Day 3 and I’ve caught up 🙂

C is for Coconut flour/oil

So today I’ll give you a brief overview of my dealings with coconut flour and coconut oil. Now if you want to go low carb and you don’t like coconut, it will take a while to get used to using it. What I find is that, though it smells quite strong, it doesn’t make everything taste of coconut.

I use the flour cos it’s cheaper than almond flour (ground almonds), and it goes a lot further. For every cup of almond flour you use, it’s about a quarter cup of coconut flour, and there are usually extra eggs in the recipe to help with the soakage 🙂 I made some big mistakes at the the beginning. The two greatest ones were 1. looking at the amount of eggs in a coconut flour recipe, thinking it must be a typo and using half the amount of eggs instead. I know, I know! I’m a doofas, and 2. I didn’t leave the mix long enough to let the flour do its soakage thing. Coconut flour needs time and lots of eggs. If you you’ve got plenty of both, it’s a great product.

Oh and a tip for if you are not fussed on the taste, I’ve been told that better quality flour leaves less of the taste behind. But I don’t mind the taste, so I haven’t tested this.

Coconut oil is much less of a faff. I’ve used with a stirfry, for frying flaxseed pancakes (more about those on Day 6), and for frying the fake bread I mentioned in the last post. It’s also in quite a few cake recipes. Just measure it or weigh it and use it as instructed.

I should acknowledge that I’ve heard coconut oil get a bad rap, so I can only share my experience, NOT BEING AN EXPERT 🙂 When I changed my eating habits, I started to include what I read were healthy fats into my diet as I reduced the carbs. Coconut oil is one of those fats. I’ve been eating it regularly for almost 3 years. I am a whole lot healthier than I was 3 years ago, possibly healthier now than since I was a teenager. I have no issues with cholesterol or blood pressure. I’m losing weight, and getting stonger. If there are any negative effects from coconut oil, I’ve yet to experience them.

Do you use it? Let me know your thoughts.

A x