Brown Coconut "WATER" is simply h2o

[RowanC]

For those who may not catch it on the other thread, I think this is important enough to have it's own thread.

Do not buy old brown coconuts thinking you're getting coconut water.
My produce manager told me that either the produce department themselves fill these coconuts with water to make them weigh more. They come into the produce department with very little fluid in them to begin with. It is a very common practice which for obvious reasons is not told to the public.

So Doe, sorry, but I disagree 100% with your statement that a coconut that sloshes more is a fresher coconut.

A coconut that sloshes more simply has had more plain old tapwater added to it by your produce guy.

Besides, the liquid in true organic mature coconuts is 'milk' not water and is thick and sweet, not thin and watery.

Look at the coconut CAREFULLY before you buy it.
If there is a hidden wax plug in one of the eyes, pass it by.

Sometimes they use a hypodermic type device which leaves no trace. They just put a tiny bit of brown wax in to hide the hole.

Sorry... your best bet is to find young Thai coconuts or bypass coconuts altogether as more and more of our food supply is tampered with.:eek:

[Doe]

Rowan,

This would be reason enough for me not to shop at that store again. If one of the eyes is waxed over please do not buy the coconut - it has been tampered with. There could be anything has been added, including durgs, poison, bleach ... It would be the same as buying any sealed package that had been tampered with.

It must depend on where a person lives. I have never seen a waxed over eye. This statement is coming from 49 years experience with mature coconuts. However, I do live in FL where coconuts are grown about 6 hrs away. There is always a soft eye, that is natural. It is where the sprouting tree first breaks through.

When using a mature coconut I always poke an ice pick through the soft eye to drain the water before cracking it. The eye has never been as soft as any kind of wax. It is still like wood, only softer than the other two eyes. The water found this way is natural coconut water. I have also had fresh mature coconuts that have never been in a store. They have at least a cup of natural coconut water.

The coconuts here do not have water added in the stores. They are fresh enough that the water has not all dried up yet. However sometimes they are older and have very little water or none at all. Thus I always shake and listen. The amount of water is the indicator used in this area. Those with no water (here) are usually starting to ferment.

I have picked them up from under the tree. The fresh ones have water. Those that have sat there do not.

In more distant areas - who knows?

Wow, that's a new one, really an incentive to buy only local produce.

teri

[jaurequi]

Doe,

your reason for editing is funny...so I have a question on clarity :D
Are you saying that fresh, untampered with brown coconuts do contain water and not necessarily this milky substance?
I've never had a coconut, myself, that had any kind of milky substance; however, coconut water is not 100% crystal clear either.

To read that coconuts have water added is very distressing; I would hope this would not be the case with organic coconuts, which is solely what I purchase.

Perhaps a call to or a discussion with the store owner, manager before purchase would help; I don't know.

Best,

[trinity082482]

How do they get the water into the coconut? Its hard enough getting the coconut milk out!

[Doe]

jaurequi, the liquid in a fresh, untampered with, mature brown coconut is called water. It is not milky looking at all. It is also not plain clear water.

It is like chopping tomatoes in the FP and putting them in a nutmilk bag to drain so that the tomatoes will not be watery. I do this to make fresh tomato sauce without using dried tomatoes. Anyhow, the water that drains off is not milky, it is somewhat clear, yet is obviously tomato water and not from a tap.

The same is true of coconuts. As they mature the white part gets thicker as the water separates from it. It has been said (here I believe) that some young coconuts have very thin white part and others have thicker. This is due to the maturity of the young coconut before picking from the tree. (Just like a human baby can be 1 day old or a year old and still be a baby. One has just grown more.) I have actually had young coconuts with no white part.

Coconut milk is the water and solid white part blended together and strained. It is very good imho. (the fiber that is removed looks like dandruff and has no flavor. I had thought of adding it to cookies and started saving it, but never did and finally just threw it away a few days ago.)

Coconut cream (the new butter) is the milk that has had the cream separated from the whey. It is thick, white, rich and just like one would expect cream to be. Only when refrigerated it becomes solid, unlike dairy cream. I do not know exactly how it is made commercially. I made my own by just letting the milk sit in the refrigerator several days undisturbed and it separated on it's own.

Coconut oil (the old butter) is expelled from the coconut in various ways. I prefer the Direct Micro Expelling (DME) method which allows pure virgin oil to be produced within one hour of opening the coconut.

I feel so bad about what is happening at the store RowanC spoke about. It may be fairly common in other places as well. It certainly is a sad thing that people are so deceptive.

teri

[RowanC]

Well, all I know is what the produce manager told me. Upon examining the coconuts in this and other stores for sale, there is a wax plug in many of them.

I would suggest a person speak directly with their produce manager.
I also wouldn't assume just because something is labeled organic these days that it is. Case in point: the huge, blemish free fruit from Mexico labeled "organic" which seems to not be the case.

Life used to be simpler.

[Doe]

Rowan, it makes perfect sense from a commercial point of view. Although I've never seen coconuts sold by weight, the water may keep them from going bad longer especially if it contains preservatives. The man certainly must have known what he was talking about. And you have noticed this to be true with the ones you have examined.

Even here I will look at each one very carefully. Such a thing is unlikely to happen here because we can get them fresh enough not to need that. It is a good thing you posted to warn everyone to look and ask questions.

We will all be eating local grown soon anyway if Monsanto and irradiation keep going the way they are. It will be the only way to feel somewhat safe about what we are eating.

Water in itself means the coconut has not gone bad. Now we will have to make sure it is the natural water that belongs there.

thanks again for the heads up,
teri

[Naiad]

Rowan, your story skeeved me out. I wonder if what your store and the others are doing is illegal :confused:

[jaurequi]

Thank you, Doe,

It occurs to me, while I've never experienced any waxy substance or other on or around coconut eyes, I have had some which are literally as soft as the inside flesh of a very ripe peach: literally, no give at all, and it struck me, at first, that it was rotten. None were, but it did give me pause.

Naiad, I second your concern; it certainly sounds like a sanitary issue, which would probably be disallowed, if not 'illegal.' I would report any store which admitted to this to the Department of Health Services, or whomever does the store inspections. Even stores not admitting; if I found these plugs or otherwise telling signs of tampering, it seems unconscionable, to not voice concern to authorities. Sounds like begging for contamination.
Needless to say, I'll be inspecting my coconuts more carefully from now on.

Best,

[RowanC]

Once I heard about this, I began inspecting coconuts at various chains like safeway, fred meyer, etc. And it's not uncommon.

Most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a regular eye and the wax eye until you stick something into it. The wax they use is very hard, like the type you do lost wax casting with, and is brown, just like the other eye. YOu can use your fingernail to scrape it to check.

Filling them isn't a problem at all with a fat needle type instrument.. same thing they use to fill all meats with water these days to make them heavier and "jucier" and I'm sure it is NOT illegal. Probably perfectly legal.. . why would the FDA care?

And by the way.. maybe it's a different variety of coconut but the organic coconuts I used to eat from my yard in St. Croix for 6 years as well as the ones growing in our yard in Miami had a thick, sweeter tasting "milk" in them, unlike the watery milk you get from the young Thai coconuts. NOthing like the junk you get in a can labeled "coconut milk"... not that thick or sweet, but certainly not clear watery fluid. Maybe it's semantics. Maybe it's a different variety. Maybe picking at a different time... ::shrug::

[Doe]

Thanks for the scratch test info. Must be a different variety. Hubby said in Costa Rica the pineapple is creamy in texture. The plant variety in the world is truly amazing.

Best I don't get started on the liquid content of dead flesh. It's truly repulsive.

teri

[jaurequi]

The liquid content of flesh. Oh, that sounds terrible. But, I guess, not any more disgusting than the bleaching of flesh that goes on.

If a produce or other person was injecting produce with something, that would constitute lawsuit. In fact, it would be a nice inquiry into where these "needles" came from, if that is what was used. If it comes from the meat department or is in any other way in contact with animal foods, there would be hell to pay, and not necessarily from "vegans"; in this scenario, it would have religious and other dietary implications.

Best,