What is actually in young coconut water
Coconut water is sold on a lot of claims. Here are the numbers instead — where they come from, and why the same fruit gives different readings depending on when it was cut.
Per 100 ml, roughly
These are reference values for raw young coconut water from the United States Department of Agriculture's food composition database. They describe the fruit in general, not any one lot.
| Per 100 ml | Amount |
|---|---|
| Water | 95 g |
| Energy | 19 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 3.7 g, of which sugars 2.6 g |
| Protein | 0.7 g |
| Fat | 0.2 g |
| Potassium | 250 mg |
| Sodium | 105 mg |
| Magnesium | 25 mg |
| Calcium | 24 mg |
| Phosphorus | 20 mg |
| Vitamin C | 2.4 mg |
Source: USDA FoodData Central, coconut water (liquid from coconuts), raw.
The number worth noticing
Potassium, at around 250 mg per 100 ml. Potassium and sodium are electrolytes — minerals the body loses in sweat and replaces through food and drink. Most commercial sports drinks are built the other way round, with more sodium than potassium; coconut water has roughly twice as much potassium as sodium, which is why it gets compared to them at all.
We are not going to tell you what that does for your body. That is a question for a doctor or a dietitian, and the rules on what a food company may claim about health are strict in both the United States and the European Union for good reason. What we can tell you is what is in the fruit.
Why the same coconut gives different numbers
Published figures are an average. A real coconut sits somewhere around that average depending on four things:
Age at harvest
The most important one. Water volume and sugar content peak while the nut is still young and the flesh is soft, then fall as the coconut matures and the flesh hardens into copra. Cut too early and the water is thin; cut too late and it turns flat. The window is a matter of weeks, and experienced cutters judge it by the colour of the husk and the sound of the fruit when tapped.
Variety
Dừa xiêm is a dwarf variety grown specifically to be drunk young. It is not the same plant as the tall varieties grown for copra and oil, and it does not give the same reading.
Where it grew
Soil and water reach the fruit. Bến Tre's groves sit on river silt between four of the Mekong's mouths, and the channels that feed them carry a little salt for part of the year. Growers here are certain this is what gives the water its edge. We covered that in a separate piece.
How long since it was cut
Sugars continue to change after harvest. A coconut drunk on the day it was cut does not taste like the same coconut three weeks later — which is a shelf-life question as much as a nutrition one, and we wrote about that here.
For anyone building a label. Retail packaging in the United States and the European Union requires a nutrition panel with figures for the product as sold. Reference values are a starting point, not a compliant panel — that needs analysis of the actual product. We supply the analysis for the lots we ship, in the format your market requires.