Sponsored Message: A Short Post About Coconuts

Brought to you by the friendly coconut farmers and water resource managers of Saint Lucia. 

While we were visiting the well this afternoon, one of our guides grabbed a bamboo stick and knocked down half a dozen coconuts from a coconut tree.  We collected the coconuts and brought them to the road, where the entire group took a break.  

If you cut a piece of the skin away with a cutlass, you can drink the coconut water from the center.  It is highly sought-after here in Saint Lucia-- in fact, you can find people selling bottles of coconut water on the street.  We drank it straight from the coconut.  

Mmmm coconut water.

Drinking more coconut water.  This kind of coconut actually has a smooth green skin when it's ripe. 

Then, our guides split the coconuts in half with a cutlass and showed us how to eat the coconut jelly.  This is the part that shaved coconut is made out of.  Actually, eating the miniscule layer of coconut jelly inside the fruit gave me a new appreciation for the shaved coconut that I usually see in supermarkets and take for granted at home.   And by the way, both the coconut water and the coconut jelly were delicious!

An open coconut filled with coconut jelly, which we ate with makeshift spoons made of slices of coconut skin.