Himalayan Goji Berries

Goji berries (Lycium barbarum) are the most nutritionally dense fruit on Earth. They are a member of the nightshade family (Solonaceae), which contains many other common vegetables such as potato, sweet potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper, as well as some poisonous plants like belladonna and deadly nightshade. Native to the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet and Mongolia, the goji berry is now grown in many other countries as well.

Although they have only been introduced in Western countries in recent years, gojis have been used for thousands of years in Tibet and China, both as a culinary ingredient and medicinally.

Unique among fruits because they contain all essential amino acids, goji berries also have the highest concentration of protein of any fruit. They are also loaded with vitamin C, contain more carotenoids than any other food, have twenty-one trace minerals, and are high in fiber. Boasting 15 times the amount of iron found in spinach, as well as calcium, zinc, selenium and many other important trace minerals, there is no doubt that the humble goji berry is a nutritional powerhouse.

This amazing little superfruit also contains natural anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal compounds. Their powerful antioxidant properties and polysaccharides help to boost the immune system. It’s no wonder then, that in traditional Chinese medicine they are renowned for increasing strength and longevity.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the goji is said to act on the Kidney and Liver meridians to help with lower back pain, dizziness and eyesight. They are most often consumed raw, made into a tea or extract, or as an ingredient in soups.

Gojis are most commonly available in dried form, and make a great snack eaten as is, added to trail mix, muesli or oatmeal. They can also be soaked for a couple of hours in enough water to cover them. Then the soak water can be drained off and makes a delicious drink, or both water and berries added to smoothies.

Please note that there can be adverse interactions if you consume goji berries while also taking medication for diabetes, or blood pressure, or take the blood thinner warfarin. So be sure to consult your health care provider if that is the case.

Gojis can often be found in Asian food stores, but most of these come from the commercial growing regions of China and Tibet, and contain high levels of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Even some brands which claim to be organic may not be, so be sure to source your goji berries from a reputable source.

Based on all the information that’s been gathered during that time, the report concludes that these frankencrops have done little to increase overall crop yields.

While Big Agriculture has touted that GMO crops will save the world, the report says they are largely failing to do so. GE (Genetically Engineered) soybeans have not increased yields, and GE corn has only marginally increased yields. While corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years overall; that hasn’t been the result of GE traits, but due to traditional selective breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.

The report says that organic and other methods that use reduced amounts of fertilizer and pesticides compared to typical industrial crop production generally produce yields comparable to those of conventional methods for growing corn or soybeans.

Non-transgenic soybeans in recent low-external-input experiments produced yields 13 percent higher than for GE soybeans.

So why does Big Agriculture continue to push the GMO envelope if this is the case? It’s all about control – these companies through their tinkering own the species they create - they are patented.

These frankencrops can then infect traditional crops (that they don’t own). When this happens, they in effect own that crop too. That is beyond frightening and if you think this view is rather paranoid, there are documented cases of this “infection” happening and then the farmer (who is the victim) is then sued for infringing on the company’s patent.

I mentioned a short while ago about the situation regarding our vanishing food crops. Companies pushing GE crops want to see this happen. Control the food, control the world. All the environmental issues aside, this alone is a good enough reason to ban GMO crops.

While that’s not likely to happen, we can do our bit to preserve traditional food crops by planting gardens with heritage and heirloom seeds.

You can read the entire Union of Concerned Scientists report “Failure To Yield” here (PDF).

Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
Green Living Tips is an online resource powered by renewable energy offering a wide variety of earth friendly tips, green guides, advice and environment related news to help consumers and business reduce costs, consumption and environmental impact .

Dogs pick up more toxins than we do

I was fortunate enough to find Dr Karen Becker, holistic wellness veterinarian who publishes so much great information about taking care of our pets in a natural, healthy way. I found her on Facebook and asked her what I could do to help my dogs avoid or neutralize these chemicals. She came back very quickly with an answer:

…if you haven’t watched my “how to avoid summer chemicals” video (or a title similar to that I’d recommend it. In a nutshell: rinse your dogs off ALOT, give milk thistle daily and also consider chlorella, if you think your water also affected. This is what I do for my pets. I live “green,” but I am surrounded by farms that spray and it all ends up in my pond…the lowest point in the community.

Here’s the video for everyone who’s interested. She makes the really good point that your animals can still be exposed to toxic chemicals even if you don’t use them. This is exactly what’s happened in our case, and it’s so important for animal guardians to realize because of course, these chemicals not visible and it’s not always obvious where they have been used.

If you have pets, and want to keep them healthy too I’d recommend connecting to Dr Karen Becker on Facebook, searching for her on the Mercola YouTube channel or following her on the Healthy Pets area of the Dr Mercola website.

Heirloom Purple Cauliflower

I’ve been meaning to write an article on this topic for a while now, but I’ve just come across an article on Dr Mercola’s site that does a great job of addressing the question, I’d like to share some of it with you, as well as some of my recent experiences with pesticides.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Pesticides and Your Health

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 90 percent of fungicides, 60 percent of herbicides and 30 percent of insecticides are known to cause cancer.

Lab studies also indicate pesticides can cause other serious health problems, including:

• Infertility
• Birth defects, miscarriages and stillbirths
• Learning disorders
• Aggressive behavior
• Nerve damage
• Cancer of the breast, prostate and lymphatic system

Aside from concern about how “safe” a government’s pesticide safety standards really are, the EPA also provides this disclaimer: “You and your family have a right to know under the law that in certain cases, such as economic loss to farmers, a pesticide not meeting the safety standard may be authorized.”

This means you can reasonably expect during your lifetime that you and your family will be exposed to unsafe levels of pesticides in your food, even by EPA standards.

Vegetables and fruits aren’t the only foods contaminated by pesticides. Factory farm animals eat feed full of pesticides, and these toxins accumulate in their flesh over the course of their lifetimes. When you eat factory-farmed meat, you’re ingesting not only the pesticides from the flesh, but also antibiotics and hormones.

This issue has recently had a serious impact in my own life. I live on a 2 acre small holding, in the middle of commercial sheep farming country. Even though we are growing our heirloom fruit and vegetables organically, and buying in organic dry goods, household products and other things we don’t yet produce ourselves, we’ve recently been hit hard by the fallout (known as spray drift) from neighbors who use pesticides such as roundup. Our newly planted heirloom fruit and nut trees have leaf and blossom burn and are dying, our dogs were throwing up all their meals for 2 days, we have been very sick for 10 days and recovering, but still feeling the effects.

The amazing thing is that the neighbors who have done all this damage, did similar last year, after we had nicely asked them to take care with their agri-chemicals to ensure that they come onto our land. We had major damage in our vegie garden (the orchard wasn’t yet planted) and the yard around our house, we were sick for days.

I watched from a window in disbelief as our neighbor, who had appeared to be showing some consideration while we were watching, came right up to the boundary fence to spray thistles (which we had volunteered to grub out by hand for him), with the wind was blowing our way, just minutes after he saw our truck leave. We normally go together, to share driving He didn’t realize that only one of us had left. When he looked up from his spraying and saw me standing in our yard he quickly sped back home on his ATV, not to be seen again that day.

This same neighbor sprays these toxic chemicals, wearing absolutely no protective gear, sometimes from a machine that sprays jets up into the air not more than a meter behind his head.

Having watched a lot of people spraying pesticides in the 4 years I’ve lived rurally and noticing only very few with any protective gear on, I’ve come to the conclusion that in general the people using these toxic chemicals don’t believe there is any hazard involved. Makes sense doesn’t it? If you knew the consequences, would you spray these poisons on a regular basis with no attempt at protecting yourself?

Based on my experiences, and what I’ve witnessed, I really don’t trust that most of the people who are using pesticides/herbicides are going to bother to keep the usage within ’safe’ limits. They have no concept of the dangers, how can safety even be a consideration?

The more I live in the rural community, the more shocked and disgusted I am at the state of conventional, commercial farming practices that produces the food we put into our bodies.

I’ve always been an advocate of fresh, local, organic food. But I too have fallen into the trap of thinking, “it’s so much more expensive, I can’t afford it”. When I think about it now, I can’t help but feel deep regret at the damage I’ve already caused in my body. I try to just let it go, and move forward, but with a new, much stronger commitment to eat the absolute healthiest diet I can. And I can tell you, the difference is amazing!

Eating a raw, vegan, organic diet of freshly picked (you don’t get any more local than your own kitchen garden) fruits and vegetables, along with nuts and seeds and homemade fermented foods, I am experiencing a level of health that makes me realize what an adverse impact these pesticides and herbicides have on my mental as well as physical health.

Having been so healthy through my own efforts, and then getting exposed to these toxic chemicals via spray drift I’m seeing all those old symptoms come back. From the list above I definitely experience aggressive behavior, learning disabilities in the form of inability to concentrate, impaired memory, and inability to focus on and understand what I’m reading. I am convinced that much (if not all) of the aggressiveness, violence and craziness that we see so often in the world today is caused by the pesticides and other toxins we humans have put into the food we eat.

We humans may have no natural predators, but we are our own worst enemy.

If you care at all about your health, or your family’s health, and since you’re here I’m assuming that you do, I highly recommend reading of the entire article:
Most Vegetables and Fruits Have ‘Unacceptable’ Levels of Pesticides. After you do, you’ll be better informed to decide for yourself if organic is really worth it.

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Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar is said to be a natural remedy for many ailments. In 400 B.C.E Hippocrates (the father of modern medicine) knew about apple cider vinegar’s antibiotic properties and recommended it to his patients for its healing properties. Since then it’s been valued by many cultures right up to modern times.

Apple cider vinegar has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. Among the ailments it’s said to cure are allergies, acne, high cholesterol, joint pain, weight loss, rheumatism, arthritis, gout, dandruff, chronic fatique, candida, sore throat, gum infection, sinus infection, flu, acid reflux, leg cramps and ear infections. It’s also used to help dissolve kidney stones, lower high blood pressure, and it’s also been shown to help with type 2 diabetes by improving insulin sensitivity.

Even though vinegar is acidic, when we take apple cider vinegar it has an alkaline effect in our bodies. The fact that apple cider vinegar causes our pH levels to become more alkaline could play a large part in it’s curative properties. It also reacts to some toxins in our bodies, converting them into less toxic substances. Our bodies need a slightly alkaline pH balance to be healthy. The typical Western diet creates an acidic pH in our bodies, and many health problems are attributed to this. Taking a tonic containing apple cider vinegar can help restore alkalinity, and therefore assist the body in getting rid of some of the health problems listed above.

In researching the health benefits of apple cider vinegar I’ve found a lot of anecdotal evidence – stories from people of the beneficial effects of taking apple cider vinegar. There isn’t scientific evidence to back up all of these claims, but of course unless the studies have been done there won’t be. Lack of scientific evidence doesn’t imply that it doesn’t work.

There was at least one study done on the effects of apple cider vinegar which used acetic acid – the acid component of vinegars. Now, I’d argue that apple cider vinegar is more than just acetic acid. In fact, apple cider vinegar consists of both malic acid and acetic acid. Being made from apples it would also contain pectin, as well as potassium, which promotes cell and tissue growth. Apple cider vinegar also contains almost all the minerals, vitamins and trace elements that our bodies need. Which leads me to suspect that some of the studies that are being done are fairly worthless exercises in determining the value of apple cider vinegar if they aren’t actually using apple cider vinegar in the study.

Because science allows us to break things down into their component parts in order to understand how things work, I think too often scientists only see things as their component parts, missing the whole concept of the synergy found in nature. Everything has the potential to be more than the sum of its parts.

The health benefits of apple cider vinegar will vary depending on the ingredients and process used in making it. Commercial production can use wood shavings, and other vinegars as the base (speeding fermentation), changing the makeup of the end product. You’ll get the greatest health benefits from apple cider vinegar that is made from organic apples, fermented using traditional methods, raw (unpasteurised) and unfiltered. If you can’t find good quality apple cider vinegar you could try making your own. This apple cider vinegar recipe has recipes for two methods of production. The one which uses whole apples will be of better quality for medicinal purposes, the one using scraps is quicker to make. You could make both so that you have something to use sooner while you wait for the whole apple batch to ferment.

Be sure to avoid taking apple cider vinegar neat (undiluted) as it eats away at tooth enamel and can cause burns to the sensitive tissues in your mouth and throat. There have also been reports of apple cider vinegar supplements (in capsule form) causing permanent tissue damage of the esophagus. So use apple cider vinegar in liquid form, diluted with water.

A simple tonic can be made from 1-2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon honey in a cup of warm water.

Apple Cider Vinegar for Weight Loss and Good Health

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Mycologist Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe: cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu.

Jake enjoys a green smoothie

I recently came across this video about two women from my hometown of Portland, Oregon who have created a business to help people get started with growing their own food. Urban Farming. Now, I’ve been thinking for a while, even though we have 2 acres our current organic vegetable garden takes up a very small portion of our 2 acres and yet it supplies almost all our vegetable requirements. Which means that anyone with a bit of yard could be growing most or all of their own vegetables. Watching this video really confirmed that for me, and I think it’s great these two women, Robyn and Donna have started up a business to help people grow their own food.

A lot of people complain that they can’t afford to eat organic. I don’t have a lot of money either, but there are ways to eat better, and eat more organic food without spending a fortune. It’s such a great feeling to go grocery shopping and not get anything (except mushrooms) from the fruit and vegetable isle. And believe me, it’s the best tasting food ever! Eaten within minutes of harvesting, it’s so incredibly nutritious that I find I’m not eating as much but feeling more satisfied. Because I’m eating mostly raw foods, I’m also not losing as much nutritional value. So I’ve lost weight, without even trying and now I’m close to being back down to my ideal weight.

As a long time vegetarian who’s eating a mostly raw, vegan diet these days, including green smoothies every day, I alone eat a hell of a lot of vegies. But I’m not the only one being sustained by our garden. Suzi, who’s been doing most of the work on the garden, eats a wider range of food than I do, but she still eats copious amounts of vegetables. I make green smoothies and huge salads for both of us.

Flynn loves zucchini

The dogs (all 6 of them) often get green smoothies too. They love them! This summer we had an abundance of zucchini and I got my dehydrator just in time to dry lots. I cut the zucchini into slices (rounds) and dried them. I tried some on the dogs to see if they would eat them and they loved them! They would beg for them, these zucchini chips became a favorite treat. We had to make sure we locked them away because Flynn started stealing them off the shelf when we were out. Even Sam, the “ewww it’s green” girl loved them. Pip steals tomatoes and mushrooms any chance she gets. They all love apples, avocados and figs. The puppies (Jake and Zoe), initiated into a mostly vegetarian lifestyle early on, steal just about everything they can reach – today they were happily munching away on the Jerusalem Artichokes while I was right there in the kitchen with them, thinking they were still munching on the stalks of kale I had given them. At least I managed to intercept Jake and grab the fennel bulb as he was making off with it.

Flynn eating zucchini

We’ve had parsley, wild mint, apple mint, oregano, sorrel and marjoram all through the year. The rocket and arugula just keep producing, and the flavor has gotten more delicious as the winter has gone on. We had one goldenberry bush (a.k.a. Cape Gooseberry) that grew so huge and fruited so heavily that we couldn’t keep up. I used them in green smoothies through as it was fruiting and managed to freeze some. Recently I discovered that they are a superfood, also known as Golden Inca Berries. This summer I’ll be prepared and dry all that we can’t freeze or use fresh. All this and more from one relatively tiny patch of garden. And it beats mowing the lawn.

Your Backyard Farmer – Urban Farming At It’s Best

Think about it, you save money because you are growing your own. You get better nutrition and better flavor because they are super fresh, and organically grown. You get more variety than you can find in the stores because you choose what you grow, and if you choose to grow non-hybrid heirlooms (and I recommend you do) then the tastes are incredible compared to what you buy in a supermarket. You are helping the environment because the food you eat doesn’t have to be refridgerated and shipped 1500 miles to get to your plate (and that’s not a random number, it’s the average distance that the food on your plate had to travel to get to you). You’re getting exercise and sunlight (essential for producing Vitamin D and also helps with calcium absorption).

World In My Hands

I just found out about a survey the Federated Farmers of New Zealand (pro GM) are doing to gauge the public reaction to introducing GM foods into ‘clean, green’ New Zealand. Then only about an hour later I stumbled across this article, aptly named Just Another Reason to Grow Your Own Food

Most of us who care about our health know that GM food have to be bad news, but until now I didn’t know that any studies had been done into exactly what effect they can have. Here’s what one study has found.

Then, a week later, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine dropped a bombshell study which states, “GM foods pose a serious health risk.”

The AAEM paper also notes, “Multiple animal studies have shown that GM foods cause damage to various organ systems in the body.”

“Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions,” the study suggested. Because GM foods are not identified it is impossible to match a person’s consumption to any symptoms of illness.

Although many organic food manufacturers source non-GM foods and say so on their labeling, in most countries there are no laws making food manufacturers, or even produce growers for that matter, label their food as being genetically modified. Yet it’s clear that GM foods do present a serious health risk. So what’s the difference between smoking cigarettes (which may also cause organ damage, specifically lung damage) and eating GM food? Cigarette packages are plastered with warnings pointing out the health risk, yet GM foods don’t even have to be labeled as such. That’s just crazy.

Smoking cigarettes is optional (even though it may not feel that way to those addicted), but eating food is not. We have to eat. We can choose what type of food we eat, but how can we avoid GM food if we don’t even know what has been modified?

We know that soya and corn are ‘popular’ crops to genetically modify, but now they are trying to introduce GM wheat as well. Have you ever noticed how almost every packaged food these days seems to have a warning on the label that it may have been processed on equipment that also processes peanuts, shellfish, soy, wheat, etc even though the food item itself doesn’t contain any of those ingredients? That warning is to protect the manufacturers in the event that someone with an extreme allergy to any of those products going into anaphalitic shock and dying after eating a packaged food product that in itself doesn’t actually contain any of those ingredients but may have picked up traces of these other foods.

This implies that food manufacturers either can’t or don’t clean their equipment well enough to ensure that there is no cross contamination of ingredients. So the same would apply to GM foods. Packaged foods that don’t themselves contain GM food could end up being contaminated by GM foods processed on the same machinery.

All the more reason to eat organic, natural foods that you prepare yourself, preferrably that you GROW yourself. For a lot of city dwellers it may be impossible to grow everything you eat. It may be a good strategy to buy local as much as possible from farmer’s markets where you can actually talk directly to the growers. Form relationships with them and ask them outright if they grow genetically modified seeds or plants. Try to find an organic Community Supported Agriculture project in your area. Consider growing your own herbs and salad greens in containers. If you do grow your own, be sure to use heirloom seeds which, by definition, will not be genetically modified or artificially hybridized.

For heirloom seeds, try Heirloom Organics. I’ll be putting together a list of more resources for growing your own and buying organic foods and I’ll update this page when I do.

Image: World In My Hands by bucielo

High Carb - Cinnamon Rolls

For decades we’ve been told that to stay healthy and slim we should eat a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that (all) fats are bad and carbohydrates are good. But now, with obesity at an all-time high and the number of people with diabetes soaring, it’s become apparent that this approach doesn’t work. The irony is that the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet is one of the major reasons why more people are overweight than ever before.

About Nutrients

At the most general level there are three basic kinds of nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates and fats. While proteins and fats are digested relatively slowly, carbohydrates digest and are absorbed quickly, releasing a surge of glucose into the bloodstream. This sudden rise in blood sugar triggers the release of the hormone insulin, whose job it is to lower the blood sugar level. The insulin works to lower blood sugar by removing it from the bloodstream and storing it as body fat. The resulting drop in blood sugar can trigger feelings of hunger, sleepiness or low energy, which many people respond to by consuming more carbohydrates. Which the body turns into more body fat. And so continues the vicious cycle that is almost guaranteed to contribute to weight gain.

Now I’m not advocating a high-fat diet here. Research into the nature of dietary fats and their effect on our health since the inception of the high-carb, low-fat diet was introduced has shown that the dietary fat issue is more complex than was originally thought. In fact, some fats are good for your health – essential even. It’s not so easy as thinking all fats are bad… some fats are essential for good health, some are good for us, some are bad and some are really bad for our health. And if you haven’t updated your information on dietary fats for some time, the good and the bad may not be what you think they are. But really, this is just a disclaimer, the whole dietary fats story is one for another article. Let’s focus on carbohydrates for now.

All carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the body. And while a small amount of glucose in the bloodstream is essential for healthy brain functioning and energy, eating a diet high in carbohydrates can easily push the blood glucose over the limit, thus triggering the insulin response which ultimately converts that excess glucose into body fat. But this doesn’t automatically mean that all carbohydrates are bad. While there are definitely some “bad” carbohydrates that don’t offer much in the way of nutritional benefits, there are other carbohydrates that contain many nutrients and fiber that’s essential for good health.

What Is The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index measures how much your blood glucose rises after eating a particular food and ranks these foods from 0 to 100 based on the results. You can find a listing of foods and their glycemic index in the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com.

Foods with a glycemic value of 70 or above have a high GI (glycemic index), these foods will cause a rapid increase in blood glucose and insulin levels. Foods that fall between 56 and 69 have a medium GI, and will cause a moderate rise in blood glucose and insulin levels. Anything with a GI of 55 or less will produce only a small rise in blood glucose and insulin, so these are the foods you want to strive to eat more of, while reducing your intake of high GI foods.

How Can A Low GI Diet Help?

A low GI diet can help to control your weight by controlling your hunger. Remember, it’s the sudden rise and fall of blood sugar that makes you crave more carbohydrates. If you can interrupt that cycle, many of your food cravings will disappear.

Processed foods, like white flour, pasta, white rice, and processed cereals rank high on the glycemic index. Since most of the nutrition and fiber have been processed out of these foods they contribute little in the way of nutritional benefits, and the high glucose hit they provide will be turned into body fat, so they are best avoided.

There are however, some high or medium GI foods that are healthy and contain important nutrients essential to a healthy diet. The trick here is to moderate your intake of these foods as well as combine them with low GI foods so that the overall result is on the lower end of the scale. As well as listing the GI of individual foods, the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com also includes some common combinations of foods. If you look up the individual components to see what GI they have and compare that to the combined GI, you’ll start to get a feel for how different foods can influence the total GI of a meal.

Cracked Coconut & Juice

Choosing A Coconut
First, a tip on choosing a coconut. If you find fresh coconuts in the shop, hold them up next to your ear and shake them. You should be able to hear the juice sloshing about inside. A fresh, mature coconut should have about a cup of juice. If you ever get an older coconut, you’ll notice that there’s not as much juice sloshing about, and it’s not as heavy (because the juice has dried up) as a fresher coconut.

Get The Juice Out

3 eyes of the coconut

There are 3 darker colored depressions (called ‘eyes’) on one end of a coconut. Make sure you have a good grip on the coconut and have it sitting on a hard surface, concrete or brick is ideal. Using a large, strong nail and hammer, pound the nail into one of the eyes. It’s pretty easy because the shell at those three spots is not a strong as the rest of the shell.

You should be able to break through the depression quite easily. Once you do, work the nail around in a circle to enlarge the hole. Make sure you pound the nail in far enough to pierce through the coconut flesh. Pierce the other 2 holes is the same way.

Now tip the coconut, holes down over a bowl or measuring cup and let the juice drain out. Make sure that air can enter through one or two of the holes, otherwise it will create a vacuum and the juice won’t be able to flow out.

Once you have poured all the juice out you can drink it, or set it aside to use in recipes, like my Coconut Rice recipe. It’s best to use it the same day if possible, and refrigerate if you are not going to use it right away.

Cracking The Coconut

Cracked Coconut & Juice

You want to make sure you have a firm grip on the coconut. It will tend to move and bounce as you’re trying to crack it. If you have a heavy, 3-pound hammer it will make your work a lot easier. Otherwise using the heaviest hammer that you have, hold the coconut in one hand and hit the shell with the hammer. You want to hit directly down on the shell, with a hard surface like concrete underneath it. Turn the coconut and try again from a different angle. Just keep working like this, at some point you will find a weak spot and the shell will crack. Once you have a crack in the shell, keep hammering along the crack to widen it.

Ideally, you want to break the shell into at least 3 pieces. This will make it easier to get the coconut flesh out.

Getting The Coconut Flesh Out Of The Shell

Prying A Strip Off

Take one of the pieces of shell, and holding it firmly use a strong butter knife to cut a line in the coconut flesh about a 1/4 inch (5mm) from one edge. The easiest way to do this is to hold the knife perpendicular to the coconut and push it into the flesh, then rock the knife back and forth a bit. Pull the knife out, move it along and do the same again until you have cut a line from edge to edge. Now insert the knife back into the cut line and rock the blade from side to side, prying the strip of coconut you have just cut. You’ll be able to pry the strip off this way.

Don’t worry if it looks like part of the shell is still attached. You can eat this, there is no noticeable taste to it. Just keep working strips like this until you have taken all the flesh off the shell. Experiment and you’ll get a feel for how wide a strip you can pry off. If you are having trouble, try working on a thinner strip of flesh.

Eating Your Coconut

Ready To Eat

I love eating the strips just as they are. But you can also grate the coconut for use in recipes. To grate it, just hold the strip on the brown side and using a fine grater, grate with the white side against the blade.

So that’s one way to crack a coconut. Tell me how you do it! Do you have any tips that make the job easier? Leave a comment and let me know.

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