Ubiquitous in the tropical world, long a symbol of beaches, vacations, and South Pacific fantasies in the developed world, the coconut possesses undeniable iconographic power. Along with the graceful swaying palm trees the coconut grows upon, it is an image, a commodity, and an idea that just about everybody in the world is familiar with.
The coconut is also, as it turns out, one of the single most potent health foods on the planet. For countless reasons, this simple, round, tropical nut that grows in green clusters beneath the fronds of tall, elegant coconut palms, has emerged as the go-to food for good health. Some call it miraculous in its healing and healthful qualities.
Naturally, there are about a million coconut trees in and around Sayulita. Well, a few thousand, anyway. You can buy coconuts whole from countless roadside stands or off the backs of trucks or even from guys wheeling them around in barrows or wagons. Coconut water is best cold, straight from a coconut pulled out of cooler full of ice. You can have the seller break out his or her machete, hack the thing open, stick a straw in it, and hand it over so you can drink the water fresh, directly from the fruit. You can buy the juice packaged, with or without sweetener added, but fresh is best. If you buy it fresh, you can also ask the seller to cut out the meat afterwards—they’ve developed a special tool for this–bag it, and sprinkle it with lime, chile, and other spices for a snack. The flesh itself has a very mild flavor, but it is a great vehicle for spices, and like the coconut water, great for your health. And as we all know from childhood cake boxes, dried and shredded coconut meat is a wonderful ingredient in many a cake.
Let’s backtrack a little. The scientific name is Cocos nucifera, and it was named coco, or monkey face, by the early Spanish explorers because the three indentations on the hairy interior nut resemble the eyes and nose of a monkey. All over the world, every part of the coconut—meat, juice, milk or water, and oil, have been used for food and medicine. In much of the tropical world, coconuts are the primary ingredient in the daily diet.
Anti-oxidant? Of course! Full of electrolytes? So much so that during WW II, doctors were able to siphon pure coconut water from young coconuts and use it as a replacement for blood plasma. It is as close to human blood, chemically speaking, as is possible. The anti-oxidant qualities of coconuts make them suitable for lowering cholesterol, improving digestion, stabilizing glucose levels, fighting off viruses, fighting infections of all kinds, and…well, there are people in Sayulita who believe that coconut water is the purest water on earth, purer than “real” water, since it has been filtered through the fibrous shell over a period of 9 months. The water is pure and sterile, with the highest concentration of anti-oxidants of any fluid found in nature. The oil is great for cooking and baking, and for massage or simply enhancing the natural health of the skin. When used in cooking, coconut oil works in the opposite way of most vegetable oils, since the unsaturated fats found in most oils slow metabolism, tending to increase body weight, while coconut oil increases thyroid function and boosts metabolism—thus helping to decrease body weight. Except of course if you eat it in the form of coconut cream pie, but that is one coconut product which has very little to do with the source.
Coconuts are believed to have migrated naturally, on ocean currents (they can last for months floating at sea), from their origins in south Asia, reaching the tropical islands of the Pacific, Latin America, and elsewhere around the world. However they got here, the trees and nuts are certainly a ubiquitous presence on the coasts of Mexico; you can buy fresh coconuts at any of a thousand roadside stands, off the back of a truck, or even from a guy who has climbed a tree, machete in hand, to hack down the bunches of coconuts up there swaying in the breeze.
A note of caution: those guys up there hacking off clusters of coconuts are not only doing it to gather the nuts. You’ll see them hard at work, especially in the gardens surrounding houses and hotels. Eventually, if not hacked off, those coconuts will mature and fall. A rock-hard, five or seven pound coconut falling 80 feet from the top of a palm tree—well, that hits you on the head, you’re dead. Seriously. I didn’t live here at the time, but a visitor was killed by a falling coconut right here in Sayulita several years ago. So—aside from drinking the water and eating the fruit–should you happen to be staying in a place with coconut palms around, look up and make sure that the coconuts have been removed. Death by falling coconut probably ranks right up there with being struck by lightning, as far as the odds go, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
Now you know where not to pitch your tent or spread your beach blanket.
All kidding about death by coconut aside, this is a remarkable food source, and one that you should definitely sample while visiting Sayulita.
