The Bulletproof Coffee Phenomena
This last weekend I attended a seminar in San Diego, and one of the sponsors was Bulletproof Coffee.
What is bulletproof coffee, you ask? The short answer is that it’s coffee with butter in it (more on that in a moment). The long answer is that it’s the brainchild of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Aspery, who used to weigh 300 pounds, became a well-known bio-hacker, lost all the weight, transformed his life and his health, and started Bulletproof Executive, a company devoted to high performance living.
Bulletproof coffee—which is basically high fat coffee— is their signature beverage and has been gabbed about on Jimmy Fallon and a dozen other nationally known talk shows. It’s become the trendy beverage-d’jour among the health minded set and the darling of Paleo devotees.
Now this is not an advertisement for Bulletproof, although I’m a big fan of the brand. Even if you don’t buy the (excellent) “Bulletproof” branded coffee and high-fat add-ons, you can still make generic bulletproof coffee at home using regular coffee and any kind of fat like butter. Coconut oil is a popular add-on, as is MCT oil. (I’ll give you the generic recipe, which is what I use every day, at the end of this column.)
Now if you’re new to the notion that higher-fat diets can actually be good for you, you might be confused by my recommendation that you add butter or oil to your coffee. After all, what about the dangers of saturated fat?
Well, pull up a chair.
Saturated fat—from butter, from coconut oil, from grass-fed meat, from red Malaysian palm oil—is absolutely blameless when it comes to heart disease. At least three major meta-analyses—one published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2010, one published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2014, and one published just this year in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) were unable to find any direct causal connection between saturated fat and heart disease. (The most recent study, in the BMJ, concluded that “Saturated fats are not associated with all cause mortality, CVD, CHD, ischemic stroke, or type 2 diabetes..”)
What’s also important to remember is that fats—from good healthy sources like grass-fed beef, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, Malaysian palm oil, avocados, wild salmon, flaxseed, olive and avocado oil and the like— are the best source of energy in the human diet.
Our cells manufacture a molecule known as ATP which is basically the currency from which energy is produced in the body. We need ATP to power every single activity from growing eyebrows to dancing the tango. Our cells produce about 36 molecules of ATP from each molecule of glucose (sugar) but they produce well over 100 molecules of ATP from every molecule of fat.
Our bodies store about 2000 calories of carbohydrate in the body but they store about ten gazillion calories of fat. Fat is the natural fuel of the body—it’s like high octane gas for the cells. No wonder the bulletproof coffee formula gives you a nice little jolt of energy in the morning!
A further benefit of fat is its effect on your hormones. Remember, insulin is the fat-storage hormone, responsible for (among other things) driving sugar into the cells. The food group that has the most profound effect on insulin—raising it the highest—is carbohydrate. Protein has an effect, but not nearly as strong as that of carbohydrates.
Know what food group has zero effect on this fat-storing hormone?
You guessed it. Fat.
That’s why I called my new book Smart Fat: Eat More Fat, Lose More Weight, Get Healthy Now!. And that’s why the high-fat bulletproof coffee is a great way to start the day!
The generic recipe for “bulletproof coffee”:
Start with 8 oz of filtered water.
Add 2 ½ tablespoons of freshly ground coffee and brew in your preferred way.
Add 1 teaspoon of MCT oil (you can easily up this to 1-2 tablespoons).
Add 1-2 tablespoons of grass-fed unsalted butter
Mix it all up in a blender for 20-30 seconds.
Enjoy!
Dave recently introduced a brand new product that I can’t live without: A travel envelope that contains a special preparation of grass-fed butter and his high-quality MCT oil, “Brain Octane”. Now I can have Bulletproof Coffee every time I travel by just dissolving one packet in my Starbucks. I’m taking a box of these bad boys on our upcoming trip to my niece’s wedding.
And best of all, Dave’s given me a special Dr. Jonny 10% off coupon for any Bulletproof products (including the new travel packs). He’s got a great product line—you should check it out.. The 10% coupon won’t last forever so if you want to try (or stock up on) this stuff, this is a great time to do it! Use code – JONNY to save. And check out all the awesome products here. (Coupon code- one use per user, expires 2/26/16)
