Moving towards Summer, it is now getting pretty warm in the Southern Hemisphere, “pretty warm” indeed… 34 degrees last Saturday and 35 degrees announced for Thursday!! :-) So it is only natural (and vital) to hydrate yourself – please hydrate yourself – we tend to sweat more in warm weather i.e. we loose water, sometime a lot. You’d be surprised but sweat rates for an adult can reach up to 2-4 liters per hour = 10-14 liters per day!!! Perspiration is a means for the body to regulate its temperature, and we need to make sure to compensate that loss of liquid by drinking, non alcoholic drinks that is! ;-) A majority of people go for a cold drink, usually with a sweet taste; I had to correct my typo “sweat taste”… yuk!! :)) So what comes to mind? Often the latest soft/energy drink advertised on TV, at your gym or sometime even at your Yoga studio (eek). Why? Because they say “it is good for you”. Yeah sure, I am so tired of hearing “it is good for you”, we hear it all the time, in advertising, from people’s mouth… As you would have guessed it, I am not generally an easy target or victim of big FMCG brands, I bypass most of their commercial claims, especially when they touch on one of my sacred topic: FOOD. With coconut water**, I thought I’d investigate a little because surely pure coconut water (in its rawest form that is) is good for you but how good exactly? Does it have any “super properties” that make it above all other fruits and veggies? So I have read a few articles and they all appear to share similar views. The article that summarizes it all up pretty well is sourced from the (American) Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website www.eatright.org, which seems to be a fairly reliable source of information as the organization’s members are all food and nutrition professionals, have a read. As kind of expected, coconut water it not that “special”, it seems that its nutritional benefits are often over-rated.

What I and hope you too will retain about coconut water:

• It is a fashionable drink at the moment.
• It is a good source of potassium but nothing that a banana or potatoes cannot beat.
• Minerals and antioxidants are best found in fresh food and calcium in milk.
• Some brands of coconut water are marketed as “sports drinks” claiming to be a low-cal way to replace the electrolytes lost in sweat. While potassium and sodium do need to be replaced after heavy exercise, people who go to the gym for an hour or so won’t lose enough to require a special drink and regular tap water works just fine to rehydrate. Plus some sports nutritionists say the sodium in coconut water isn’t enough for serious athletes, the ones who sweat hard ;-)
• It is a bit of a costly hydratation exercise.
• If plain water doesn’t sound too appealing and/or you feel like a sweet but healthy treat, go for a coconut water. It is much lower in sugar, calories and other artificial additives than a processed fruit juice or other soft-drinks, but go for the unflavoured one. Even better, prefer a fresh coconut from the market and drink directly from the fruit itself rather than buying a commercial coconut water in a plastic bottle or tetra pack. Big bonus: you also get to eat the delicious and tender coconut flesh! But remember that coconuts are imported, they do have a carbon foot print…

SO, if you are health, environment & budget conscious, stick with drinking plain water (we are lucky enough to have it available straight from the tap here), eat local fresh fruits and vegetables AND leave your coconut water treat for you to enjoy on your next holiday in the Tropics, you’ll appreciate it even more and it will certainly be so much cheaper!! Q.E.D… ;-)

If you would like to read more on the subject, here is another good article published on choice.com.au.

** Coconut water is the liquid that is found inside young coconuts before they mature, at which point the water solidifies to form the flesh of the coconut.