3 Ways To Make Coconut Milk (Without cracking open a coconut)
What this video covers
A 2015 how-to video in which Hari demonstrates three ways to make coconut milk at home in under five minutes: blending canned coconut milk with filtered water (she recommends BPA-free, organic cans); blending shredded unsweetened coconut with water and straining it; and blending softened coconut manna with water and straining. No coconut-cracking required.
The recipe is the vehicle for Hari’s critique of store-bought coconut milks. She reads off a long ingredient list — water, coconut cream, cane sugar, tricalcium phosphate, coconut water concentrate, natural flavors, sea salt, carrageenan, gellan gum, corn dextrin, xanthan gum, guar gum, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D2 — and argues most of it is unnecessary since coconut milk needs only two ingredients. She singles out carrageenan, which she says she has written about since 2012, claiming it is contaminated with degraded carrageenan and citing a Nature study on emulsifiers and gut microbes; and the various gums, which she says can cause bloating and gas in sensitive people. She also flags Starbucks’ coconut milk, whose ingredient list she displays, as an example of the problem.
Key points
- Hari demonstrates three homemade coconut milk methods: canned + water, shredded coconut blended and strained, coconut manna blended and strained.
- She argues store-bought coconut milks carry long lists of unnecessary additives, displaying a typical ingredient panel as evidence.
- She claims carrageenan is contaminated with degraded carrageenan and points to a Nature study on emulsifiers and gut microbes — her reading of the research.
- She says gums like gellan, guar, and xanthan can cause stomach issues in sensitive people, and that she personally avoids them in foods she eats often.
- She holds up Starbucks’ coconut milk ingredient list as an example of over-processed store-bought options.