Yesterday I took a very tough hot vinyasa class. For 75 minutes I sweat as if I was sitting in a sauna, combined with rigorous yoga. I made the mistake of eating a fairly large lunch soon after, and even though I drank a lot of water throughout the day, the food in my stomach was affecting how fast the water was getting into my blood. As a result, I was very dehydrated and had a very bad headache for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I am not big on commercial sports drinks – I never really have been because of the taste. I prefer to reach for nature’s sports drink: coconut water.

Coconut water is the liquid that is found inside young, green coconuts, not to be confused with the brown hairy coconuts found at most grocery stores. Young coconuts, if left to mature, would eventually become their brown counterparts. As a coconut ages the water level decreases as rich coconut meat grows inside.

The water found inside young coconuts is among the purest water on earth and is naturally very high in electrolytes. In fact, the electrolyte make-up exactly matches the composition of human blood plasma and during WWII severely wounded soldiers in the Pacific received coconut water in place of a plasma transfusion. For those that may not believe this, doctors in Solomon gave a patient coconut water for 2 days when the hospital ran out of IV fluid. The patient suffered no adverse effects (see reference: Am. J. Emerg. Med. 18[1]: 108-11, 2000).

Nutritional Stats for Coconut Water (per 100ml)·

• Coconut water contains 15 times more potassium than a banana

• Coconut water has less sodium than sports drinks (coconut water has about 25 mg as opposed to 41mg in sports drinks and 200 mg in energy drinks

• Coconut water has only 5g of natural sugars, whereas sports and energy drinks have a high amount of processed and/or unnatural sugars

• Coconut water is high in chloride 118mg

• Coconut water is also high in vitamin C and B vitamins

So now you how amazing coconut water is… and you went out and bought a young coconut. You might be wondering how to open it. I suggest watching someone else open one first. Most health food stores will crack the top for you and give you a straw and spoon (to scoop out the tender meat inside). They are easy to crack at home with a good chef knife.

Health food stores also carry pasteurized and packaged coconut water. These are great as well, but I prefer water straight from the nut itself. It has a much different flavor and contains living enzymes that pasteurization destroys. Again, the packaged versions are amazing as well and do a much better job than unnatural sports drinks. Drink up and enjoy!