GENERAL COCONUT OIL FACTS:
The scientific name for the coconut tree is "Cocos Nucifera", which means coconut bearing.
Early Spanish explorers gave the name "coco" to the nut of the tree, an endearing name meaning "monkey face". This comes from the likeness of the "hairy nut" to head of a monkey, with the three indentations representing the eyes and the nose. So coconut really means "monkey face nut".
For thousands of years, civilisations from all over the world have used virtually every part of the tree for their livelyhood, hence it's local name: "The Tree of Life"
Pacific Islander Saying:
"He who plants a coconut tree, plants food and drink, vessels and clothing, a home for himself and heritage for his children"
Uses of the Coconut Tree
It provides meat, juice, milk and oil which have become staples in their diets. All of the edible parts of the coconut are nutritious and rich in fibre vitamins and minerals and have healing and well being properties.
The silt, which is left over from hand processing the oil, can be used for baking "Maccaroon" cookies and the coconut milk can be turned into vinegar and raw "nata" a liquid which is used in Japan, Korea and Taiwan in cooking.
The shells are made into an excellent charcoal for fires, the thick fibrous husk is used for kindling and more recently for packaging ( called "coir") and as an insulation material. The stalks on which the coconuts grow yield a sap called "toddy or tuba" which, when fermented, makes a powerful drink called "arrack"
The coconut palm fronds are a tough fibrous material and are used in construction as is actual tree trunk itself.
Even the meat left over from traditional coconut oil production is of value and is fed to animals as part of their diet.
Nearly one third of the world depends on the coconut tree for some part of their food or their economy.
Despite this, very few people in the world actually understand the vast ranging benefits to health and wellbeing that the coconut is capable of providing.
You can find many websites that highlighting coconut oil benefits. On this web site for example, you will find articles, research, books and health facts about the beneficial effects of coconut oil.
Coconut Oil Uses
Healing Oil
Around the world, over thousands of years, many diverse cultures have discovered the healing properties of the coconut and it's oil. Wherever the tree grows you will find people using it as a medicine. It's properties are far beyond that of it's nutritional content and far beyond that of any other dietary oil.
Coconut oil is the focus of major scientific research and it has been shown to have anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.
On the health page of this website you'll find much greater detail about the benefits of this healing oil.
Cooking Oil
Coconut oil is the best cooking oil available. It is a stable oil and it tollerates heat extremly well allowing it to be used in cooking more than once. In the west it has been used for many years for the cooking of french fries and adds a unique flavor to popcorn.
In other cultures it has been used for hundreds of years for deep frying, fish dishes and for curries. In fact in Asia almost everything is cooked using coconut oil.
On the "Tips and Freebies" page of this web site you'll find some great cooking tips.
A Few Other Products
The coconut oil is also used in the manufacturing of soap and of various cosmetics and health care products.
Coconut oil can also be used to make what is called "Biodiesel". This can be used to run diesel engines and in fact the diesel engine was orriginally designed to run on vegitable oil, not on petro chemicals.
Much research and testing has been done into the use of coconut oil as a fuel. It was used for fuel in the Phillipines during the second world war, in Bougainville-Papua New Guinea during a trade blockade and a coconut oil/diesel blend is currently being used in Vanuatu.
Coconut Oil Production
Copra Refined Oil
The old industrial way of producing coconut oil was from a product called "copra". Copra is still used today in mass production of coconut oil around the world, but is not suitable for human or animal consumption.
Copra production was invented in the 19th century and involves scraping the meat out of the coconut shell and leaving it to dry in the sun. The copra could then be stored for a long time before being used to make oil.
This was fantastic a couple of hundred years ago when sailing vessels were used to cargo the copra to large copra processing plants in different countries around the world, but modern scientific research has shown that it has significant setbacks.
Beacse the copra is always stored for long periods of time, this leads to contamination by mould which leads to rancidity in the oil content. The aged copra then has to be treated with caustic soda, which refines it and bleaches it and it is then heated at 400 degrees farenheit to deodorise it and make it edible.
This whole process destroys any of the beneficial properties of coconut oil and effectively makes it unsuitable for any consumption.
Additionally, copra is usually intensively farmed in coconut plantations ( as opposed to natural coconut groves) and persticides and fertilisers are used in the growing. Many of the old "plantations" suffer from disease and are dying off. This is particularly a problem in central america.
Hand Made Coconut Oil
All vigin coconut oil is made the old way by traditional processing called physical refining.
Coconuts are carefully selected from natural coconut groves and then split by hand. The meat is then taken from the shell and grated. The grated meat is then hand pressed and the liquid extracted. This liquid is coconut milk and is part water and part oil. The water is then separted from the oil by fermentation and mild heating and settling. The next step is a filtering and settling process which results in a pure Ultra Virgin Coconut Oil.
Because it is the only pressing of the coconut meat the oil is "virgin". All of the natural healing and welbeing properties of the oil are retained.
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