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Day 19: Nature’s Sports Drink – Mango-Lime Coconutade
July 28, 2010 | 3 Comments
Today I happened to get a tender/green coconut from the Thai store.
The nice guy there even cut it open for me and poured the water out into a sealed container for me to transport home. The younger the coconut, the more water it has and the more-gel-like the flesh. This one had 10 oz. water.
I decided to flavour it for a change. It was very refreshing.
When J trained for his first marathon, to replenish electrolytes, he chugged a lot of Gatorade. For his second marathon, he replaced it with Nuun hydration tablets. Both of them look, taste and are disgusting – full of artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners.
When I do kettlebell training, or after taekwondo, my electrolyte drink has:
30% coconut water, 70% plain water, lots of ice.
WHY COCONUT WATER?
When you’re sweating like a pig during any physical activity, dehydration is accompanied by three processes.
**Acidosis or acid buildup. Your kidneys need a lot of fluid to re-establish an equilibrium.
**Hypokalemia or Potassium loss. If severe, it can cause weakness, muscle cramps, and disturbances in heart rhythm.
**Sodium/water Imbalance. As you sweat heavily, you lose both salt and water. If you don’t drink enough water, the water loss exceeds sodium loss and the serum becomes extra salty (hypernatremia). This leads to weakness, loss of mental clarity and and lightheadedness.
On the other hand, if you sweat a lot and the blood begins to run out of salt, it’s called hyponatremia. In severe cases it could lead to seizures. That’s why most sports drinks have a high sodium content. (Gatorade has 1.3 grams of salt per liter).
Ten ounces of coconut water has 60 calories, 650 mg of potassium, 25mg of magnesium, and 35 mg of sodium – more electrolytes than most sports drinks and more potassium than a banana.
Coconut water is also used as an intravenous hydration fluid in some developing countries where medical saline is unavailable.
Usually I use Vita Coco plain 100% coconut water. I’ve tried various brands, but this one’s my favourite ‘cos it is single source (from Brazil), doesn’t say “from concentrate”, doesn’t have any sugar or additives and does taste like the real thing. My regular grocery store carries it and so does Amazon. They also have coconut water flavoured with fruit juices like pomegranate and pineapple.
From the Vita Coco site:
The average age of the coconut is about 7 months, the best age to extract sweet coconut water that is fat-free (before the coconut ages, turns brown and the water turns to hardened “meat” – fat city!).
I must say, Brazilian coconut water is not as sweet as the type I drank growing up in India.
Coconuts from various parts of the world differ in taste. For example, Indian coconuts tend to be sweet while Brazilian coconuts have a mild taste and Bangladeshi coconuts (due to the soil composition) have extremely sweet water and flesh with a very slight salty aftertaste similar to the Indian. (Wiki)
I quite like this brand, though, and so does J.
MANGO-LIME COCONUTADE
I used mango, but pineapple, pomegranate, berries, melons, lychees etc. will work too.
Makes 2 servings
Blend together
10 oz. tender (green) coconut water
a cup of ice cubes
1/2 cup chopped mango
1 tbsp lime juice
a dash of salt
optional addition: three drops of liquid Stevia
Put it in a bottle, top with chilled water if you wish and drink during/after a workout.
It passed the Delta Sniff Inspection.
Day 19 of 20 of the Eat to Live vegan detox plan.
MENU
July 28 (Day 19)
Breakfast:
Masala Chai with Almond Milk
Mid-morning:
1 Fruit and Nut Lara Bar
Lunch:
handful of dark raisins
16 oz smoothie with carrot greens, flax powder, pea and rice protein powder, mango, blueberries, kiwi, beet.
Mid-afternoon:
8 oz Mango-Lime Coconutade
Dinner:
half cup Vegan “Sausage” and Fenugreek Biryani
1 cup Chickpea-Escarole Soup
EXERCISE
25 mins freestyle swim, 1 hr. Taekwondo
- b.
Filed Under: Coconut, coconut water, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live Plan, electrolytes, fitness, green coconut, Lemon/Lime, lime, Mango, NUTRITION, sports drink, tender coconut, vegan recipes, Vegetarian Athlete, vegetarian recipes
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3 Comments
I’ve been disappointed with tender coconuts here. Most of the time, they’re spoilt. And the packaged coconut water tastes nothing like one we get in India. Most of them are way too sweet. I have to try the Vita Coco brand. I tried Zico and it wasn’t too bad, but they have 2 kinds – the one that comes in a tetrapak tastes good but the one in plastic bottles don’t, I think the latter is made from concentrate.
Coconut water tastes best as is, but addition of fruit is a good idea.
A coconutade sounds incredible!
Our local Asian store has really good frozen coconut water from Thailand. The frozen stuff always tastes more fresh and ‘real’ compared to the tetra packs, and canned ones.
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