Opening a Young Coconut

I have realized that now on my 4th day of my modified Organic Vegan juice diet that I like to start out the day with a young coconut that I purchase from Whole Foods which says on it "Best Coconut" and under that it says "Aroma Young Coconut" which comes from Thailand. A coconut at this stage seems to really settle my stomach and start the day out right. I already had a whole organic grapefruit that I cut in two pieces and then used a knife to cut the individual sections for easier eating.

So, during this diet I'm trying to make opening a young coconut both safe physically and yet easy to do. My daughter's boyfriend taught me a technique by using a kitchen knife to shave off the top point down to the hard nut. Then he took a sharp kitchen knife and with the point going down at an angle (like the angle of cutting the top off a pumpkin to make a jack o lantern for Halloween).

So, then you push the knife in a circle trying to cut off the top in a small enough circle not to lose any coconut water. I found that once I had cut about two inches that I could hold the coconut over a pitcher and turn the knife sideways and let the coconut water out without making a mess. Then after the water was out I could complete the circle and have a perfect circle to stick a spoon it to spoon out the rest of the young coconut while I slowly sipped the coconut water. Since I once lived on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1974 and then on Maui in 1989 and 1990 I love coconuts, papayas and mangoes since I lived there and could have them almost every day that I wanted to.

Note: Just so you know this, unless you are rich or a tourist, if you are from the mainland living there is three times as expensive as living on the mainland. The biggest expenses are food, gasoline and a place to live. So, unless you are rich to begin with most people don't last longer than a few years there unless they were raised there and know all the tricks of being able to stay there ongoing and have relatives and friends there from all their lives growing up.

So, if you live well on $25,000 a year here expect to have to make $75,000 a year there for a comparable lifestyle.

But, there is an exception to this for young single people ages 16 to 25 or 30. Often they will rent condos together(4 or 5 to a condo) and work in the tourist industry doing anything from being a waiter to bartender to helping people fly while parasailing from boats. These people often can live there longer or make their lives there ongoing. But, for me, I was used to being able to drive long distances growing up of about 400 miles in a weekend with at least 100 miles an average weekend for me growing up in Los Angeles and San Diego Counties with gas prices from 17 cents to 30 cents a gallon until 1973. So, though I loved the Hawaiian islands I got island fever after a few months of the small space to live inside of on any island. I suppose you might not have this problem if you are from the mainland and went to Australia because it is the biggest Island or smallest continent on earth, and parts of it might have a similar climate to Hawaii around the Great Barrier Reef.

Also, if you are from big eastern city like New York and don't drive or are from London or something like that you wouldn't have this kind of problem I had but you might have others in adjusting to all the changes there.

So, anyway,  I guess now you have a hopefully safe way to open a coconut and know a little bit more about Hawaii and what it takes to actually live there. Also, I haven't lived there since 1990 so if you are actually interested in living there I recommend that you go online or meet someone who has lived or who lives in Hawaii now so they can better explain what living there is actually like now. If you are rich it really doesn't matter much except in regard to safety. But if you are middle class or poor everything matters to your happiness, safety and survival.

Also, I decided on a knife that I got from Duluth online catalog which is a Buck like knife but is more utilitarian and is a hunting knife with a locking blade that folds up when not using it. The tine is thick enough not to break using it on a coconut and I decided not to use my actual Buck knife because it is more of a fishing blade which doesn't have as thick a blade. I took the scabbord or case and put it on the butt of the knife to hit it with my palm so I didn't hurt my palm driving the blade through the top of the nut after I shaved off the excess to get down to the hard nut on the top. Then I cut about 2 inches and a little coconut water was leaking out so I held the nut over a pitcher to catch the coconut water and twisted the knife sideways to let out all the coconut water. Then leaving the knife inside the coconut with the blade edge away from me I cut a perfect circle out of the top so I could put a spoon in to spoon out the gelatinous coconut out and to drink the coconut water for breakfast on my diet. Before this I at a whole Grapefruit. This was my breakfast at about 11:00 am on the 4th day of my modified Organic Vegan juice diet. (My previous 7 days doing this in June I lost 30 pounds which was about 10% of my body weight because I am 6 foot 5 inches tall.)

About noon my son arrived from his place and we decided to climb a nearby Mesa that is within about 20 miles of us. We took my daughter's dog because my older dog is too old for this arduous a climb. It is about 3.5 miles up and down with about an 800 foot rise in altitude on the trail. When you reach the top of where we hike to there is a small lake and a spring and potable water for horses, dogs and people with all the hiking conveniences for all three to be able to drink in nearby locations to each other. There is also a drinking fountain for humans fed from a nearby spring further higher into the mountains. Though it was foggy today where I live the hike was far enough inland from the coast to be clear and sunny in the 70s Fahrenheit with a clear sky, a perfect day for a hike with my son and my daughter's dog. I took along a Gandalf walking stick because my left hip muscle is sometimes giving away under me so the Gandalf wooden walking stick kept me from falling and getting injured, especially where there were cliffs and if I fell I would have fallen several hundred feet or more. But being an old mountain climber and rock climber I'm pretty resourceful still and tend to think ahead so I have fun and still stay alive to enjoy another day.

I think the hip muscle thing is from pulling and tearing my left Hamstring around 1990 when I was skiing on Mt. Shasta when I lived up there last with my family. I didn't have health insurance then or the 40,000 dollars to have my Hamstring repaired then. So, instead I walked with a limp for 6 months and then stretched my muscles by turning my left leg foot inward even though it was painful at first until I could walk normally once again then in 1990 and 1991.

Then we visited Whole Foods to shop for my diet even though we were both pretty tired by then. I could feel more fat burning off me when hiking with so little regular food on board. I just took water to drink on the walk after having a Beet Power juice that I juiced and shared with my son and my daughter's boyfriend who is almost finished with the front of our house. He only has an upper secondary roof section now to complete because most all of the house below 20 to 25 feet is done now in the front.

When we returned I had some celery with Cashew butter and almond butter that I bought at Whole foods. I also bought some more of those Heirloom tomatoes and had some more of them with Virgin Olive Oil and Balsamic vinegar. So, I felt much better after that. The hardest thing today and last night was my wife making chocolate chip cookies to take to my daughter's private high school and my other daughter's boyfriend making tater tots to eat with Portland Ketchup. The last time I was in Portland, Oregon skiing on Mt. Hood a few months ago with my daughter I also made sure to stop at McMinnimins in Portland and McMinnville to have tater tots with Portland ketchup which is a vegan ketchup that my son and I now buy by the case and have shipped to us directly. It is the best tasting ketchup I have ever eaten. So, the tater tots and the chocolate chip cookies I really had to be disciplined not to eat any of last night, today and tonight. So, far I have maintained discipline and not eaten any. So, after I get out of the hot tub where I'm writing this to soothe my aching muscles from the hike I plan to make another Beet Power juice or some variation on a theme with carrots, beets, kale, rainbow or red chard, ginger, maybe a lemon, several organic apples and 7 or 8 carrots and some fresh spearmint. I find when I do this later at night just before sleep that I wake up very clear headed in the morning to face another day. The most spaced out I was any morning was Sunday morning when I ate too many exotic fruits and not enough vegetables and juice to keep my act as together as I wanted to be. Even today I decided not to drive my 4wd truck but instead let my son drive and when I was walking through Whole Foods I felt like I was in a little bit of a different universe being on this strict a diet. So, we will see how all this turns out by this weekend or next week. If I can keep going and this keeps working for me I might just stay on this longer than 7 days or 10 days. I'm taking this day by day now and looking deeply into myself and trying to ascertain what would be best not only for me but for everyone around me in my life. Have a nice day!