Tangelo: A cross between a tangerine and an orange.
Tangerine: A very dark orange in color, with soft, sweet fruit. Resembles a squished orange.
Unique fruit: A rough-skinned sour fruit.
Valencia: A very common variety that is easy to cultivate.
COCONUT: A hard-shelled fruit of a palm tree that contains both water that is high in electrolytes and a white gelatinous meat that is very rich and
packed with protein.
Coconuts are the fruit of a palm tree that has been around since prehistoric times. This prolific plant has made it to the shore of every continent
except Antarctica and is available in more than 100 varieties. Coconuts can float for three months in the ocean, land on a sandy beach, and still
sprout up a tree that will bear up to ten thousand coconuts in its lifetime.
Coconuts can be used at almost any stage of ripeness. Baby or bitter coconuts are used for their water, as they have not yet developed any
meat. The water in these young nuts is slightly bitter and is considered medicinal in many island nations around the world as well as throughout
Asia. As they develop slightly sweeter water and a small amount of clear jelly on the inside of their shell, baby coconuts are then called jelly nuts or
spooners. Next, they become young or green coconuts, the most popular variety for use in food and for drinking. These young nuts have very sweet
water and a coating of rich, creamy, soft meat a centimeter or more thick on their inside shell.
Mature coconuts are the kind most people are used to seeing in supermarkets. These brown nuts have had most of the husk removed down to
the shell layer. These nuts are old and the water either is bad or has fermented and tastes like coconut champagne. Mature coconuts are used for
oil and cream made from the hard meat. If a mature nut falls to the ground and has a chance to germinate, it becomes a coconut sprout—once
considered the most powerful food in the Hawaiian Islands. Sprouted coconuts contain a spongelike heart that tastes like cotton candy. Its meat,
known as copra, is very thin and crispy and has a thin layer of natural coconut oil. The oil can be obtained (for nutritional, medicinal, or cosmetic
purposes) just by rubbing a finger on the inside of the copra. Coconuts are essential to the raw food diet, so it is important to know how to find them
at the desired ripeness and then, of course, how to open them. Since there are so many varieties of coconuts, it can be challenging to tell what
stage of ripeness a coconut is at. Look for the three nubs at the base of the nut; if they’re close together, the coconut is most likely young (as the nut
ages, the nubs spread farther apart). High moisture content in the coconut’s husk can also help determine how young a nut is; the higher the
moisture content, the younger the coconut, since the husk dries out as it ages. Though most young nuts have a green stage, don’t be thrown off by
color: some nuts are always red, brown, gold, or green.
To open a coconut, using a machete or heavy knife, shave one side of the coconut’s outer layer at a 45-degree angle until a hole providing
access to the coconut water is created. Reserve or drink the water, then chop the coconut in half lengthwise with the grain. Some industrious
people also open coconuts with power drills. At Chinese and Mexican markets, you may find young coconuts sold with their husks removed;
typically, these nuts don’t keep as long or taste as fresh, but they are much easier to open. The meat of mature nuts can be scooped out by using
the back edge of a butter knife, carefully avoiding the hard shell, which isn’t fun to eat. To remove the meat from a young coconut, all that’s needed
is a spoon since the meat is thinner and softer.
COFFEE: A small red bean of a tropical tree.
DATES: The fruit of a palm tree that, when fruiting, produces up to three hundred pounds at a time. Dates are used as the primary sweetener in a
raw food diet. Dates range in color from green to golden brown to black, depending on their ripeness and variety. My favorite varieties are Bahari,
for their wonderful flavor, and Medjool, for their large size and nice texture. No matter the variety, choose soft dates, as they’re more likely to be
fresh and have a better flavor.
Bahari: A very sweet, soft, almost honeylike date.
Bread: A very dry, chewy date.
Deglet Noor: A large and creamy variety.
Halawi: A brown, soft, sweet date.
Honey: A sticky, golden, honey-flavored date.
Medjool: A very sweet date that is one of the largest.
Zahidi: A small, dark date that has a hint of maple flavor.
DURIAN: A yellow fruit that smells like sulfur but tastes like vanilla ice cream.
FIG: A very sweet, small, plump, pear-shaped fruit filled with many seeds and small fibers. This fruit is delicious fresh and also can be dried. Dried
figs are even sweeter, and often the fig sugars will crystallize on the outside.
GUAVAS
Common guava: A hard yellow-skinned fruit with pinkish flesh and many seeds.
Pineapple guava: Also known as the feijoa, a guava that tastes like pineapple.
Quince: A pear-shaped fruit also known as the guava pear.
Strawberry guava: A tiny red guava filled with a tart white membrane.
JABOTICABA: A small black-skinned fruit that is very sweet and grows directly from the trunk of a tree.
JACKFRUIT: A large, spiky fruit weighing up to seventy pounds that has an edible membrane surrounding a seed that tastes like Juicy Fruit gum.
KIWI: A small, brown, hairy fruit with distinctive bright green and black inside and a taste that is a cross between strawberry and banana. Peel
before eating.
LONGAN: A fruit also known as the dragon’s eye, with hard brown skin and a white membrane-covered seed that is quite juicy.
LYCHEE: A red, rough-skinned fruit similar to the longan although sweeter.
MABOLO: A fruit known as the velvet apple, with a velvety skin and a flavor like apples and bananas.
MANGOS: A sweet and juicy fruit that is grown in hundreds of varieties around the world and ranges greatly in shape, color, and flavor.