Frequently Asked Questions

Coconut Bliss is now available throughout the western United States. If you live in one of these areas, and Coconut Bliss is not in your local natural foods store, ask them to carry it! We have found that most natural food stores are very responsive to requests from customers. If you let us know about these stores, we will contact them too. We are working on expanding our production and distribution capacity and expect to continue moving into other regions of the country as rapidly as we are able to do in a sustainable way.

We recognize that it would be convenient for people to be able to buy Coconut Bliss in larger containers, and we hope to be introducing quarts of our most popular flavors sometime in the next year.

We are dedicated to using the highest quality certified organic ingredients that we can find, and we are now lining up sources for certified fair trade ingredients, including cocoa, chocolate, and coffee. These ingredients are costly. We realize that the price of Coconut Bliss is higher than people are generally accustomed to paying for a frozen dessert, but we have found that more and more people are recognizing the health, environmental, and social impacts of their food choices and are willing to spend more for products that are in alignment with their values.

Although an individual could be allergic to any food, there are eight common foods that account for 90% of all food-allergic reactions. These are: milk, egg, peanuts, tree nuts (walnut, cashew, etc.), fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat (according to the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network: www.foodallergy.org ). While a couple of our flavors contain tree nuts, most flavors of Coconut Bliss contain none of these common allergens. If you know you have food allergies, be sure to read the label carefully to avoid flavors that contain foods that you are allergic to. In addition, some of us experience food sensitivities to any number of foods, including sugar, which is abundantly present in most desserts. People frequently write to us saying how grateful they are for Coconut Bliss because it is the only dessert they can feel good about eating, and feel good after eating. Please click on the following link to learn more about food sensitivities: www.whfoods.com

The politics of the food industry can sometimes be very complex and machiavellian. In the 1980s there was a campaign to discredit tropical oils, spearheaded by the American Soybean Association and other industry sponsored groups. Eventually, research proved the claims against coconut oil to be unfounded. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former surgeon general, called the tropical oil scare "Foolishness!" and added, "but to get the word to commercial interests terrorizing the public about nothing is another matter." Many researchers, nutritionists, and physicians now believe that coconut oil is the healthiest fat for human consumption. There is a lot of information on the web about the health benefits of coconut. We have found this site: www.coconutresearchcenter.org to be extremely thorough, and a great place to start.

We make no claims about the dietary effects of coconut oil. There is, however, lots of research that suggests that coconut oil can contribute to weight loss. Following is some very clear information about the mechanism for this, from Cherie Calbom's book The Coconut Diet (Warner Books). While we feel excited about coconut oil, and include it as a staple in our own diets, we encourage you to do your own research, and even more importantly, experiment with it yourself and see how it works for you.

"The weight loss secret is in the chain-the chain of molecules that make up the fat of coconut oil. These shorter chain fatty acids that dominate coconut oil are known as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). They burn up quickly in the body. They're a lot like adding kindling to a fire, rather than a big damp log...

"Following rapid breakdown and absorption in the intestinal tract, MCTs are transported directly to the liver. Once there, they freely enter the mitochondria (the energy-producing elements of the cell) and are rapidly converted to ketones, which are almost immediately converted into energy. On the other hand, long chain triglycerides (LCTs), which comprise most other oils, are transported from the intestines as chylomicrons (relatively large fat droplets). They are eventually dumped into the bloodstream near the heart. These fat droplets must then be transported through the entire body before they reach the liver.

"This difference in metabolism means that the body treats MCTs in a completely different manner than the way it deals with other fats. LCTs are slow to metabolize in the body, and as a result, are more easily stored as fat. MCTs, on the other hand, rapidly burn for energy use, thus are less likely to contribute to fat storage. If you consider your body's metabolism to be like an oil furnace, eating LCTs is like adding oil to the storage tank, whereas consuming MCTs is like pumping fuel from the delivery truck right into the furnace. Less is stored; more is burned.

"Because the LCT molecule is so large, the body cannot process it very efficiently; it prefers to simply store it in adipose tissue (fat cells). On the other hand, MCTs can be rapidly converted into energy. Here's how it works: The body removes the carbon atoms two at a time and transforms them into ketones, which are high-energy molecules that pass easily back into the bloodstream and are carried quickly to the cells. Once in the cells, they can be rapidly turned into ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy molecules of the body. Eating MCTs could be likened to putting premium fuel in the gas tank of your car-it burns more efficiently.

"Thermogenesis is the rate at which the body burns fuel for energy. A very unique quality of MCTs is their ability to increase the rate at which the body burns fat for fuel. This could account for the trim, healthy constitution of most Pacific Islanders who eat a diet high in traditional fats that are primarily composed of MCTs."

Coconut Bliss is sweetened with agave syrup, which has the lowest glycemic index of any natural, caloric sweetener. (The glycemic index is a way of ranking carbohydrate-rich food that is based on the average increase it produces in blood glucose levels after the food is eaten.) Because of agave's low glycemic index, it is generally considered to be safe for people who have Type II, non-insulin dependent diabetes. It is important, though, to check with your doctor or health care professional if you are someone who needs to pay attention to your insulin levels and have not yet experimented with agave.

Only two flavors that we are currently making, Mint Galactica and Cinnamon Chocolate Flake, contain a small amount of organic cane sugar. This sugar is in the chocolate that we use for the flakes. We are looking for a supplier of chocolate that is sweetened with agave, but have not found a source yet. The amount of cane sugar in these flavors is very small-less than 2.5 grams per serving.

We are continually receiving suggestions for flavors, and maybe someday we'll make them all, but practical necessity requires us to limit our selection to around 8 to 10 flavors at any given time. We are open to suggestions, however, and like to try new things, so please keep sending us your ideas.

We import the coconut milk directly from a certified organic grower in Thailand.

No. At the current scale of our production, we are required to pasteurize our mix (to around 165 degrees) before we freeze it. While Coconut Bliss definitely does not qualify as a raw food, we have heard from many raw food enthusiasts that they still enjoy Coconut Bliss from time to time with only minor pangs of guilt.

It is clear from the research that we have examined that GMOs are potentially extremely dangerous to humans and other living organisms. To ensure that our products are GMO-free, we use only USDA certified organic ingredients. The current USDA organic standards prohibit the use of GMOs. If you 'd like to learn more about GMOs, a good place to start is the website www.saynotogmos.org

Yes, it's completely gluten-free. Our ingredient suppliers have all sent us allergen statements verifying that there is no gluten in any of our ingredients.

We are committed to fair trade principles and have been working on securing certified fair trade sources for our ingredients. We are now using certified fair trade vanilla, cocoa, dark chocolate, and coffee. Many ingredients are not yet available with fair trade certification, including coconut milk and agave syrup. We have visited the coconut farm in Thailand as well as the facility where it’s made into coconut milk and we are very impressed with the quality and sanitation standards of the facilities, the integrity of the owners, and the working conditions there. We hope to visit the agave supplier in Mexico soon to personally assess the conditions there as well. We are excited to be using some locally grown ingredients: our organic hazelnuts are grown right here in Oregon, and our cherries come from our neighboring state of Washington.

No. Coconut Bliss contains absolutely no cholesterol. The simple rule of cholesterol is that it is only produced in the bodies of animals (including humans). No plant foods contain cholesterol, regardless of what kinds of fat they may contain.