How do you make coconut oil?

Coconut oil is a vegetable oil that is extracted from the coconut meat (White flesh) of a mature coconut (Brown Coconut). This is the pale yellow almost colourless oil, which can be used in cooking and cosmetic products.

Like coconut milk, coconut oil has a high amount of saturated fats. The saturated fats found in coconut oil are all medium chain fatty acids for example Lauric acid (Found in mothers milk), Caprylic Acid (Found in the milk of various mammals), etc.

In the market you can find two different types of coconut oil, virgin coconut oil and coconut oil made from copra. Within virgin coconut oil you can have cold pressed oil from grated coconut or centrifuged oil from milk.

How to extract coconut oil?

Coconut oil can be extracted two different ways, through a wet or dry process. Both need time, effort and skill just like the coconut milk process.

The dry process is when the coconut meat is removed from the outer husk and dried, also known as copra. It’s then pressed using an expeller. The protein and fibre are lost during this process as there is no way that you can extract the protein from the left over meat (Known as mash). Coconut oil made from copra has to be refined, bleached and deodorised to make it fit for consumption.

At home virgin coconut oil has been made for centuries but boiling coconut milk or fermenting coconut milk. In a factory virgin coconut oil is made by cold pressing grated coconut or centrifuging coconut milk.

Coconut oil can be used in many different ways in cooking and skin and hair products. When it comes to cooking at a high temperature coconut oil is suitable for frying and in curries. Many skin and hair products contain coconut oil because of its moisturising properties and vitamin E content. Coconut oil is known to help dry skin conditions and moisturize dry hair as it produces protein that is required for nourishing damaged hair.

To discover 101 uses of coconut oil click https://www.cocofina.com/pages/101-uses-for-coconut-oil