Coconuts. Are they a miracle food?
In a small package the coconut provides high-calorie food, drinkable water, fibre for rope, and a shell that can be turned into charcoal. What’s more it also serves as a handy flotation device. The real Bear Grylls of food.
In the UK most of us meet our first coconut at the village fete or the circus when it comes to town. After many a throw and quite a few 50p coins (all for a good cause) we are presented with our hard shelled prize. Later, after Dad has probably damaged his fingers with a hammer, we are allowed its juice (not so tasty) and its flesh (not tasty either). For young kids an ice-cream would be a much better memory of the day.
Later in life we are often lucky to meet coconuts in their local habitats, but probably more likely to bump into them at the Body Shop with its wide range of creams, butters, oils and milks and we drink, relatively expensive, coconut waters, available in health stores like Holland and Barratt and Planet Organic. A few of us even love Bounty bars!
Websites extoll seemingly limitless uses and benefits of coconuts. 29 clever uses include skin protection, increase metabolism, improve your teeth, bones and brain function, fight infections, natural deodorant, stain remover and the list goes on.
To us this seems improbable, especially since the nut (they can be classed as a nut, seed or fruit!) is unglamorously brown and known to cause death by falling on one’s head. However the legend Gywneth Paltrow and trend setting Kourtney Kardashian have helped push UK coconut sales from £1m to over £16m.
We know how great coconut oil is for cooking. A spoonful can transform our meals much for the better.
At Zing Foods we use organic refined coconut oil, blended with our unique spice recipes to create our Spiced Up range. No coconut taste, just exceptional flavour.
When using moderate heat the coconut oil slowly melts (behaving very much like butter) releasing its spicy flavours. As we said before, add early in your cooking and the oil adds flavour, use later and aromas are released
Being solid at room temperature is great for long-life and storage (but means not great for vinaigrette or as a finishing oil).
With so many cooking oils available, we couldn't understand why there was not a flavoured coconut oil? When we couldn't find a reason why not, we decided to develop our own range.
After many months of sourcing the best spices, creating our unique recipes, trialling recipes, so many enjoyable tastings, refining the flavours and all the necessary lab testing we are thrilled to launch our first three products!
Smoky Paprika
Zingy Cardamom
Mello Turmeric
Aromatic Lemongrass
With more exciting flavours on their way.
Check out the recipes page to create some great meals.
Credit to James Maclay Original Author
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