The Live Green Smoothie Diet

How To Open A Young Coconut

(The Safest Way I Know How)

Here is a video with another great young coconut smoothie recipe on my site, but the following is how I open my young coconuts, as I regard it as the safest way to get those lovelies open:

1. Buy a meat cleaver. If you own one already, make sure it’s sharp.

2. Take the plastic wrap off of the young coconut and set onto hard surface. I generally use the floor. Select a place that can take a few splashes without ruining anything.

3. Imagine a pentagon shaped hole cut into the top of the coconut – this is what you will now create.

4. Rest the blade of the meat cleaver at an angle on the coconut, with the point closest to you resting securley on the nut and the point furthest from you slightly raised.

5. Now pick the coconut up and crack it back down on the hard surface without lifting the knife from the coconut. If you do it hard enough and your knife is good, it will take just one whack, but if you have been tentative or your knife has seen better days, it may take a few more to break through the shell of the nut beneath the white outer layer.

6. Once you have the first line of the pentagon cracked, proceed around the nut (turning the coconut a bit each time) to cut the remaining lines into the shell. This is speedy business if your knife & technique are good. Never remove the knife from the nut — it’s the force coming down that does the work, without risking the safety of your fingers.

7. Once you have the whole pentagon cut, slide the edge of the meat cleaver into one of the cuts and pop up the top and take it off. Then pour out the water and scoop out the flesh!

As simple as that.