Today’s recipe is my super easy coconut milk. Coconut is an excellent dairy substitute. One of its many manifestations is in milk form, which is especially good if you’re intolerant to cow’s milk.
Coconut milk is high in medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) and saturated fatty acids. Both are easily burned as fuel by the body, but MCT’s are particularly beneficial in that they don’t require bile acids for digestion because they’re directly shunted to the liver via the portal vein.
You can buy prepackaged coconut milks, but many of them are fortified with folic acid, vitamin A, and vitamin D2, a form the body doesn’t recognize, and they also contain thickening agents that are often not well tolerated such as carrageenan and guar gum.
You should be especially concerned about folic acid. If you’re an undermethylator, it’s essential to keep folic acid/folate to an absolute minimum.
Regarding thickening agents, carageenan appears to be the worst offender, but I also have clients that don’t respond well to guar gum either. Personally, I do fine with Native Forest organic coconut milk (Native Forest comes in a BPA-free can), but I still prefer making my own.
Coconut Milk Ingredients:
- 2 cups organic shredded or frozen coconut (I like Let’s Do Organic brand shredded coconut and Exotic Superfoods frozen coconut meat. Steer clear of bulk bins, you don’t know how long they’ve been sitting there).
- 4 cups hot water
- Blender (high speed preferred)
- Large glass bowl (I like to use an 8 cup pyrex measuring pitcher)
- Large stainless steel fine mesh strainer (to put on top of the pitcher)
- Pinch sea salt
- Vanilla beans (optional)
- Cinnamon (optional)
- Sweet Leaf liquid vanilla cream drops (start with 1 dropper and increase to desired taste level, optional)
Coconut Milk Instructions:
- Heat water on the stove to boiling
- Add to blender
- Add coconut
- Blend on high for 2 minutes
- Pour into strainer that sits on top of the pitcher
- You can also use a nut milk bag, but I find all that squeezing to be really annoying so I prefer a fine mesh strainer.
- Strain milk and store in the refrigerator. If using other ingredients, add them and pour back into your blender, then give it a whirl for a few minutes on low.
Milk will last 4 days in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!
As always, let me know how it turns out in the comments below!
4 Responses
Your recipes for home made options like rice and coconut milks are great! So much better than the processed options.
But I hope you can help me with something regarding: “MCTs are particularly beneficial in that they don’t require bile acids for digestion, and they’re directly shunted to the liver via the portal vein”.
Can you please explain why this is beneficial? I’ve seen this quote all over the internet, always regarding the benefits of coconut, but no one offers any further explanation.
Are bile acids not created by everyone as part of regular bile production? If MCTs are shunted to the liver via the portal vein does this also mean lipase enzymes would not be needed for MCT digestion? Could someone with pancreatic insufficiency who cannot produce enzymes needed to digesting fat handle MCT oil?
Your help would be so greatly appreciated!
So nuts are high in folates but is coconut?
I am lightheaded so I made a mistake and meant to say high in copper. (Maybe both?)
Coconut is high in copper. This recipe is not appropriate if you have copper overload.