coconut water | TheSugarBreakup.com

At The Sugar Breakup we love to use many elements of the coconut in our cooking. From coconut flour to coconut oil, and water, it is incredibly diverse. But there’s more to this humble fruit of the coconut palm than just eating.

Coconuts are an important crop in many parts of the world, providing many goods, in addition to symbolical significance in the countries where they are traditionally grown.

You know by now that we enjoy coconut water, but that is hardly the only thing coconuts are good for. In fact, coconuts are incredibly versatile and – as a crop – very sustainable.

There is a use for virtually every part of a coconut and the tree in which it grows, including:

Coconut wine and vinegar (produced from coconut water)
Coconut oil – useful in many ways!
Health and beauty products
Bowls and utensils fashioned from coconut shells
Rugs, rope and mattress stuffing (made from coconut husks)
Brooms (made from coconut leaves)
Furniture or entire houses built with coconut tree trunks!

You’ve got to love a plant that can essentially meet all of your basic needs by providing food, shelter and even fabric for clothing! While we probably won’t be building a coconut house anytime soon (or at least not until we retire to Hawaii), we have been making good use of coconut water in our favourite smoothies, as well as enjoying the subtle tastes of coconut and coconut oil in our chocolate crackle spiders.

You can join us in our coconut water love affair by entering our Facebook competition for a chance to win some Taste Nirvana Real Coconut Water and other delicious goodies! Entries close on Tuesday, so don’t delay!

For those hot summer days there is nothing better than a blended smoothie to cool you down.

Recently we’ve learnt a lot about smoothies and there’s a secret to making the perfect one. Here’s what you need to build a great smoothie:

Base ingredients
Liquid
Flavour
Sweetener
Super food

Here’s a couple of our favourite smoothie recipe to get you started or use the 5 elements above to create your own perfect blend.

The Sugar Breakup Green Smoothie

This is really refreshing. One of our favourites for summer.

Ingredients
Base Ingredients: 1/2 cucumber (150g), 1/2 green capsicum (75g) 1/4 cup pineapple (75g)
Liquid: 1 cup of coconut water
Flavour: 1/4 skinned lemon
Sweetener: 1 teaspoon of The Sugar Breakup Organic Golden Rice Malt Syrup
Super food: 1 tablespoon of chia seeds

Put all the ingredients into the blender and mix until smooth. Drink immediately.

The Sugar Breakup Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients
Base ingredients: 1 handful of Kale or spinach & 1 banana
Liquid: 1 cup of coconut water
Flavour: 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
Sweetener: 1 teaspoon of The Sugar Breakup Organic Golden Rice Malt Syrup
Super food: 2 tablespoons of nut butter (use your favourite variety, we used almond) & 1 tablespoon of flax seed or chia seeds

Put all the ingredients into the blender and mix until smooth. Drink immediately.

We hope that this helps you understand some of the basics of making a blended smoothie. The great thing about this type of food is you can really experiment with different elements to create your own customised blends.

A few helpful tips

Freeze the coconut water in ice block trays and then use it in the smoothie. The icy texture gives the smoothie a lush feel in the mouth. So refreshing for summer.
You can use a frozen banana.
Remove the stem and spine from the kale and the smoothie will be smoother.
Leave the skin on the cucumber but remove the skin from the lemon (rind can make the smoothie bitter).
Most smoothies have roughage, so chew them when you drink.
Don’t blend your smoothies for any longer than 40sec maximum otherwise they start to warm up.

tsbu signoff TSBU 425x85