At a health show in Buxton recently, two ladies came up to the CocoNutty Stall and asked if the coconut oil I was selling was ‘raw’. Surely anything that says ‘virgin’ or ‘cold-pressed’ on the label must be RAW? Right? Well, actually….
Yes it might seem like splitting hairs, but there’s a large and growing number of ‘raw foodies’ out there, and even more admirers. They claim ‘eating raw’ gives increased energy, weight loss (or gain if needed), health and happiness. The radiant glow of these two ladies was proof enough for me…. They told me it’s all about heat… or rather lack of heat. Not heating food preserves the natural enzymes which are good for you. Well a bit of research reveals that nearly all ‘virgin’ and ‘organic’ coconut oils available today have been heated at some stage and so cannot be called ‘raw’. Even those labelled ‘cold-pressed’ are heated before packing. Used as a short-cut, heat is applied to speed up the evaporation of moisture (to a point below 0.1% content to qualify as ‘virgin’). The alternative to heat is patience. Fortunately our suppliers, Cocovida, have plenty of patience. They just wait for the moisture to evaporate, which takes about two weeks in the ambience of the natural ambience of the Philippines.
Now, it gives me great pleasure to quote from the Cocovida Blog (seeing as Steve is always pinching from mine).
“Thursday, August 02, 2007Cocovida Raw Virgin Coconut Oil.In all our many attempts to show our production process on YouTube, we have probably had over 3000 hits. Not many, when judged alongside the hits most dog clips receive, but still quite good. Anybody seeing our process, must surely come to the conclusion there is not a more natural way to produce virgin coconut oil. No heating, no expeller pressing, no centrifuge, no enzymes, no additives. If there is a more natural way to produce our oil, we have no idea what it is.I would guess, if any oil should be described as “raw” virgin coconut oil, it is ours. There can’t possibly be a VCO that is more raw……..So, we will now be labelling our jars, “Cocovida Raw Virgin Coconut Oil”, because that is exactly what it is. What you get in the jar, is what it says on the label.You may visit other VCO websites, where they sell expeller-pressed, heated oil, and denigrate raw products. You will quite often find that they try to justify the heating of their oil by saying it prolongs the shelf life. What absolute rubbish. I don’t honestly think they actually believe that statement themselves. It is very easy to make sure your oil has a low moisture content, without heating it. Our oil was tested for two years by The Philippine Coconut Authority, who found absolutely no deterioration over that time period, despite the fact we hadn’t “cooked” it, to rid it of the moisture content very quickly.You can also read ridiculous claims that all coconut oil is subjected to extreme heat, because coconuts grow at the top of trees in very hot countries………..I would guess that the people who write this rubbish have never tasted juice from a freshly harvested coconut; it is actually quite cool and very refreshing.You may also come across statements, that VCO is always subjected to extreme heat on the ships, as it is transported for weeks, halfway round the world. Not ours, we use airfreight, from The Philippines to our distributors in Europe within 2-3 days. Is this turning into another of my rants? Probably. If so I apologise, but you do read such complete rubbish, from people who have probably never seen VCO production.We have always made our production process open to scrutiny. Over the last two years, anybody and everybody has been welcome to come and watch us produce Cocovida Raw Virgin Coconut Oil; we have hidden nothing. Next month we are moving our production plant toEastern Samar. We will have the same “open house” policy. I would assume that not many of my millions of readers will be passing by Eastern Samar within their lifetime. However, if you happen to be the exception, you will always be made welcome at our plant,……..and you can even help in the production of “really raw” VCO.”
Oh yes… really raw virgin coconut oil is available in the UK from Coconutty.co.uk
