Coconuts and fat content

[miachris]

I'm only a few days all raw (except for coffee, which I'm working on) and craving coconuts like crazy. I'm sure it has something to do w/ needing it's nutrients. My only concern is the fat content. I'm having enormus difficulty losing weight due to medical reasons and am a bit worried.

I'd love any input on coconuts and nutrient values (i can't find this info on the web anywhere)

Thanx a bunch :)

[Gosia]

I believe that one young coconut has about 9g fat (according to one post at vegsource forum). It would be good if someone could confirm this. I am curious myself.

Gosia

[miachris]

Gosia,

Thank you soooo much for sending me the link to "Dying to Get Well" by Shelly Keck. I read the whole thing last night and didn't sleep at all because I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was like reading my life story!

Also, I checked out your website and love it!

Take care :)
miachris

ps - will i gain weight if i eat coconuts everytime I crave them?

[Lunar*Fey]

Miachris,
I just wanted to say that I have heard of people on RAW who lose weight on a moderate fat diet, even when they really aren't trying to. I mean I have heard of people who ate all gourmet stuff and lost uneeded weight but when they started eating more mono-ish and more carbs with less fat they leveled out again. So i just mean to say that in the case of raw it doesn't seem to be that fat makes you fat. Of course HUGE amounts of fat daily would probably not be healthy...but I just mean that fat doesn't seem to always be the culprit when it comes to not losing weight. Sorry this was a bit off topic, just wanted to share. I hope I have helped in some way :)

[Gosia]

You are most welcome. Yes, I find the story a total inspiration too! Thanks for your warm words. I do not believe that you would gain weight from eating coconuts. I've been actually craving young coconuts myself! Recently, my husband and I have been having them for dinner on daily basis. We use four coconuts for the two of us (making a smoothie by blending the flesh and milk). I love the warm, fuzzy feeling they give me. Mmm mmm mmm. And, I have been noticing that I have been actually loosing some fat. I have been raw for about 3 years. The first year was easy, the second was a struggle, and more recently I've been progressing further. Although I look slim, I still have excess fat on me. It's not much, but I know it has to go, it's a normal process of detoxing. It has not gone yet, because of my cooked food relapses. But recently, I have been noticing an improvement. My recent eating pattern has been sweet juicy fruit all day and young coconuts in the evening.


Gosia

[ambiguous]

Coconut fat speeds up your metabolism--i.e. helps you to lose weight, not to mention lots of other great benefits. There's an article here: http://www.beyondhealth.com/coconutoil.htm
but you should look around for yourself for info.

And the boxes at the stores I buy young coconuts from usually say 9 or 10 grams of fat each, but one brand said 5. I'm sure it depends on the size of the coconut and the thickness of the flesh. I don't know how "mature" coconuts measure up.

[madmel]

Gosia,

I am curious about Shelly Keck, would you mind posting the link?

Thanks,
Mel

[miachris]

Here you go madmel,

http://abcinternetmarketing.com/dtg...wfoods/DTGW.pdf

let me know what you think.

Take care :)
miachris

[madmel]

Here you go madmel,

http://abcinternetmarketing.com/dtg...wfoods/DTGW.pdf

let me know what you think.

Take care :)
miachris

Thanks miachris,

unfortunately I cannot open the pdf, I get an error message. Might be due to me living in China :o

Thanks anyway,
Mel

[rawnora]

It's true what others have said about raw fat not making you fat. Fat is an important part of a transitional diet because it slows down the cleansing process and keeps cravings tolerable. Without it, a person risks becoming overwhelmed by feelings of loss and deprivation and going back to much worse foods than raw fats. Since fats slow down cleansing, they also slow down healing. But the transition process is going to be extremely difficult without them, and most people end up going in and out of cooked food when they try to transition without fats. Hills and valleys are much harder psychologically than steady, slow progress and it's tougher on the body than just keeping raw fats in the diet. Plus it keeps weight on because during the times when a person is eating cleanly, the bodily membranes through which nutrients are absorbed become more functional and permeable. This means that when a person goes back to cooked food, it is absorbed more readily into the bloodstream and tissues, and weight gain is often the result. This can happen even when cooked food is eaten infrequently.

Coconuts may be higher in fat than fruits on average but their fat content is much lower than that of other nuts or seeds. Their water content and un-tampered-with nature makes them a wonderful food, much easier to digest than even soaked nuts. A much greater contributor to body fat, btw, is starch -- grains (the worst), potatoes, yams, carrots, corn, etc. Starch is nature's fuel-storage facility. Anybody trying to lose weight would actually do well to replace starch in the diet with fats.

The raw method of losing weight is more about healing than just having pounds disappear, which can happen on very unhealthy diets. To heal, all we need to do is eat the foods which are easiest to digest. Healing allows the body to normalize its ability to carry just the right amount of reserve fuel (fat), so this is what is needed whether a person is carrying too much or too little. If a body has carried excess weight for a very long time, it may take up to a couple years or more for it to normalize, so great patience is required.

Best wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[rawfigure]

Thanks Nora, nice post, weel spoken and I believe this wholeheartedly !

[startootsie]

Do sprouted grains have the same effect on your weight? Cause you were saying grains would make you gain weight, if you sprout them does it change at all?

Thank you!

[Helen Of Tennessee]

Hi Miachris,

I went to http://www.nutridiary.com and found:

The water part of the coconut has:
- 75% Carbs, 15% Protein and 9% Fat.

The meat of the coconut has:
- 16% Carbs, 4% Protein and 80% Fat.

[Helen Of Tennessee]

Hi Startootsie,

I have stopped eating a lot of the foods that are bad for me, but grains are the hardest for me to give up. I do give them up for periods of time and when I do, I lose weight very easily. Then I'll start to eat them again and the weight stops falling off and if I eat too many of them, the weight comes right back up. I'm amazed at how grains seem to be the key to my weight.

I have no idea about soaking and sprouting them. I've never done that and don't plan on it. I just want grains out of my diet totally! Maybe someone will have an answer for you pertaining to sprouting them.

After reading Grain Damage by Dr. Doug Graham and reading the following articles, I have choosen, for me anyway, not to continue to eating them (which I can break the addiction):

Grains and Lentils
http://chrysalisyog.homestead.com/grains.html

Wheat is a Drug
http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/wheat.html

Reduce Grains and Sugar to Lose Weight and Improve Health
http://www.mercola.com/article/insulin.htm

Grain Damage by Dr. Doug Graham
http://www.foodnsport.com/fsstore/ProductDetail.php?product_id=93

Improving on Pritikin (161 pages)
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020149imp.on.pritikin/020149imp.on.pritikin.pdf

[rawnora]

Startootsie,
Sprouting converts some of the starch in grains to sugars, cellulose and other nutrients, which makes them more digestible. I think anyone wanting to lose weight would do well to get grains out of the diet completely, however, because they will still be a source of starch that will stall or impede weight loss. The only reason to keep them in would be if doing without them causes the person to lose control and eat worse things.

Beyond what we know about their indigestible make-up, further evidence that sprouted grains are not human food can be derived by imagining yourself in a scenario where you have the choice between crawling on the ground to collect enough sprouts to make a mouthful and reaching up to pick the fragrant, sweet fruit hanging from the trees. For most people, it's hard to imagine choosing sprouts over the fruit. Our bodies are exactly the same as those of our ancestors, who used their senses to guide their food choices. They ate what looked, smelled, tasted and felt good. We should do the same, imo.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[eatyourbroccoli]

ps - will i gain weight if i eat coconuts everytime I crave them?
i eat avocados daily..at least 2 tablespoons of ground flax seeds daily..and dont limit myself on nuts unless my digestion is being sluggish.

im 5'10 and my weight has stabalized around 137-143 toned down from 153 flabby haha

my personal experience is "no"

[paleogirl]

Eating fat does not make you fat! Grains make you fat. When farmers want to fatten up pigs, what do they feed them? Grains.

Also, ambiguous is dead right about coconut fat actually speeding up the metabolism. It's awesome stuff. Eat all that you want! :)

[Vandy]

The nutritional information for young coconuts is on www.deliciousorganics.com... hope that helps

[Spectatrix]

Thanks miachris,

unfortunately I cannot open the pdf, I get an error message. Might be due to me living in China :o

Thanks anyway,
Mel
No, the link was just broken (copied and pasted with ellipses in it... happens all the time on forums). I dug up the full link, here it is: http://abcinternetmarketing.com/dtgw/ebook/free/rawfoods/DTGW.pdf

[Lay-Lay]

if you crave them eat them. Don't worry about fat and calories. Free yourself of all of that counting. I eat anywhere between 1500-3000 calories a day depending on what foods I am in the mood for. They are all raw. I have lost 23 pounds in 47 days.

[RawFoodieMom]

Great thread. :)

What is the difference between young coconuts and the mature coconuts (those brown fuzzy things that are abundant). I'm having trouble getting young coconuts and have not purchased any of the brown ones because I thought they were not the best thing nutritionally to be eating? Am I wrong? Are the mature ones still okay to eat when RAW or is it better to leave it off the list?

[dreamrawalwz]

Coconut fat speeds up your metabolism--i.e. helps you to lose weight, not to mention lots of other great benefits. There's an article here: http://www.beyondhealth.com/coconutoil.htm
but you should look around for yourself for info.

And the boxes at the stores I buy young coconuts from usually say 9 or 10 grams of fat each, but one brand said 5. I'm sure it depends on the size of the coconut and the thickness of the flesh. I don't know how "mature" coconuts measure up.

Does avocado fat do the same thing at all? Unfortunately I can't have coconuts.

[shadow]

Anyone have any input on coconut oil? I keep hearing about how good it is for you and have been using it lately but I recently discovered that there's 12 grams of saturated fat in a serving of the Spectrum brand which is what I've been using.

[Mermaid]

Hello, the coconut is your friend. Eaten in it's raw state it will supply you lasting energy. Raw fat is different than cooked fat in that it won't stick to you if that's what you're worried about. Raw fats actually help you lose weight because they break up lipids on our bodies. If we are cutting back food intake raw fats will help us lose the weight we want.

[Sharon in Colorado]

I believe there is more fat in the mature-Gilligan's-Island-brown-hairy-coconuts than the Young Thai coconuts with the pointy tops. I am not sure what the exact difference in fat is, but I can definately taste it - the mature ones have a very oily taste while the young ones taste more watery.

So when you are using things like dried shredded coconut, you would be getting more fat than, say, using the jelly-like flesh of the young coco in your recipes.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when you use the dried coconut from mature nuts, many times all the water content has been dried out of it, either from a high heat process or your dehydrator because of your recipe. So when the water is drawn out, the fat content will naturally go up.

If you were to use the young coconut flesh in a recipe that calls for freezing or chilling, then that water content will remain the same.

When you are talking about coconut oil and butter, that is pure fat, and has the same or very similar content to any type of oil or butter.

[Sharon in Colorado]

Hello, the coconut is your friend. Eaten in it's raw state it will supply you lasting energy. Raw fat is different than cooked fat in that it won't stick to you if that's what you're worried about. Raw fats actually help you lose weight because they break up lipids on our bodies. If we are cutting back food intake raw fats will help us lose the weight we want.

I'm just curious where you heard of that statement. That has been written here before and I really don't think there is any validity to it. I don't think fat is bad in itself, but too much fat in the diet is harmful whether cooked or raw.

http://www.justeatanapple.com/rawfat.html