Health Benefits of Coconut Cream

Isn't coconut cream the culprit that causes weight gain and triggers heart disease? In fact, the health benefits of coconut cream are more than what you've heard and learned for the past decades. So how does this wrongly-accused cream promote health?

Essentially, coconut cream benefits you with its medium-chain fatty acid (MCFA) structure and its lauric acid content. Let's first look at how its MCFA structure provides health benefits for you.

On surface, its saturated fat seems like the same as those in animal sources, but actually they're totally different. Animal-based saturated fat composes of fat molecules connected in long-chain pattern. This makes it difficult for your body to metabolize it for energy use. Hence, it gets stored in your fat storage most of the time, which explains why those who eat lots of fatty meat (from fast food) tend to grow fat easily.

On the contrary, the cream's medium-chain saturated fat gets converted into energy the moment your body absorbs it. In other words, your body converts the fat just like it does for carbohydrate. That makes the health benefits of coconut cream more apparent as a wonderful energy provider and booster for your bodily needs.

Next, lauric acid in coconut cream benefits your health just as the lauric acid in human breast milk does for infants. It helps to improve your immune system and protects you against intrusive viruses and bacteria, including hepatitis C, herpes and even HIV!

On top of that, its anti-carcinogenic and anti-pathogenic properties helps to prevent cancer. So, by eating a reasonable amount of this creamy food, you become very well protected. By reasonable amount, I mean you take it in moderation. Eating too much of it may make you ingest too much calories for your body needs. And when excess calories not used for energy, they'll ultimately get stored into your fat cells.

So how do you reap the most health benefits out of eating coconut cream? That depends on what you want to achieve with your food palate. For example, when drinking coffee, instead of adding coffee creamer or condensed milk, you can choose to use coconut cream instead. When baking cake, the cream can give you a wonderful creamy texture. How about adding it in your curry to make the gravy thick and silky? You can even cook your rice with the cream to give a subtle yet irresistible scent of coconut fragrance that no other natural foods can match.

Let your creative juices flow, but do keep in mind that moderation is the key to gaining maximum health benefits with coconut cream.

Pumpkin Rice - Children's Health Food

Pumpkins are very popular in cooking. It can be fried, boiled, steamed, baked and even roasted. Small pumpkins can be eaten as squash or zucchini. Mashed pumpkin can be used in soup. In Middle East, pumpkin is used for making desserts such as halawa and yaqtin. In China, the leaves of pumpkin are used as an ingredient in soups. In India, kadu ka halwa is made from pumpkin, butter, sugar and other spices. In Japan, some take the pumpkin to serve as tempura. In Australia, pumpkin is commonly roasted before consumed. In Italy, pumpkin is used with cheeses for ravioli. In Thailand, small pumpkins are steamed with custard, sugar and coconut milk mix to become a Thai dessert - pumpkin custard.

Usually, kids like to eat pumpkin. It might be due to its sweetness taste and the cheerful color - orange. My kid likes to eat pumpkin meals as well. My wife started feeding him with pumpkin meals since he was 1 year old. Now, he is six years old and still likes to eat pumpkin very much. Pumpkin is his favorite food, and no matter the meal prepared in soup, porridge, rice, steam or stir fry, he will always ask for pumpkin.

I would like to share with you one of the simplest and easiest way to prepare pumpkin cooking. You can prepare it in meal box and let your children bring them to school. Normally, I will add it with green peas to make the dish looked better and also more nutritious. Here is the Pumpkin Rice recipe.

Cooking Methods: (servings for 4 to 5 people)

Ingredients:

a) white rice 160g rinse clean and take off the water
b) Pumpkin 220g removed skin and cut into cube
c) Chicken breast 130g cut into cube
d) Dried mushroom 7 pcs soak till soft, rinse off the water and cut into cube
e) Dried prawn 35g soak till soft, rinse off the water
f) Onion small 5 pcs, cut slices
g) Water 350ml ( including water of soaking mushroom &dried prawns)
h) Green onion few

Seasoning materials:

a) Soya Sauce 1 ½ tbsp
b) Dark Soya Sauce 1 tbsp
c) Salt half of tsp
d) Sesame oil 2 tsp
e) Pepper 1 tsp

Method:

1. Marinate chicken breast with few starch flour and soya sauce together with sugar for about 30 minutes.
2. Heat up the oil, fry onion small until fragrance and ready to use.
3. Heats up the oil again, fry fried prawns with low flame and add in mushrooms continue by put in the chicken. Stir fry till half cook; add in white rice and the seasoning materials. Put into rice cooker and add in water and cook till 80%.
4. After that, add in pumpkin and onion that fried earlier and cook the rice till dry.
5. Loosen out the riceï¼OEput some green onions when ready to serve.
6. Completed.

Cooking Tips:

1. Australia pumpkin normally easy to cook than local pumpkin, hence don't cut too small, around 1.5cm to 2 cm will do.
2. Separate the fried onion to two servings, one can pour into the ingredients while half cook, another servings can use when ready to eat. This will help the taste.
3. Chicken breast can replace by chicken thigh.
4. Water levels that use to cook rice depend on the type of rice that you use. Use the normal cooking water level as reference
5. Use fresh mushrooms, put them into hot water, then rinse off.
6. if use pot to cook, you can follow the same method (1) to (3), put all ingredients (except pumpkin & fried onion) into pot, put in appropriate water and cook till water is boiled. Don't use too big flame, change to medium flame till water dry off, continue by low flame and add on the pumpkin and fried onion. You may want to stir it from time to time so that the rice won't stick to the pot.