- Coconut cream is the juice extracted by pressuring the scraped coconut meat
- Coconut milk is coconut cream added with plain water.

At lest that’s what I learned in Polynesia and in SW Asia.  Can you confirm that, GS ?

[goodsamaritan]

I do not add plain water to "coconut cream".

The ones who add plain water usually add hot water to the grated coconut meat so they can manually squeeze more coconut milk.

I thought coconut cream = coconut milk.

What I do to get pure coconut milk / cream is to just have the coconut grated in the market and be machine pressed so I get all the milk / cream raw and pure.

[eveheart]

Tropical Traditions has a video showing how to make coconut milk by adding hot water to dried coconut flakes and then pressing to separate the liquid (coconut milk) from the solids. The amount of water is about equal to the amount of dried coconut flakes, which would reconstitute the dried coconut.

In older US cookbooks, such as Joy of Cooking, water and fresh coconut meat gets blended with hot water and then strained to make coconut milk to use in curries.

I suppose the terminology varies from place to place. Even Trader Joe's carries a product called coconut cream which contains "coconut extracted, sodium carboxy methyl cellulose, xanthan gum, and water." It's a solid mass that a lot of dairy-free moms use to make dairy-free ice cream.

While you might enjoy the mold, it can also be considered a sign of bad storage during shipment (when you are distant from a coconut-palm climate).

[political atheist]

I do not add plain water to "coconut cream".

The ones who add plain water usually add hot water to the grated coconut meat so they can manually squeeze more coconut milk.

I thought coconut cream = coconut milk.

What I do to get pure coconut milk / cream is to just have the coconut grated in the market and be machine pressed so I get all the milk / cream raw and pure.

you are lucky you have that kind of market....

[political atheist]

Every time I eat home made coconut cream my nose bleeds if I blow it even lightly. Is coconut cream a blood thinner or what?

[Bradley David Good]

To answer the original question:
I think eating a whole coconut and drinking the water is good.  I sometimes buy the highest quality coconut water but it is a once and a while treat, not nearly as good as fresh.

And I sometimes buy raw cream from originallivingcoconut.com and it is really good by itself or mixed with other stuff.  Banana, papaya, lime, berries, cucumber.  I feel like it has been really cleansing when I've eaten it and after a jar or two I don't want it for a while.  It is a natural probiotic too.

[dair]

I used to be a huge coconut fan, especially as a vegan, and also even later as an omnivore, but feel I can't stand it anymore.
Coconut is great for hot climates where one feels slow and heavy because of the heat, it is energising, but it is not satisfying for me in colder weather, on the opposite, it is cooling and stressing and does not fit me in the winter. It feels like empty calories is some way, and I do not feel satisfied anymore with it. I rather eat less fat but, but from local/temperate sources, which gives me a much more satisfying feeling. I can eat a lot of coconut(fat/oil/cream, etc) and still not feel satiated.
In very hot climates it is a great food, but not in cold, in my opinion.