Coconut Oil and Randomness

Tropical Traditions sent me a jar of their Certified Organic Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil last fall. I was just stomping through my archives and realized I never posted my review. Ack!

As luck would have it, I'm STILL discovering new uses for the stuff.

First and foremost, I cooked with it. It tastes absolutely amazing with sweet onions and tilapia. It adds just a hint of sweetness which makes for a much richer flavor then olive oil.

I tried baking a chocolate cake with it, but it wasn't quite my favorite. First and foremost, I need to say that I don't like the taste of coconut. When baked, it has that flavor. So it wasn't quite my style. Although, oddly enough, when I ate some cake the next day (after it was refrigerated, I liked it much better. The coconut flavor wasn't as strong the next day.

So, even if you don't particularly like coconut flavor, you may find that, like me, you really enjoy this with meat or vegetables.

I found the most random uses in addition to eating it. With the oil, Tropical Traditions included a little booklet that had lots of information and included some alternative uses.

One idea mentioned was using it as a moisturizer. I found this coconut oil was the only thing that worked to get rid of TheBaby's cradle cap. I rubbed it on her scalp and the next day, the flaky dry skin was gone.

I also made the most wonderful exfoliating concoction. I added used coffee grinds to coconut oil and kept it in a little container in the shower. I used it in the mornings. The smell was great and my skin felt very soft. I have oily skin, but using the oil on my face didn't cause any problems.

Unlike most other oils, this coconut oil is a solid at room temperature. So, you can add "Prop in a science lesson" to its resume'. This has proven to be endlessly fascinating to my kids.

Our vet recommended giving the cats some oil to help prevent hairballs, but we've never had any luck getting the cats to actually eat oil, though. The booklet mentioned that some pet owners just put a small scoop on their pets' food. Sure enough, we put a scoop in their food and one of our cats loved it. I must admit, one wouldn't touch it, but neither of these cats would eat any other type of oil. Our fuzzy boy happily licked this up right away.

Last weekend, I found the most bizarre use for this coconut oil. Would you believe it works wonderfully to cover scratches in hardwood flooring? Well, it DOES. Moving furniture left us with a big scratch on our floor. After panicking momentarily, I remembered reading that walnut oil was supposed to be good for such scratches. We didn't have any (and we had company coming very soon), but I did have a little bit of this coconut oil left. So I put some in the crack and rubbed it in. The kids and I were all shocked when we realized you couldn't see the scratch at all. I then cleaned the floor as usual with hardwood floor polish. A week has gone by and it still looks great.

The price on the oil seems a bit steep to me, but they have sales all the time--really good sales. If you sign up for their newsletter, they'll let you know what sales are happening and they link you directly to them. I've found that very helpful. They also list sales and blog giveaways via twitter.