If you are following a healthy diet such as a whole food diet (no meat), coconut cream provides additional and proven health benefits for your health.
In addition to that, substituting coconut cream for dairy cream especially benefits those who are lactose intolerant. But you really have to be careful with some brands that add guar gum to make the cream creamier .
Guar gum is not easy to digest. So if you have a digestive problem, choose the brand that comes without guar gum.
Another thing worth mentioning is that people always associate coconut cream with high calories, so it will make you gain weight easily. Here’s the fact: 50–70% of coconut cream (depending on brands) contains water.
And 15-35% contains fatty acids. Also, most of the fatty acids in the cream are easily converted to energy rather than stored as body fat.
Last but not least, if you need to boost your immunity to an all-time high so that your body is better able to fight even cancers and pathogens, coconut oil is what you need for better health protection.
This is because coconut oil has 3 to 5 times more saturated and medium chain fatty acids than coconut cream.
Also, coconut oil is more versatile than cream of coconut, as you can literally add coconut oil to all kinds of foods (and drinks if you don’t mind having the oil floating on the surface).
But what other benefits does coconut cream have?
These are some of the benefits that, if you read well, you will understand why this is a superfood that you cannot miss in your regular diet. Include coconut cream in your soups, desserts, drinks and boost your health.
1. Improve your immunity
You’ve already heard about the health benefits of coconut oil. You can also find the exact antimicrobial compounds that coconut oil contains in coconut cream. They are lauric acid, capric acid, caprylic acid, caproic acid, and myristic acid, etc.
These fatty acids (with lauric acid as the leader) are effective fighters against viruses that cause influenza, hepatitis C, measles, herpes, AIDS, etc.
They also kill bacteria that cause throat infections, food poisoning, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, gonorrhea, etc. The fungi and yeast that cause candida, ringworm, athlete’s foot, etc. they are not compatible with them either.
In short, coconut cream provides health benefits by lightening the load on your immune system so that your body can focus more on other critical tasks such as cell and tissue repair, and maintaining your organs like kidney, heart, liver and lungs, etc. optimally.
2. Gives energy, not fat
About 60% of the fatty acids in coconut cream belong to the medium chain group. Medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) are smaller than long chain fatty acids (LCFA). For this reason, MCFAs can easily penetrate cell walls and supply cells with rapid energy.
LCFAs, due to their longer chain, are slow to digest and transport. That is why our body tends to push LCFA into fat tissues as a fuel reserve.
When your cells receive energy in time, they become animated and activated. Active cells enhance metabolism. This means that your body goes into fat burning mode.
Having fatty acids does not mean that it will make you fat. It all depends on the type of fatty acids you eat. Most of the fatty acids in coconut cream burn fat , which is one of the biggest health benefits of this coconut product.
3. Helps you age slowly
About 90% of the fatty acids in coconut cream are saturated fat. And saturated fat is a natural antioxidant on its own.
This means that saturated fat stops free radical activity.
Free radicals attack the connective fibers that hold skin tissues together and make our skin firm and supple. When these connective fibers break down as a result of free radical attack, our skin sags and looks old.
Stopping free radical activity is a good way to keep your connective fibers strong and healthy. And saturated fat does the job.
Another great benefit of coconut cream on the skin is that it contains 17 to 18 amino acids and of which, 10 of them are essential since our body cannot produce them.
They are histidine, arginine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, valine, threonine, and tryptophan.
We need these amino acids (along with the standards, such as tyrosine, alanine, glycine, and proline, etc.) to help us build and repair cells and tissues in a timely and effective manner to minimize the damaging effect of free radicals and germs on our skin.
Although coconut cream may not carry them in large quantities, it does provide a good supplemental source of these essential and standard amino acids as the building blocks of protein for our skin.
4. Hydrate your body
The next time you exercise and sweat a lot, try sucking on a popsicle or ice cream made from pure coconut cream. It helps you to replace the loss of water and electrolytes through sweat.
The most important electrolytes in a typical isotonic drink are sodium and potassium (some don’t even have potassium). We need some sugars too. And the coconut cream has them all and in very good quantity.
In other words, you probably don’t need sports drinks as long as you have enough coconut cream in your food. But for better hydration, coconut water is better, as it contains much more sodium and potassium.
Note: Do not eat cold things immediately after training or your blood vessels may suddenly constrict and disrupt normal blood flow.
Take it only when your body has cooled down, such as after about 30 minutes.
5. Stimulates bowel movement
Depending on the brands, some coconut creams may contain a bit of fiber. But this small amount of fiber is not the main role in loosening the intestines, although it does help to some extent.
Remember that the fatty acids in coconut cream provide quick energy?
Yes, when your cells get energy, every part of your body is motivated, including the intestines.
When your intestines move faster, your stools tend to become more watery and therefore softer because your intestines do not have enough time to extract much water from the watery waste. For this reason, stool is able to “slide” out of the “outlet” more easily.
This is why cream or curry based soup added with coconut cream helps with detoxification, especially when a lot of coconut cream has been added to make the curry creamier, smoother and more flavorful.
How to make coconut cream naturally
To enjoy the benefits of coconut and to be able to taste it in another of its presentations, such as coconut cream, below, we will show you how to make it in each natural coconut cream so that you can enjoy all its benefits.
- Blend the coconut in a powerful blender with warm water, for approximately 4 seconds, until well mixed.
- Strain the mixture into a cloth or very fine mesh strainer and filter over a bowl, squeezing the cloth or squeezing the solid remains with your hands in the fine mesh strainer. After this process you will have obtained thick coconut milk .
- If you put the solid remains back in the blender, adding 600 ml again. of warm water and repeat the previous process, you will get clearer milk. The mixture of this with thick milk is called common milk.
- The thick coconut cream is achieved by allowing the thick milk to refrigerate (first step) for 2 hours. On the surface the cream forms and the bottom skim milk.