[www.rawlife.com]

okay, so.... i know there were a few debates on the all controversial cacao prior

i read this article written by paul nison

i understood it but i didn't understand the deal with the rodent, insect infestation

why should the chocolate manufacturing plants have this problem more so than any other food plants

can someone give me some insight? ( the article states that it does ... so much so that the FDA has mandated what are okay levels ( as if any level is okay)

also, it then talks about jeremy saffron and him telling others that thailand coconuts are irradiated and dipped in formaldehyde

is this true?

i heard it was somewhere

but i could not substantiate it

do they irradiate ALL coconuts?

also, when they dip it in formaldehyde, isn't the outside husk able to handle that due to the fact that it is hard and not very permeable?

i assume the formaldehyde is utilized to prevent mold from appearing on the outside

okay.. so this is a lot of questions

but ... i think that the thing concerning the chocolate cacao

is to ask if people have had PERSONAL negative experiences

i must say that when i consumed raw chocolate, i did notice , at times, that my mind felt wooooozy.. and a weird feeling of my energy draining

other times, when i had just a tiny bit... no problem

so it varies

the insomnia thing.. yes, i agree

the other symptoms, i can't relate to at all but maybe its cuz i have pretty darn good health in general

still, what are other people's experiences, opinions etc.

Apparently if you soak a young coco in a dye bath the flesh and water inside will turn that colour, so they must be more porous than we know? I haven't tested this. The husk is very vulnerable to mold regardless, that's why they come wrapped up in plastic. If there's a tear in it the coco will get moldy very quickly I have found.

When I was working for NFL I processed a lot of carob pods and let me tell you, those suckers were FULL of bugs! There's no way I could have got them all, I was only instructed to break off the worst parts.
Now cacao are very hard beans, like raw coffee beans. I can't see that bugs would be attracted to that. They don't taste all that great on their own either so rodents? I don't know. I do know that the allowable level of insect parts and rodent feces in processed foods is higher than I'd be comfortable with. Ok, bugs... but rat @#$%&? Ugh, no thank you.
I say if you want to eat chocolate buy the whole beans yourself. That's got to be better for you anyhow.

There's a lot of info on chocolate at the sunny raw blog if you want to check it out. Be careful though, it comes alongside some pretty heavy food porn! .

All dry goods processing facilities have rodent infestations(rodents actually love seed pods, like cacao and various nuts, in their native habitats), so that's what that refers to. I am familiar with formaldehyde and I have smelled and felt it on the white husks of raw green coconuts I have bought; these, as coco says, are porous and the formaldehyde cannot be "washed" off. I don't know for sure that it doesn't penetrate into the husk, but I do know that when I slice into the formaldehydey fiber with my knife, my knife blade is conveying that into the interior and coconut water. Even a little formaldehyde is too much for me to want to consume, so no fresh coconuts for me[I live where I haven't been able to find a store that sells them unfumigated; on the coasts, apparently, there are such places].

Coco - do you mean a coconut comes wrapped in plastic. They never do in the UK - I have never seen one wrapped in plastic in my life. I must be mis -understanding you. Do you mean a young coconut that has the jelly inside because we don't get those at all in southwest UK.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2010 02:55PM by flipperjan.

Yes, that's what we're talking about here are the young coconuts. The old ones are shaved very closely to the hard shell and dried up and brown on the outside, the young ones are not shaved so much, that dried brown stuff is still very juicy and pale tan. It goes moldy very quickly so they come wrapped in plastic cling film and should be stored in the fridge and used up quickly.

I've never seen a young coconut in my market either but the formaldehyde question has been around for a decade as we know. It's taken on urban legend status, if not based on truth. John Kohler did some research on it according to therenegadehealthshow.com [renegadehealth.com] (1:00) and found young coconuts are allowed to be preserved with sodium-metabisulphite. A little while back we had this discussion and I checked into codex and found what chemicals were allowed and seem to recall one that could be confused with formaldehyde but wasn't it, the name, chemical formula, metabolites, whatever it was, similar but not identical.

I eat the brown ones, not organic, and am not sure what treatments they might get.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2010 04:13PM by loeve.

Just knowing the effort it takes to open the shaved ones, I can say that I am not worried in the least about contamination with formaldehyde. Yeah, I sometimes think about the knife touching the coconut water, but I rinse the coconut after taking off the plastic. Maybe that doesn't do much, but I would rather have a knife touch washed-off formaldehyde for a second than go without young coconuts!

Conceivably some young coconuts could be dipped in Hexamethylenetetramine, which is allowed by Codex Alimentarius as a preservative for provalone cheeze ("239 Hexamethylene tetramine 25 mg/kg Expressed as formaldehyde", Codex Standard 272-1968) . It is "expressed as formaldehyde" which I gather means it hydrolyses in the presence of water over time to release small amounts of formaldehyde which acts to preserve the food, according to Inchem "DESCRIPTION -- White odourless crystals, which sublime at about 263°C. 1 g yields 1.2 of formaldehyde on hydrolysis. One part is soluble in 1.5 ml of water or 12.5 ml of alcohol. USE -- As a preservative for fish, meat and pickles. [www.inchem.org]

I suppose if hexamethylenetetramine is still used on some cheeze, fish, meat and pickles, it's a short stretch for it to be used on young coconuts in some markets, though it's hard to understand considering the negative publicity and alternatives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2010 06:20PM by loeve.

okay...so then.. what about the really hard hairy brown coconuts
do they have any tampering done to them?

i think i'll switch to those instead

i am not sure however how the heck i can get those things to OPENNN!!

to get the white meat inside

i think i tried once

then i gave up

do i need like some electric powered mega watt device to pry it open?

even the little eyelets on the top to get to the

seems hard for me to get

i think i had to get help the one time i tried

One of the three "eyes" in the top is often softer than the other. You can use an ice pick to poke a hole or even a clean nail with a hammer. I usually poke two holes, one to drain the liquid and the other to break the vacuum if you know what I mean.
Put the coco into a cloth shopping bag (a sturdy one you don't mind messing up a bit), take it outside and swing it up over your head and down, bashing it on the sidewalk. You may have to do this more than once but that coco will crack wide open. Use a sharp knife to pry the flesh out, you can eat the brown part that sticks to the it though you can also trim it off if it's too woody for you.

geeez

that sounds like some heavy duty
hard labor there

can't i just run over it with a really heavy 70 ton truck or something?
:O

thanks for the tips coco

but what did u mean about making the 2nd hole to open the vacuum?

did u mean that if you didn't put a second hole, it would be like the liquid was suctioned inward and putting a hole in it would be like undoing the inward suction effect? i know i'm wording it awkwardly but this is what i think u are saying

Yeah - La V - it's just easier if there are two holes. air can go in one while the juice comes out of another. If my partner is around I get him to drill into the top so that we can get the juice - otherwise/or as well, I just drop it on a hard slab outside - it breaks fairly easily but you lose the juice.

Re: chocolate, I used to be addicted to coffee, so I'm sensitive to stimulants. I think stimulants are death, and chocolate, raw or not, is basically coffee light. It shuts down your third eye, gives you an artificial rush of energy from the caffeine and theobromine, and then you crash. I'm sure if you pay attention to it, you'll notice this. The last times I ate chocolate I felt terrible for about twenty-four hours.... I think the raw chocolate fad is giving the raw foods movement a bad name. Why not have a luscious piece of ripe fruit instead? Just as sweet, and much more sustainable energy.

I guess its a benefit of being ADHD/ADD all stimulants help to calm and focus your mind... So I can enjoy delicious chocolate without that effect, well as long as its really low sugar,or my favorite, no sugar...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

flipperjan

<<If my partner is around I get him to drill into the top so that we can get the juice>>

u mean, an electric drill?
LOL maybe i'll just have to make that investment
i don't use a drill for anything else though

omega 3

yeah, been doing some research on the cacao thing
a mixed bag, it is
the stuff is pretty powerful

curator

this does make sense
that a stimulant will help calm if the mind is already in high gear
tricky thing switching gears, ain't it

life is grand

yup, it can be quite grand alright... switching gears is great and all, but Im thinking of trading in for an automatic, I keep grinding the gears and im afraid I may burn out the transmission far to soon...hehe

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Opening the brown coconuts is very tricky. I use an old pair of scissors to corkscrew out a half inch diameter hole (10 sec), and drain (10 sec), then use a rock hammer to whack around the perimeter to break it hopefully in half (10 sec), then I use a butter knife to cut-and-chip the meat out of the shell (90 sec). I've done a lot of them. Using a gloved hand (like an oven mitt) might not be a bad idea.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2010 11:51PM by loeve.

I like using hand drills, not electric ones though, the old fashioned kind that is just human powered, those are neat, an old hand cranked drill press is fun too...im uncomfortable around most things with motors of any kind...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

loeve

wow.. thanks for the details
mucho appreciated
seems like u cracked quite a few

curator

hand cranked drill press
sounds interesting
is it attached to a surface?
and then u just put the coconut underneath and crank the thing?
so that the drill can go into the eyelet?
that sounds better than a motor one to me too
plus it will probably be a nice workout

La V - if you want a work out - hold the coconut between your thighs (tightly!!) then use a good old fashioned corkscrew and screw down into the eye. This works all kinds of muscles !!!!

Loeve, you can get the cocomeat out in 90 seconds?! Wha...?!!! I have to put most of it in the fridge in get back to it later. That is one time consuming task right there man. Wow.

Curator, try some mature coconut meat in the omega, it makes the richest cream you can imagine. I'm going to try including it in some ice cream some time.

coco

what do u mean by mixing mature coconut meat with omega
what kinds of omega
from what source?
do u blend it with the coconut water to make a cream?
do u use vitamix?
my blender won't make a really creamy cream
when i used the young coconuts

A corkscrew worked great. When retracting the screw it left a 5mm clean opening, very nice.

Yeah coco, 90 sec is really pushing it. A couple minutes is a more comforable pace for me for chipping the meat out of a coconut. Sometimes I'll go lighter on the hammer blows and find that when finally cracked the shell has become completely detached from the meat, like a coconut egg, that's the best.

Ver, an omega juicer girl. Like a champion with the blank plate for making ice cream type thing.

Coconut egg. I remember hearing about a guy who could shave a young coco so close it was just a liquid filled jelly egg when he handed it over.

jan, that is one method I dont think I will ever attempt, LOL...

Oh, and LV, its free standing, its big, heavy, and hardcore enough to drill through metal, aluminum I know for sure it can do... so its not much work to drill the coconut, it holds stuff in place too

Yeah coco, it IS awesome! I mixed it with frozen pineapple...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

flipperjan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> La V - if you want a work out - hold the coconut
> between your thighs (tightly!!) then use a good
> old fashioned corkscrew and screw down into the
> eye. This works all kinds of muscles !!!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

There's a youtube of a man who sits and holds a green coconut between his legs and uses a machete to do the delicate work of shaving, notching and augering the top so the water can be drunk strait out of the nut. That, I would not be in a hurry to try, machetes are sharp and a bit unwieldy in close quarters. He then takes an empty green coconut, puts it on a mat or block and with one swoop cuts it into two halves and gives one to each of his kids. Cool stuff.

There's traces of insects and @#$%& over all our food. Fruit, veg etc. My boyfriends mum fixed us a salad once and when my boyfriend looked very closely at the lettuce, it was SMOTHERED in tiny aphids, that I personally would not have noticed. I've found a grub in a bag of lettuce, a tiny snail on a blackberry. Who knows what I've eaten with my glasses off! :O

The article makes me think that cacao is a source of B12 due to the bug/@#$%& issue.

I think as long as you eat a balanced healthy diet, the odd raw chocolate wont hurt. Raw chocolate is no way as bad as coffee, which a lot of raw foodists and 'health nuts' still drink. Besides, because raw chocolate is so expensive, most of us are forced to have it in moderation!

loeve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sometimes
> I'll go lighter on the hammer blows and find that
> when finally cracked the shell has become
> completely detached from the meat, like a coconut
> egg, that's the best.

Coconut egg I have a very interesting mental image of a white wibbly wobbly jelly egg!

suspendedindefinitely Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Coconut egg I have a very interesting mental
> image of a white wibbly wobbly jelly egg!

Exactly what coco was describing about the guy who sells green jelly coconut "eggs" with the water intact. They carve some of the husk away and then use a very flexible blade to scoup out the egg. There's a man from the Philippines who has been filmed displaying this "amazing" ability, though I heard the technique is actually wide spread.

Ripe coconut "eggs" are very firm and brown, the coating coming away from the mature shell, drab in comparrison to the white jelly eggs from green coconuts.

i agree with suspendedindefinitely

i would think it would be near impossible to not find any food without some trace of bug/fecal/urine/other body fluids anima or human for that matter etc

i mean imagine where your food comes

some tropical fruit on a tree being crapped on by birds, pee'd on by monkeys or other tree dwellers, picked by someone whodoesnt have access to clean water to wash their hands after using the toilet or washing with contaminated water, boxed up sent along its merry way lands in multiple warehouses that are peed or @#$%& on by rats, mice, cats and dogs birds, (and their various critters) ending up in the grocery being handled by MORE people that may or may not wash their hands, ending up in your own home

i think one could go mad thinking of the possibilities lol

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist