Coconut is the new quinoa — with one big difference: Coconut is bad for you.
The trendy superfood — which is about to make the jump into the Mainstream American Diet thanks to Starbucks, Walmart and Costco — is loaded with heart-damaging saturated fat, sugar and calories that hide behind its healthy, food co-op image.
“People are going to see coconut more and more and decide that it’s a really healthy choice. And it’s not,” says Keri Gans, a New York nutritionist.
The coming coco craze is already being hyped by mega-selling coffee giant Starbucks, which is marketing a coconut milk latte as a vegan, nut-free alternative to dairy- or soy-based beverages.
The company says it conducted “careful research” and “numerous taste tests” to devise its recipe — but it left out the health costs: A venti Starbucks’ coconut milk latte has 10 grams of saturated fat — which is almost all you should have in an entire day. The skim milk version of the same beverage has no saturated fat.
And coconut milk has just 2 grams of protein. The skim milk version has 16 — about one-third of your recommended daily intake.
To add insult to health damage, Starbucks charges 60 cents more for the fatty coconut version. And to add injury to your diet, the coconut latte tastes much better than the skim latte. It’s richer, thicker and pleasantly sweet.
“Once you taste this, you’ll always order it,” said one member of the Daily News Taste Kitchen. “And that’s why everyone is going to gain 10 pounds this year.”
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