Coconut butter (raw?, organic?)

Coconut butter (organic) is available in organic stores and is made from the whole flesh of fresh coconuts ( Cocos nucifera). The coconut butter, which is also available in raw quality, is finely creamy or chunky and creamy, depending on how it is processed, and is white to beige in color.

Use in the kitchen

What is coconut butter? Coconut butter consists of coarsely or finely ground coconut meat with only a small amount of residual water compared to fresh coconut meat. Since coconut butter is spreadable at temperatures of 24 °C or higher, it must be gently warmed occasionally. The best way to do this is to put the desired amount in a glass and heat it briefly in a water bath.

What do you do with coconut butter? In the kitchen, coconut butter is used in a similar way to almond butter, cashew butter, peanut butter, tahini (sesame butter) or macadamia butter. It is used as a spread on bread or to refine desserts, smoothies, to make ice cream or as a topping. Coconut butter can be used to refine savory dishes such as soups, Asian dishes, wok and pan dishes, curries or sauces and dips. It can also be used to bake cakes or cookies.

Making your own coconut butter

Coconut butter is easy to make from coconut flakes. It is best to use a blender with a flat blade on the bottom. Put 300 g of coconut flakes (or more) in the blender and process on medium speed to a fine flour. Continue mixing until the coconut oil slowly comes out. Take breaks every now and then, otherwise the coconut mixture will heat up too much. Continue mixing on medium speed until the coconut butter is creamy. Let it rest for 10 minutes and then mix on the highest speed until it is almost liquid. ²

Vegan recipe for banana coconut shake

Ingredients (for 2 people): 2 bananas, 2 tbsp coconut butter, 1 pinch ofvanilla powder, 500 ml rice milk.

Preparation: Peel the bananas and cut them into pieces. Add the bananas, coconut butter and vanilla powder to the cold rice milk and puree with a blender until you get a frothy shake. Serve immediately.

Vegan recipes with coconut butter can be found under the note: " Recipes that have the most of this ingredient ".

Purchasing - Storage

Where can you buy coconut butter? Coconut butter is usually available in large retailers such as Coop, Migros, Rewe, Edeka, Hofer and Billa. Sometimes it is also organic. Volg, Spar, Aldi and Lidl occasionally have it as a special offer. Coconut butter is mostly available in organic supermarkets such as Denn's Biomarkt and Alnatura.

Availability of coconut butter varies depending on the size of the store, catchment area, etc. If you are interested, click on our recorded food prices for the DA-CH countries (above under the ingredient image). There you will find current prices from various supermarkets and their price development.

Storage tips

Coconut butter has a shelf life of up to 2 years. It should be stored tightly sealed and kept out of direct sunlight. In winter, coconut butter can be stored at room temperature so that the consistency remains creamy. In summer, it is advisable to store it in the refrigerator, otherwise the coconut butter will have a very liquid consistency. Coconut butter is spreadable from around 24 °C. If it is very solid, you can warm it up in a water bath or on the heater and soften it. However, frequent heating in a water bath can impair and reduce the shelf life of coconut butter. Therefore, you should only heat up the portion you are going to use and not the whole jar of coconut butter.

Ingredients - Nutritional values - Calories

Coconut butter (organic) contains 677 kcal per 100 g. The butter is very high in fat with 65 g fat per 100 g. It contains 25 g of carbohydrates, of which 7.4 g are sugar. Coconut butter is low in protein with only 7.6 g/100g. The fiber content is 17 g/100g. ¹

Coconut butter contains a significant amount of manganese (1.3 mg/100g). It also contains several essential amino acids, as well as some biotin (vitamin B7), potassium and iron. ¹ Since coconut butter should only be eaten in small quantities due to its high fat content, the actual nutrient content is put into perspective.

You can find all the ingredients of coconut butter, the coverage of the daily requirement and comparison values with other ingredients in our nutrient tables. In the article Nutrients explained you will get a detailed insight into the topic.

Effects on health

Is coconut healthy? Coconut and coconut products are often praised for their high content of medium-chain fatty acids (MCT). However, this should be treated with caution. It is true that our bodies can absorb them more easily from the gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream, which is why they are mainly used in patients with digestive and absorption disorders who suffer from energy deficiency and impaired fat absorption. But apart from that, the disadvantages clearly outweigh the advantages, especially when you consider that extra-enriched MCTs are often used for the above-mentioned medical conditions and not pure coconut oil. Experts also recommend the use of MCTs only for strictly specified medical indications. ¹⁰

Can I lose weight with coconut butter? Due to the high proportion of medium-chain fatty acids (MCT), you often read that you can lose weight with coconut products. This goes back to a study by nutritionist Marie-Pierre St-Onge, who showed that medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) can help adults lose weight. ^6,7,8 However, a special coconut oil was produced for this purpose that was made up of 100% of these fatty acids. Commercially available coconut oil only contains 13-14% of these medium-chain triglycerides. ⁷ The German Nutrition Society ( DGE) has revoked this test and trend because more recent studies have found no effect on thermogenesis or fat burning. ⁹

Is coconut butter healthy? Coconut products such as coconut butter consist practically only of fat. Intensive or long-term consumption in large quantities leads to long-term (and sometimes life-threatening) negative consequences. If you generally eat healthily and occasionally treat yourself to small amounts of coconut products as a special treat, this is not a problem - although we do not recommend it.

For more information on health aspects, see the link to coconut oil (coconut oil, coconut fat).

Dangers - Intolerances - Side effects

Coconuts and coconut oil have been advertised as 'superfoods' for years. This is purely an industry interest in increasing sales. Vegans in particular use coconut milk as a milk or cream substitute, the oil for cooking and baking or for the skin, etc. According to interested circles, coconut blossom sugar is also said to have many advantages over conventional beet sugar.

The coconut boom is a big mistake, however, because the composition of the fatty acids in the oil is particularly unhealthy: Coconut oil consists of around 82% saturated fatty acids. At around 50%, even palm oil is healthier! Unsaturated fatty acids are also present, but the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is significantly higher than the recommended maximum of 5:1 ( linoleic acid, LA, to alpha-linolenic acid, ALA).

In general, saturated fatty acids have a negative effect on blood values and cholesterol levels. When coconut fat or coconut oil is consumed, the undesirable LDL cholesterol in the blood increases, which promotes cardiovascular disease. However, the healthy HDL increases slightly more, which then improves the total/HDL serum cholesterol ratio. Measured only by this ratio, coconut seems particularly healthy, which is a fallacy. A 2016 study analyzed 21 research papers, including 8 clinical studies and 13 observational studies, and concluded that replacing coconut oil with a healthier oil reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. ⁵ We recommend using rapeseed oil as a substitute or replacing the consumption of oil with nuts and seeds if possible.

Ecological footprint - animal welfare

The ecological CO ₂ footprint of coconut butter depends on various factors, including the way the coconuts are grown, processing, transport and packaging. Despite extensive research, we were unable to find any precise figures for the ecological footprint of coconut butter. According to the Big Climate Database, this is 3.5 kg CO ₂ eq/kg for coconut milk ¹⁴ and 2.3 kg CO ₂ eq/kg for coconut oil. ¹⁵ It can be assumed that the footprint for coconut butter is quite similar.

Due to their numerous useful properties and clever marketing, coconuts are in demand almost worldwide - as food, but also for generating energy or for making decorations, furniture or medicine. In the tropical growing countries, this creates important jobs; in the Philippines, for example, up to 3.5 million people are directly or indirectly dependent on the coconut industry. ¹⁶ However, the coconut industry should be viewed with extreme skepticism, because small farmers often manage the coconut plantations for the western market, but the price is dictated by large trading companies. The farmers can barely live on this wage. When day laborers manage company-owned plantations, the conditions there are usually inhumane. ¹² Certified goods have been available for years, but have rarely been in demand. ¹¹ It should also be remembered that coconuts have had to travel long distances for our consumption and are therefore associated with high emissions.

The area required to grow coconut palms is often associated with land theft, deforestation and the destruction of local biodiversity. In order to meet the high demand, mixed crops are rarely planted, but monocultures are preferred. Coconut oil is also increasingly replacing the controversial palm oil. However, the yield of oil palms, with an average of around 3.8 tons of oil per hectare, is far higher than that of coconut oil, with 0.7 tons of oil per hectare. ¹² If you look at the number of endangered species per million tons of oil produced, coconut oil performs even worse than palm oil. ¹⁷

A study by the University of Exeter shows that an average of 60 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened as a result. ¹¹ Since trained monkeys are sometimes used to harvest coconuts, consumption also leads to a lot of animal suffering. The monkeys are trained violently for several years until they are able to pick the coconuts from the tall palm trees, which they have to do while tied up until they die. ¹³

Worldwide occurrence - cultivation

The coconut palm ( Cocos nucifera) is the only species of this genus, but there are many different varieties. The coconut is not a nut, but a single-seeded stone fruit. It consists of three carpels that grow together, which is also why it is often slightly triangular in shape. The three eyes that you see on one side are the three germination holes, with only one germ starting to grow at a time. Coconut palms grow mainly in the equatorial zone, i.e. in tropical areas. People have been using the coconut palm for at least 3000 years. It probably originated in Polynesia (Pacific island region). From the 19th century onwards, coconuts gained economic importance when they were grown on plantations by the Dutch in Ceylon. ³

According to FAOSTAT, around 63.6 million tons of coconuts were produced worldwide in 2021. The main growing areas are Indonesia (17.1 million tons), Philippines (14.7 million tons), India (14.3 million tons), Sri Lanka (2.4 million tons). ⁴

For information on growing and harvesting coconuts, see Coconut meat, raw (Coconut meat, organic?)

Further information

What is the difference between coconut butter and coconut oil? Coconut butter consists of (cold) ground coconut flesh with only a small amount of residual water. In contrast, coconut oil is pressed out of the coconut flesh.

Coconut milk and coconut cream are also made from ground coconut flesh, like coconut butter, but the water content is higher. Coconut butter can easily be made from coconut flakes (coconut flakes, coconut chips).

Alternative names

In English, the fruit, the tree or the seed are called coconut or cocoanut. When referring to the palm tree, one speaks of the coconut tree.

Coconut butter, also called coconut mush, is known in English as coconut butter, coconut manna or creamed coconut.