If you’re on the wellness side of TikTok, you’ve probably come across a product called Coconut Cult.
Influencers and other wellness content creators have been raving about the benefits of this probiotic supplement yogurt for gut health.
While this product may have such benefits, it doesn’t come at low cost. The question not only becomes whether or not this product is truly beneficial, but if it’s worth $40 a jar.
I’ll be challenging this questing myself by testing Coconut Cult for two weeks to give an honest answer.
What is Coconut Cult?
Coconut Cult is a vegan, probiotic yogurt supplement made by The Coconut Cult company. The product is made from organic ingredients and contain live probiotics. Their ingredient list is a notable feature of theirs.
All of their yogurts contain no additives or chemicals. This is the main reason for their high price tag. The yogurts are contained in glass jars sized either 8 or 16 ounces, priced at roughly $10 and $40, respectively.
The company also sells the product in a variety of unique flavors that they continuously update, such as ‘Lemon & Olive Oil Wedding Cake,’ ‘Wild Passionfruit,’ and ‘Orange Dreamsicle.’ Though their most common and primary flavors are their ‘Original’ coconut, ‘Chocolate Mousse,’ and ‘Harvest Strawberry.’
Probiotic Content
Taking an adequate amount of probiotics is often overlooked by most. Probiotics are an important bacteria that aid in boosting your immune system and improving digestion. It’s also especially important for your gut health.
Coconut Cult lists 16 different probiotic cultures on their website. Each of these cultures holds a distinct purpose ranging from weight control to immunity or lower inflammation. With so many live cultures in each jar, each serving contains 50 billion CFU (colony-forming units), being 1 ounce.
It is important to note though that more isn’t always better when it comes to probiotic intake. For reference, the daily recommended amount is somewhere between 10-20 billion. Taking too much probiotics can lead to reverse effects of increased bloating and even diarrhea.
As far as how it’s consumed, many wellness influencers on TikTok recommended taking a spoonful in the morning before having breakfast. Many have even claimed to see quick results within a day of lowered bloating and improved digestion.
However, with so many paid partnerships existing between influencers and brands, it’s hard to tell whether or not a product is actually good and can produce the results they claim. To test this theory, I decided to take a spoonful of Coconut Cult every day for two weeks to gauge its effectiveness.
My Experience With Coconut Cult:
Sizing
I purchased an 8oz jar of the chocolate mousse flavor. From the beginning, there were a few things I noted while buying the product. I was only able to find the 8oz jar in stores, Whole Foods specifically, and it seemed like the larger, 16 oz was only sold on their website.
On top of that, for a larger sized jar, basically double the size of the smaller one, the price was unproportionate. For reference, the 16 oz jar costs $40 and the 8 oz, $10. The larger jar costs nearly four times the amount of the smaller one, when it’s not even four times larger.
This is very unusual to be creating “value sized” products and setting them at a “non-value” price.
Taste
Getting into testing the yogurt, one of the key rules that is stated on the jar is to not mix the yogurt. There is a liquid separation created from live probiotic cultures, similar to what you see in greek yogurt. However, this time it is recommended to keep it separated in order to maximize the probiotic benefits by keeping it “alive.”
When it came to the taste, I honestly had pretty low expectations for it after seeing many influencers describe it as sour. After trying it, I definitely did notice the sour taste, mostly from the liquid separated from the yogurt at the top.
Still, I overall thought it tasted really good. I looked forward to taking my spoonful every morning because of this. It was like starting every day with a healthy sweet treat.
I would describe it as an acquired taste, and in particular for the chocolate mousse flavor. It’s great for dark chocolate lovers and not so much for milk chocolate lovers.
Effects
Moving on to the question of whether or not the product really held the gut health benefits it was expected to have? I have mixed opinions.
While I did feel like I bloated a bit less throughout the day, it wasn’t anything considerably noticeable. If anything I only saw an effect because I was hoping for one. I wouldn’t say I noticed any difference in my digestive health, and my skin saw no changes either.
Even in my initial days of taking Coconut Cult, I was getting stomach aches. This was likely from it being a huge increase in my probiotic intake.
This ended up circling back to the fact that the probiotic intake amount for the average person is a little over a fifth of what a serving of Coconut Cult contains. There’s no doubt that jumping to roughly 50 billion CFU, when I was probably normally eating less than 10 billion, the average intake, was going to cause some issues.
Unintended Positive
What I did like about the product was the unintended effect of motivating me to eat healthy more often. It was nice to start my morning with something of nutritional value to keep me wanting to eat healthy foods. This way, I wasn’t necessarily “canceling out” the effects of Coconut Cult.
A lot of people tend to believe that taking a supplement, like Coconut Cult, can allow them to eat whatever they want, but that isn’t really true. These products can only uphold their greatest value if you make the right choices that align with it.
Final Opinion
So to answer the question on if I think Coconut Cult is worth it? Maybe to try once, yes, but long-term, no.
For its high price tag, it doesn’t feel like a sustainable option to rely on for everyday use. Especially when I’m not seeing any major changes.
Trying Coconut Cult initially can be beneficial to see how your body responds to intaking more probiotics. However, I do feel like there are more probiotic alternatives that are worth your money.
What Else Is There?
There are many natural ways to increase your probiotic intake. Some typical household grocery items you probably already have that are high in probiotics are yogurt, green peas, apples, bananas, and oats.
Kefir is another popular alternative that many people recommend starting your morning with. If you’re unfamiliar with Kefir, it’s a fermented yogurt drink that is high in probiotics, containing over 50 types of cultures.
As mentioned before, the problem with many probiotic supplements, like Coconut Cult, is that they often contain too many probiotics. Eating natural foods can prevent the reverse effects of taking too many probiotics from happening.
In the end, it’s important to understand what is best for your body, because no one knows it better than you. It’s always okay to experiment with different products to see what’s right.
Coconut Cult is a great option to consider in the beginning with its clean ingredients and a wide range of flavors. However, don’t feel limited to it, because there are many great alternatives!
