It’s another hot summer day at the gym with the 5k annual membership fee. I’m sitting at the Starbucks café sipping my Pomegranate Hibiscus Tea sweetened with Splenda and watching busy executives and their wives go about their day. Women walk in and out of the gargantuan glass doors in matching Lululemon outfits, bug-eyed sunglasses, and Tory Burch gym bags, and I notice one woman glide in sipping daintily from a curious, eco-friendly container with a picture of a coconut plastered on it. I read the drink label and ponder the words “coconut water.” What in the world is coconut water? Is that even a thing? I promptly ask Google—the one thing I have complete faith and trust in in this world—and it opens up my naïve 18-year-old self to the never ending benefits of coconut water.
Coconut water is among the latest trendy foods that dominate the blogosphere, Instagram world, and Tumblr newsfeeds. The coconut “water” is actually the juice found in the interior cavity of a young, tender coconut, aged five to seven months. This juice is comprised of a unique blend of nutrients, such as amino acids, cytokine, phytohormones, enzymes, and electrolytes. It is often touted as the perfect hangover remedy for its capacity to replace lost electrolytes, the athlete’s dream drink for its amazing hydration properties, and a magical weight loss remedy for its ability to suppress appetite.
Given all these facts, it’s no wonder that coconut water has caused an uproar in the blogosphere. Being the (self-proclaimed) healthy-eating, gym-going adolescent that I am, I should be going crazy over this drink.
Yet I just can’t bring myself to enjoy the taste. The flavor of regular coconut water is bitter and awkward, and the fruit flavored variations taste much too artificial. No matter how many times I try to force myself to take more sips or find the silver lining in the extreme bitterness, I simply can’t.
This got me thinking. Was there something wrong with me? Or does this point to a bigger problem about the fleeting nature of food fads in a culture of eating that is based on principle rather than taste? There have been quite a number of fad diets and superfoods that have come and gone in the past decade. There always seem to be new discoveries on the health benefits or dangers of an exotic food that create or demolish a fan base overnight.
Yet if we let scientific facts dictate the course of our meals, we essentially become slaves to contemporary food science, which can have its own array of negative consequences. Choosing foods based solely on their health benefits can lead to forced eats, semi-acquired tastes, and subsequent binge eating of comfort foods. The takeaway: don’t force yourself to follow health food fads if you find yourself justifying the decision to eat it through its supposed health properties. That being said, it wouldn’t be the smartest decision to let your guilty food pleasures rule your appetite. As the saying goes, everything in moderation.
And for me, I think that’s reason enough to shelve coconut water for good. I’m just not that into it.
Article image source: indialive.today.
2 Comments
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As someone who has been enjoying coconut water long before it became “trendy”, this article is just blatantly misguided in so many ways. First of all, this quote: “The flavor of regular coconut water is bitter and awkward, and the fruit flavored variations taste much too artificial.” I would like to respectfully inform you that REAL coconut water is definitely not bitter. In fact, it is delightfully fragrant and sweet in a very light and refreshing way. (Besides, do you really think it would’ve gained so much hype if it was actually bitter?) If you drank packaged coconut water and it tasted bitter, then you probably drank one of the many cheap, C-grade ripoffs that grocery stores sell, and if so, I don’t think you’re entitled to a final decision on coconut water based on that. (Also, word of advice, NEVER drink the fruit-flavored ones. Fruit flavored anything is bound to result in artificial yuckiness.) I’ll admit that much of the packaged coconut water that’s being sold right now is mediocre, but if you go with some higher quality brands such as Zico or CocoLibre, these are much less “awkward” tasting. (Also: did you really use the word “awkward” to describe a beverage? Really?)
However, if you truly want the REAL coconut experience, you should just buy one of those WHOLE coconuts from the grocery store, chill it, crack it open, and drink it yourself. Then, if you still aren’t pleased with what you taste, you can feel free to criticize coconut water all you want, and I will happily listen to the merits of your arguments.
Now on to my second point, which concerns the blatant hypocrisy of this article. In the beginning, you say that you are “sipping [your] Pomegranate Hibiscus Tea sweetened with Splenda.”
Hold up.
If there’s anything that should be pointed out as an inane and mindless trend, it’s Starbucks and artificial sweeteners. Splenda, for one, is NOT EVEN HEALTHY. It has just gained traction under the guise of being healthy (at least coconut water’s health benefits have been proven after centuries of use…unlike Splenda, which was fabricated in a LAB a few decades ago and has been found to cause cancer). You claim that “if we let scientific facts dictate the course of our meals, we essentially become slaves to contemporary food science, which can have its own array of negative consequences.” WHY, then, are you consuming Splenda, which is precisely that – a trendy product that has gained popularity based on pseudo-“scientific facts”? Also, I would argue that “scientific fact”, to a certain extent, is the best thing we have to work with.
I’d also like to point out this quote in particular: “The takeaway: don’t force yourself to follow health food fads if you find yourself justifying the decision to eat it through its supposed health properties.” Could you argue that broccoli is a “health food fad”, and that by extension of your statement, people everywhere should not feel obligated to eat broccoli because its unpleasant taste is only justified by its “supposed health properties”? Basically what I’m saying is: sometimes, healthy food is not always delicious food (mostly because people’s definitions of “delicious vary greatly) – but I think there’s some value in making yourself eat non-delicious food. Food isn’t solely for pleasure – it’s also for sustenance. (In fact, one could argue that it’s MAINLY for sustenance, and that the phenomenon of eating food for pleasure is a relatively modern thing).
Anyways, despite this article’s inconsistencies and missteps, I somewhat agree with your final statement – that moderation is key. I guess the main thing that really pissed me off was your ignorant statements (“What in the world is coconut water? Is that even a thing?” – How do you not even know what coconut water is? That’s like asking if grape juice is a thing. Also, I already mentioned this, but using the word “awkward” to describe a beverage?) And your blatant hypocrisy (sipping Starbucks sweetened with Splenda – by the way, what was even the point of including that in the article? It didn’t really provide any useful information, other than setting up an already shallow and cliche scene) as well as your misguided statements (coconut water is definitely NOT bitter. If it’s bitter, that ain’t coconut water you’re drinking.)
Despite all of this, you seem to be a promising young writer. Your commentary on society at the end is quite insightful, and as I said before, I do agree with your final point. I just wish that you would’ve put a bit more thought into how to convey it. (The last paragraph is the only thing that is actually meaningful about this article.) Also, I wish that you hadn’t picked on coconut water – in my opinion, it is one of the few food “fads” that are actually legitimate (I’ve been drinking coconut water for many years now, and I think it is really one of nature’s triumphs – that something so simple could be so pure, yummy (YMMV), and healthy. But now I’m just evangelizing.) Unlike Splenda, Sensa (weight-loss flavor-enhancing crystals), and protein shakes, coconut water is real and is not just a “fad”. In my view, criticizing coconut water in order to convey a point about society’s slavishness to “scientific fact” is like criticizing blueberries or strawberries or even pomegranates to convey that same fact. This might be a bit irrational of me, but I think it’s a bit misguided, unfair even. These are just innocent little fruits/vegetables, nature-born and untampered with (although of course, because of humans, nearly all produce are GMOs – but that’s a different story). Why not pick on other fads, the ones that actually deserve to be picked on?
Well, I’m done with my rant now. So, there’s some food for thought. Your article gave me quite a bit to chew on, but I hope there’s no beef. Even though your skills still have quite a bit of ripening to do, you’re a budding young writer, and I can’t wait to see the fruits of your labor.