young coconuts

hkittykitty

so I’ve had this happen many times and I’m not sure what it means. once you’ve successfully hacked into your precious coconut you find the meat is a bit of a purplely hue. it tastes ok, not as good as the white stuff and is a bit more jelly like, runnier even. any clues? does this mean its bad? thanks!

mango woman

I find this sometimes with the very small young coconuts.. I’m not sure what causes it.. but i eat it anyway. The water is still good and so is the meat, it’s just purple. Hmm.. maybe because they’re so small? Have you noticed the correlation between size and purpleness?

humanimal

Dont eat that coconut meat! Purple meat = rotten coconut. The water should be fine to drink, but stay away from the purple stuff :)

mango woman

ahahha! damn it. It doesn’t taste rotten!!! It’s very thin and almost not there at all. I’ve only found it with very small young coconuts.

Hmm.. rotten eh?

Mon46

Where do I buy young coconuts. I live in NYC—should be plenty, but I have no idea where to go. Thanks.

humanimal

If you have an Asian supermarket near by then they should carry some. Some health stores and co-ops also carry them. If all else fails check online. Good luck!

Mon46

Thanks, humananimal. I live near Wholefoods and quite a few other health food stores, so I should get lucky eventually.

tggoesraw

As long as it doesn’t smell, it’s OK to eat meat. Actually the less meat you’ve in coconut the young/tender that coconut is. It’s water is supposed to be much healthier than from a coconut which has thick layer of meat. You may also find the water less sweeter in these coconuts. You can see mold in rotten coconuts clearly (greyish) and it smells bad as well, in which case you may want to throw away both water/meat.

rawmama

I’ve read that purple is very young, very nutritious, and it’s almost liquidy…it’s bad when it’s gray (as tggoesraw said) and the water tastes “off”, at least that is what my coconut book says, and the forums I’ve read on gliving.com and other places. Rule of thumb, if the water tastes bad, then don’t eat the meat. If the water tastes sweet, then you can eat the coconut meat. I’ve had one where the meat was actually pink…on that one coconut, the water was not as sweet as usual, so I did not take a chance…I go by the taste of the water.

hkittykitty

excellent! thank you so much! I’ve always wondered and I felt the same way where if the juice tastes ok then I’ll go ahead and eat the flesh. don’t know how to tell how young it is though, I like to grab the heavier ones as I’m convinced they will have the most yield. I’m sure my theory is wrong, but I at least like to think that. :)