Beware of fake coconut water

“We are seeing the problem more now that coconut has a good name in the health aspects. It is all over the world. In Trinidad and Tobago we are finding products that do not taste like any of the range of coconut waters available,” he said.

Addressing the opening of a three-day Regional Training Workshop on Coconut Product Development and Processing yesterday in Port-of- Spain, Paul said, “We have some serious processing problems that we have to look at.” Noting that bottles are labelled “coconut water”, he said, “the word ‘coconut’ is used high and dry all over the place. Sometimes the product has no coconut in it at all.” Advising people to be careful about what they drink, he said, last week he bought a one litre bottle of what was labelled coconut water. He said, the product had a medicinal taste towards the end.

He recalled earlier in the year when the local public health inspectorate pulled a product labelled coconut water off the shelf because it was found not to be coconut water.

“We have to be careful about what we drink and the quality control aspects,” he said.

Noting that there is a variety of coconuts, he said that the coconut water and its nutritional value depends on where and when it is harvested.

“The demand for coconut water is so high,” he said, that people are harvesting the fruit at five or six months of their development when the nuts should be harvested closer to nine months as indicated by the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

The early harvesting of coconuts for its water, he said, is unlike farmers picking their fruits ahead of maturity to get them to the market.

Apart from artificial coconut water flavours, Paul said that processors sometimes add water to the sweet tasting coconut water and so dilute it.

Frozen coconut water is imported from Guyana, he said, and it has a shelf life of six months after which it begins to lose its quality.