The coconut palm rates higher than the family cow to one third of the world's population. You can probably guess these people live in the tropical countries where the coconut tree is intertwined with life itself, from the food they eat to the beverages they drink. Household utensils, baskets, cooking oil, furniture, and cosmetics all come from the coconut tree.

Some historians surmise that many of the tropical regions where coconuts presently grow received their first coconut trees via the sea. Others believe the coconuts were brought to the different regions of the tropics by explorers and sea travelers. Today coconut cultivation encircles the globe between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Exactly where coconuts originated is not known for sure, but many historians believe Malaysia and Indonesia grew the world's first coconuts. Conjecture is that early sea travelers of the East Indies carried coconuts with them for nourishment as well as to trade for other commodities.

Early Sanskrit writings reveal that the people of India were using coconuts as a staple for food and various everyday needs. In India the coconut palm was known as kalpa vriksha, which translates as "tree that gives all that is necessary for living."

Historians of Zanzibar question whether coconuts are indigenous to East Africa. Based on the fact that similar varieties grow in Southeast Africa and Madagascar, they speculate the coconut did indeed originate in East Africa. An alternative theory is that either seamen from Malaysia brought the coconuts to East Africa during the early centuries CE or Arabian sea travelers who traded crops brought the coconuts from India about 3,000 years ago.

Coconuts made a strong impression on Venetian explorer Marco Polo, 1254 to 1324 CE, when he encountered them in Sumatra, India, and the Nicobar Islands, calling them "Pharoah's nut." The reference to the Egyptian ruler indicated Polo was aware that during the 6th century

Arab merchants brought coconuts back to Egypt probably from East Africa where the nuts were flourishing.

Coconut oil, one of the oldest recorded sources of vegetable oil, is still used for cooking in many of the tropical regions where coconuts grow. Once a highly valued, worldwide commodity for cooking, coconut oil was replaced by soybean, peanut, and cottonseed oils. More recently the oil is gaining recognition in the U.S. and Europe for its health benefits.

The production of pure virgin coconut oil and refined coconut oil are two distinctly different processes.

Production of coconut oil begins with copra, pronounced KOP-ruh, made by kiln drying or sun drying of the coconut meat to a moisture level of 3.5 percent from its original 50 percent. After crushing and grinding the coconut meat, the producers make a coconut milk by pouring boiling water over the coconut and kneading the grated coconut to extract as much liquid as possible from the meat.
Next, the milk is strained off and boiled gently for a long time to evaporate the liquid, leaving only the oil behind. Copra has an oil content that ranges from 50 to 70 percent. Always with their eye on the bottom line, producers develop ways to get the most from the raw material. Some boil the copra first to extract more oil, and some use solvents. Even the copra left behind, called coco meal or coco cake, becomes useful as high-protein animal food.

Filtering is the next step to remove impurities and particles, followed by several hours of boiling to eliminate an unsavory odor. A second filtering process, and sometimes an added bleaching agent, creates a coconut oil that is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. However, fearing the colorless oil will not appeal to customers, many processors add food coloring.

Extracting virgin coconut oil is an unmechanized, labor-intensive operation where most of the work is done by hand. In wet milling, the process of grating the fresh coconut begins by holding the nut over a rotating grater that somewhat resembles an orange juice reamer. The mechanized grater, operating at very high speed, requires skill to hold the coconut in place during the grating process.

The wet gratings are then put into a special dryer furnace to remove the moisture. The dryer uses cleaned coconut shells for fuel added continuously during the entire drying process.

The dried gratings are then fed into a screw press to extract the oil. The machine is not motorized but is belt driven to keep the temperature low during the 45-minute process of extracting the oil. The coconut gratings are passed through the press three times to squeeze out all possible oil.

The raw oil is then carefully purified by a slow process called racking, a three-step process that allows the oil to settle for 18 hours during the first step. Impurities fall to the bottom and the oil is decanted off the top. With the second settling, the oil rests for a week before it is siphoned off. The third and last decanting takes three weeks. Finally the pure oil is bottled for the consumer. The end product has a definitive pleasant coconut aroma and flavor and has an indefinite shelf life.