Coconut Facts - Your Online Source for Information on Coconuts

Some Important Coconut Facts

• Coconut facts are gathered about how many coconuts are grown each year. Right now, the number is around twenty billion coconuts.

• The Asian-Pacific region produces 90-percent of the world’s coconuts.

• Coconut milk is a manmade product.

• The saturated fats in coconut oil contain lauric acid, which has been identified as preventative of many diseases, including heart disease and cancer.

• A coconut tree can grow to be as tall as ninety feet.

• The brown shell is not the only protective covering for a coconut. When it is on the tree the coconut also has another protective husk over the brown shell. It is called the “coir” and is removed before coconuts are shipped.

• Coconut trees are pollinated by insects.

• Some coconut facts indicate that the coconut can provide over one hundred different products for human use.

• All of the coconut tree is used for different purposes. Besides food and drink, the coconut tree provides fiber and building materials to make huts. The oil is used not only for human consumption, but also as fuel and in a wide variety of skin and hair products. It is often made into feed for livestock. Other products made out of a coconut tree include furniture, mats, clothing, baskets, hats, brooms, containers, musical instruments, and more.

• Because the coconut tree has so many uses, it is often called the “tree of life.”

• Coconut facts reveal that coconuts are grown in ninety countries.

• The word, coconut, comes from the Portuguese. “Coco” means monkey and “nucifera” means nut-bearing.

• Around ten million families make their entire income from growing coconuts.

• Coconuts originally traveled from the Pacific to Asia and then to Africa. It was the Europeans who brought the coconut from Africa to the Caribbean.

• Copra is the name for the meat of the coconut after it has been dried.

• People who grow coconuts for a living make on average $200 U.S. in an entire year.

• Coconut oil lost its status as the leading vegetable oil when a campaign against saturated fats was begun by the United States in the 1960s.

• Some people make an alcoholic drink out of the sap of coconut trees.

• The saturated fat in coconuts is not the kind that clogs arteries.

• One cup of coconut has 280 calories.

• Coconut milk is drained from the fruit by opening two of its eyes.

• In Indonesia coconut sugar is produced.

• In Vietnam, coconut fiber is made into ropes.

• Eight million families in Asia make their living from coconuts.

• Coconuts and their products are not grown by large plantations but by small individual farmers. The majority have less than four hectares of land, which is in the neighborhood of ten acres.

• Coconut facts indicate that your chances of dying from a falling coconut are ten times greater than being killed by a shark.

• Many breads are made with coconut oil.

• A mature coconut tree may grow anywhere from 75 to 200 coconuts every year.

• Bowls and cups are made from coconut shells.

• The most expensive coconut is the makapuno, which is grown in the Phillipines.