Is Coconut Water (The Super-Food) as Good as Everybody Claims It to Be?

Dubbed Mother Nature’s sports drink by marketers and propelled by celebrity and athlete endorsements, the demand for coconut water is sky rocketing these days. Does it deserved to be bestowed its super food status? Here, we have brought coconut water into spotlight.

So, let’s start with 

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What is Coconut Water?

Coconut water is naturally refreshing, has a sweet and nutty taste. It also contains easily digested carbohydrate in the form of sugar and electrolytes. Not to be confused with high-fat coconut milk or oil, coconut water is a clear liquid in the fruit’s center that is tapped from young, green coconuts. Coconut water has fewer calories, less sodium, and more potassium than a sports drink. Ounce per ounce, most unflavored coconut water contains 5.45 calories, 1.3 grams sugar, 61 milligrams of potassium, and 5.45mg of sodium compared to Gatorade which has 6.25 calories, 1.75g of sugar, 3.75mg of potassium and 13.75mg of sodium.

Coconut water

When you exercise, you lose water through sweat. You also lose electrolytes such as potassium. Luckily, just one cup of coconut water provides nearly 17% of your daily potassium requirement. This makes it an especially effective post-workout hydrating drink. Coconut water’s high fiber content may also help with indigestion or other digestive issues. Plus, it can reduce high blood pressure by adding crucial electrolytes back into the blood stream. Including coconut water into your daily dietary routine is a major benefit, especially if you are active and need to replenish your electrolytes more often. You can drink it by itself or get creative.

Coconut Water – A Better Choice than Sugary Drinks

When you need topping up with fluids and electrolytes, coconut water fits the bill. Coconut water has less sugar than many sports drinks and much less sugar than sodas and some fruit juices. Plain coconut water could be a better choice for adults and kids looking for a beverage that is less sweet. But don’t overdo it. One 11-ounce container has 60 calories and if you drink several in one day, the calories can add up quickly.

Nutritional Breakdown of Coconut Water:

• Its liquid is packed with simple sugars, electrolytes, and minerals to replenish dehydration conditions inside the human body.
• Research suggests that cytokines in coconut water found to have significant anti-ageing, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-thrombotic effects.
• Coconut water has been generally offered to patients with diarrhea in many tropic regions to replace the fluid loss from the gastrointestinal tract and to reduce the need for hospitalization.
• Coconut water is composed of many naturally occurring bioactive enzymes such as acid phosphates, catalyses, dehydrogenize, diastase, peroxides, RNA-polymerases etc. In effect, these enzymes help in the digestion and metabolism.
• Despite being very light in consistency, its water proportionately has better composition of minerals like calcium, iron, manganese, magnesium, and zinc than some of the fruit juices like oranges.
• Its liquid is also a very good source of B-complex vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pyridoxine, and foliates. These vitamins are essential in the sense that the human body requires them from external sources to replenish.

What Experts Say about Coconut Water?

Staying hydrated is one of the most important things for recreational and professional athletes. And if the taste of coconut water helps you drink plenty of fluids, it is a fine choice for most people but may not be for those in prolonged physical activity. The challenges is when you exercise strenuously for more than 3hrs in the heat and lose lots of body fluids, you need easily absorbed carbs (carburetors) for quick energy and to replace lost electrolytes like sodium and potassium. Neither coconut water not sports drinks contain enough sodium or carbs for the heavy perspire. So it is best to supplement with a quick source of energy like a banana, some raisins or a handful of pretzels.

Besides, coconut water also contains several health benefits which can help body fighting with numerous diseases. So, find coconut water at its best form and make a habit of consuming this super food daily for a healthy living.

Why is Coconut Milk Called a Ready Source of Energy for Athletes?

In order to perform their best during training and competition, athletes require fuel. While the types of intensity of athletic pursuits may widely vary, they rely on interrelated metabolic processes. When your body is asked to produce bursts of power, it draws on its phosphocreatine supply to create adenosinetriphosphate or ATP. ATP is essential for any activity that involves rapid muscle contractions. After a maximum contraction, your body requires four minutes to replenish its phosphocreatine stores. If you don’t wait for four minutes between maximal bursts of intensity, then your body starts to rely on blood sugar to create ATP. This process is metabolically inefficient.

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After another 3-4 minutes without recovery time, your body will start to draw on protein, fat and carbohydrates in order to continue synthesizing the ATP required for continued physical activity. At the same time, your muscles are busy trying to process waste products such as lactic acid. This causes sweating, which results in losing methyl donors such as Betaine, another potential generator of ATP. In short, as your body continues to need ATP, its ability to produce it becomes increasingly compromised. Without the proper fuel, your body will hit that all-too-familiar wall soon enough. This is the challenge facing any athlete who wants to perform high-intensity and/or endurance exercise.

How Coconut Milk Benefits Athletes in Training?

Choosing coconut milk as the primary source of fat will boost the performance in several ways. This is largely because coconut milk is a source of fat that contains medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) and monoglycerides. These compounds are unique because our bodies metabolize them differently than conventional sources of fat. Because MCTs have a reduced chain length relative to long chain triglycerides (LCTs), our bodies absorb them more quickly. MCTs are quickly broken down and moved directly into the bloodstream. All of this means that as soon as our bodies ingest coconut fat, the MCTs and monoglycerides are immediately put to use as a source of energy, providing an energy boost. In addition, MCTs provide several additional benefits such as:

Coconut milk

• They have been shown to increase energy expenditure, improve endurance, and prolong time to exhaustion, especially during high-intensity exercise or long-duration exercise. As a result, they’re gaining popularity for their ability to enhance athletic performance.
  
  
• They don’t get stored as fat because they’re metabolized so quickly and MCTs are immediately put to work as fuel for organs and muscles. This means you can reap the energy benefits of fat consumption without worrying about excess fat storage.
  
  
• They can increase thermo genesis and fat oxidation; thereby, promoting fat burning. They also help trigger the mobilization of stored body fat for use as fuel. Consequently, the consumption of MCTs is frequently linked to a decrease in fatness.

All told, coconut milk provides a healthy source of energy while enabling you to train harder and longer, thereby contributing to strength gains while also increasing fat loss. So, if you are going to be an athlete or already have achieved the title; consume coconut milk daily for remaining fit throughout.

Where to Purchase Best Quality Coconut Milk?

Celebes is the right source to find best quality coconut milk cans. Just visit the site and explore more benefits of coconut milk here. Get the coconut milk can now with ease.