Katy wrote:

>Also, have a can of "coconut milk and the listed ingredients are:
>coconut extract, water, potassium metabisulfite (preservative).
>Realizing I don't want the preservative, but not sure what the
>coconut "extract" is.  (AND realizing my love of the actual
>small dab of real milk nectar that is inside a fresh coconut
>isn't going to get me a whole glassful of it).


I've checked out about 15 different brands of coconut milk so far and have
found a few things. If you want the coconut milk really thick, so you can
make Thai curries or whatever, it seems like you usually have to get
something with guar gum, which from what I've read doesn't seem bad for you
but I'm not positive about that. I haven't bought anything that just has
coconut extract, because that definitely sounds less real than the cans that
have actuallly coconut. Thai Kitchen has very small cans that have just pure
coconut in them, no water or preservative, but they are VERY small. Most of
the ones I've found have preservative. The ones that don't have guar gum to
thicken them come out pretty thin and many don't taste very good. If you
want the liquid that is inside the coconut when you open it, I think that's
called coconut water rather than milk, and I think I have seen that in cans
here and there. I live near Washington D.C. though and you can find just
about anything around here - if you don't live near a city I imagine it's
harder to find the more exotic kinds of products.