Coconut oil is a wonderful alternative to other fats (butter, margarine, other cooking oils) in your cooking and eating. Whether you’re here because you like the potential health benefits, you love the taste of coconut, you want some variety, or any other reason, here are 12 simple ways to eat more coconut oil daily!
One of the things I love most about coconut oil is that it tastes amazing and is pretty easy to add into your diet. Once you start adding it to your diet you’ll find it’s not hard at all to get 2-3 tablespoons into your diet. Especially once you realize you can make coconut oil at home…
How To Eat More Coconut Oil
1. Cook With Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is good for baking and lower-heat cooking. Its smoke point of 350 degrees precludes it from recipes that require more heat, but using refined coconut oil gets you in the 400 to 450-degree range. (Higher smoke points exist with other cooking oils as well).
Outside of the lower smoke point, virgin coconut oil is a better choice because it’s less refined and pure. If you’re not a fan of your food tasting like coconut, you can use expeller pressed coconut oil. You’ll want to make sure that the expeller pressed coconut oil is processed without solvents or chemicals. Read more about how to cook with coconut oil.
2. Take It By The Spoonful
If you don’t mind the taste or feel of coconut oil in your mouth taking coconut oil by the spoonful is one of the easiest ways eat more on a daily basis. If you’re trying to eat more coconut oil to help with weight loss, it’s best to take it 20 minutes before a meal to help reduce appetite, feel full and satisfied with smaller portions.
3. Add To Your Smoothies
I love to make smoothies for my family. It’s one of the easiest ways to add nutrient dense foods to their diet! You can easily add a tablespoon of coconut oil to your smoothie. It’s best to add melted coconut oil to your smoothie if you don’t want it to clump up (we honestly don’t mind the small clumps of coconut oil in our smoothies).
4. Add Coconut Oil To Your Coffee or Tea
Eat more coconut oil by adding it to your coffee or tea. Just add a teaspoon or two to your hot beverage and stir until the coconut oil is melted. You can also blend coconut oil into your coffee for a frothy treat! (Hello, bulletproof coffee!)
5. Make Coconut Oil Chocolate
A family favorite treat is my homemade coconut oil chocolate bars. These easy to make chocolates are made with metabolism boosting coconut oil and are delicious. Keep a batch of them in your freezer for when you have a chocolate craving.
6. Bake with Coconut Oil
Whether your making muffins, pancakes or bread you can switch out butter or oil for coconut oil in most recipes. Just remember that coconut oil will solidify if you add cold ingredients to your batter, so make sure all ingredients are room temperature before you start baking.
7. Add To Your Oatmeal
If oatmeal (or coconut oatmeal) is your breakfast of choice simple add a teaspoon or two to it while it’s warm.
8. Mix it into your yogurt
Like oatmeal, coconut oil can easily be added to yogurt too. The best way to do this is to melt it first, then slowly add it to your yogurt. Make sure to mix it well before you dig in!
9. Add to your nut butter
If you eat natural peanut butter or almond butter you may notice that the oil separates to the top of the jar. You can discard the peanut oil and mix coconut oil into your nut butter. Make sure to melt the coconut oil first before adding it to your peanut butter.
10. Fry it up in coconut oil!
We don’t eat fried food a lot around here but when my husband makes a request, I use coconut oil to make homemade fried chicken fingers, coconut shrimp or coconut oil french fries.
11. Coconut Oil Softgels
For those who struggle taking coconut oil or adding it to your diet, coconut oil capsules are available at your local health food store.
12. Eat Coconut and Coconut Products
Love raw coconut meat? Add raw or dried coconut meat to your diet your salads, smoothies and fruit. Many coconut products like coconut milk, coconut butter and shredded coconut oil contain good sources of health promoting medium chain fatty acids. Using coconut products in your diet is a wonderful way to eat more coconut oil on a daily basis.
You can make a lot of this stuff on your own. Here are my recipes for: shredded coconut, coconut butter, coconut milk, and coconut oil.
If you don’t have the time and inclination to make it yourself, no problem! Happens to me, too! Here are some of my favorites to buy at the store: my five favorite coconut oils, my five favorite coconut creams, my five favorite coconut butters, and my five favorite coconut milks.
