How To | 4 Texas Sisters

Coconut Experiment

When we last processed coconuts at Shari’s house, we discovered that some of the coconuts turned different shades of pink, red, brown, and some didn’t.

I had 3 coconuts at home in the freezer, so I volunteered to do an experiment. Jennifer previously posted on why coconuts discolor during processing. She provided me with some Vitamin C tablets to use when I processed my coconuts.

I took the 3 coconuts & processed each one individually. As I peeled the meat from the shell, I set aside 1/2 of each – 1/2 processed normally & 1/2 processed soaking it in vitamin C. I labeled each tray – 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b. I dehydrated the regular coconut as soon as I sliced the coconut into flakes.

The other half, I soaked, for almost 24 hours only because I had other things going on at the time. After draining, I dehydrated this coconut. Each picture below is the treated coconut on the left and the untreated coconut on the right. To my surprise, I got the following results:

Coconut 1:

Coconut 2:

Coconut 3:

My deductive reasoning says that maybe we should soak our coconut in Vitamin C before drying to prevent browning – that is if you only want “pristine” white coconut or something close to it.

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.” – Don Marquis

Love always,

DebD

A Lesson on Dehydrating Coconut-Why Coconut Turns Pink or Reddish

by Jen_F | Coconut, How To, Jen_F, Musings

If you ever buy coconut and wonder why it might have a pinkish tinge to it, we learned what that’s all about this week.

To set the stage, we were supposed to be going to visit our mother, but that got postponed. So, our main activity for the sister’s get together this month was MORE COCONUTS (oh and Deb hemming Ryan’s new pants for his first job)!

Shari purchased 12; Deb and I brought a total of 9. One of the 21 was bad, bad, bad, so we ended up with 20.

We did the regular process:

Extract the water from the coconut
Freeze over night
Crack the coconut
Extract the meat from the shell
Flake in the food processor
Dehydrate

During the dehydrate process, some of the flakes turned varying degrees of – from pink to rust red (looks brown in the picture, but that’s just the reaction to the flash on my camera). Some actually looked burned.

While we all guessed at what might be the cause, I finally did a bit of googling and found two sources that mention this strange phenomenon. We were fairly close in our guess(es) Here is what I got from Ask Dr. Coconut:

Occasionally you may purchase a coconut at the store and when you open it, you find the white meat or even the water has turned a red or pinkish color. At other times, this discoloration may develop after the coconut has been opened and has been sitting around for a time. This discoloration is more likely to happen the longer you keep the coconut and especially if it is not refrigerated.

At first thought you might think that it is mold or bacteria, but it is not. It is a natural chemical process caused by the oxidation of sugars in the coconut. When these sugars are exposed to oxygen they turn pink. Oxygen, temperature, duration of exposure, age, and sugar content of the coconut all play a part in this oxidation process. This is why some coconuts will turn color and others will not. Similar processes occur in other fruits as well. For example, when you slice an apple and leave it uncovered, the apple will turn brown. This is caused by oxidation.

If you put ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or lemon juice (which also contains vitamin C) on the apple it prevents it from turning brown. The same thing happens with coconut. Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant blocking the oxidation process.

In apples, as well as coconuts, this oxidation process is not harmful. You can eat a “browned” slice of apple without harm. Likewise, you can eat pink coconut without harm. I’ve done it and I’m still alive to tell about it. I know others who have eaten it without harm as well. Like with apples, the color does not affect the taste. If you don’t like the idea of eating pink coconut, then don’t, but it won’t hurt you.

http://www.coconutresearchcenter.com/hwnl_5-2.htm

None of ours showed any hint of discoloration until we started the dehydrating process. However, Deb, in all her ‘data /researching GREEN-NESS” is going to do an experiment using Vitamin C and will let us know the results, to include:

Will rinsing or soaking in vitamin C prior to dehydration:

Prevent the discoloration during dehydration
Affect the flavor of creating milk
Affect the flavor and/or texture of making Coconut Cream.

Stay tuned for the results…. in the meantime….. eat up… it does not affect the taste.

Til the next time…

You’re never too young or too old … So ……

Live Every Moment,

Love Beyond Words,

Laugh Everyday,

~Jennifer

Today’s BIG Discovery

by Jen_F | How To, Jen_F, Musings

Life certainly can be entertaining… and educational.

Deb and I were talking a while back about a theory she had been reading about that basically (my paraphrasing here) there are things all around us that we never see…. because we’re not looking for them.

Well, in real world life, I can attest to that theory as being at least partly true.

Granted, I went through a LONG phase of not using my stove top burners much, being the microwave queen, but after reading some stuff about how the microwave changes the chemical make up of things… I decided to drag out the ScanPan pots I have so carefully preserved (by not using) and put those puppies into action.

Now whether or not that thing about the microwave is true or not, as we become more natural in our eating, I think we tend to pay more attention, not only to WHAT we are eating, but to HOW we are preparing it.

But I bet you are waiting to find out what my revelation on the theory that things are around us that we never see, aren’t ya?

Well, here it is… The BIG discovery …

Did you know that there is a catcher under the burner and they rust?

Who knew?

Not me!

….. I made this brilliant discovery last week when I accidently flipped something out of the pan and down into the drip pan and things started smokin!!!!!! (Well, maybe I did know at S O M E point previously in my life….. but it wasn’t stored data).

I didn’t even realize it was called a drip pan until after some exhaustive searching on google and calling it oven burner trays, and other off the wall things that seemed to make sense to me at the time.

Now you may think,

“silly woman. At your age you ought to know these things”,

……but I believe we only have so much space for currently needed data and how my stove top works and all the parts necessary have NOT been on my need to know list…. Like I said – Until now….

After some research on google, as I mentioned before, I found out that I could simply buy replacement drip pans…..

Now the next question was:

Can this woman handle the formidable task?

Of course she can…. and here’s the results:

Oh of course, first the embarrassingly
rusted out front drip pan…. It’s beyond
me how I managed not to notice before.

Ah… the theory in action…
I wasn’t looking!!!!!

Followed by 4 brand new ones…

Hey! If you’re gonna do one… might as well do all –

Here’s the offending burner with brand new drip pan going in… (on the right)

And here’s the completed job below……. Stove burners tested and back in place

Oh, and C L E A N E D, too !!!!!!

Grrrrrrrr.

Mission accomplished !

Til the next time…

You’re never too young or too old to have fun … So ……

Live….. Laugh… Love …..

~Jennifer

Where Does Time Go?

by Jen_F | How To, Jen_F, Recipes

Yesterday, Mar 05, was oldest sister, Pat’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Pat

… and actually it wasn’t her birthday that made me realize time passes so quickly as much as it was that about two-three weeks ago Deb and I made more coconut concentrate and I never got that posted. LOL

We’d just gotten back from our week with Shari, stopped and picked up MORE coconuts (are we NUTS or WHAT?) and were determined to check out Deb’s new processor… I mean, really give it a work out.

We made the Sun Butter which I posted right away, then turned around and made up our concentrate the next day.

Just thought I would pass on the pictures of our process.

Here’s where we’ve started processing the coconut.