A couple of months ago, a helpful produce clerk at Wal-Mart taught me how to choose a good coconut:
1) Look for a light-colored coconut. Light-colored coconuts are usually younger and fresher.
2) Shake the coconut, and listen for the slosh of coconut milk. If it doesn’t slosh, it’s definitely not a keeper.
Once you get it home, you can open the coconut with an ice pick to drain out the coconut milk. If you open at least two of the three holes, the milk will pour out fairly easily into a cup. However, Sean, my son-in-law who used to live in Hawaii, just opens one hole and drinks the milk right out of the shell.
After you get the milk out, take the coconut outside and throw it down on the sidewalk to crack it open. This is fun! Sometimes we have to thrown it down two or three times to break it into enough pieces. Pull the meat from the shell, wash it off, and munch. Delicious! And did you know that coconuts have caprylic acid in them that helps to keep yeast infections at bay? To top it off, coconuts are perfectly pH balanced! What a treat!
