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December 02, 2014
Dave Asprey on Bulletproof® aka Buttered Coffee
We're excited to have the inventor of Bulletproof® Coffee, Dave Asprey, contribute to the PT blog today. We are fans and believers in Bulletproof coffee (it's on our list of paleo desserts), drinking it every morning (we add cacao butter and coconut oil in addition to butter) and noticing a big difference when we miss a day.
Want More Energy Each Day? Add Butter to Your Coffee
A key discovery of the Bulletproof diet is that there’s a rhythm to the body’s requirements. Eating (or avoiding) specific foods at certain times of day can cause a desired reaction in the body like giving you more energy. It all starts with the most important meal (or in my case, beverage) of the day – breakfast. If you want more energy each day, add butter to your coffee.
Why this works
By taking coffee with fat, you temporarily suppress all gut bacteria and then provide food for the “thin people” bacteria so they can proliferate. This is something I can actually see in my own gut panels and in Bulletproof Dieters’ uBiome results when they share them with me. They have above average amounts of bacteriodetes, the bacteria associated with being lean, and fewer of the firmicutes class, associated with being obese. You should have some of both for optimal health, but changing the ratio really impacts your energy level and ability to regulate your own weight.
It’s also important to blend the butter into your coffee rather than stirring it because blending the butter breaks it up into something called micelles, which allow your body to use fat for energy. Your bile produces micelles, too, but the more of them you have, the more fat your body can use. This means blending butter into your coffee assists your body in using fat as a source of energy. If you peel back the wrapper on a stick of butter and eat it like a Snickers bar alongside a cup of coffee, the results are not the same. I should know – I’ve tried it!
The Bulletproof diet gives a simple road map that will help you make better choices so you can eat more of the foods that move your health and performance in the right direction and fewer of the ones that don’t support your goals. With this information, you’ll learn important life hacks like if you want more energy, add butter to your coffee.
Dave Asprey is a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur who spent 15 years and $300,000 to hack his own biology, losing 100 pounds, upgrading his IQ, and lowering his biological age. He runs the No. 1-ranked iTunes health podcast and The Bulletproof Executive blog about using biohacking to increase human performance — and he invented Bulletproof Coffee.
You can find more about biohacking, the art of changing your environment and your biology so you perform better in his new book The Bulletproof Diet, and also on The Bulletproof Executive website, Facebook and Twitter.
Nik Hawks
Nik Hawks helps run the show at Paleo Treats. Fascinated by humans in all their strange glory, Nik is harnessed in and pulling hard in pursuit of excellence with the rest of the PT Crew. Enjoy!
14 Comments
Nik@PT
Hi Candice,
I think the cold brew might not be worth the trouble, though maybe if you melted the butter & coconut oil first it might be OK. Probably would taste a bit too greasy. Worth a try unless you’re using $100/oz coffee. :) Cheers, Nik@PT
Candice
Can this be done with cold brew as well? Do you have any tips for getting the coconut oil/butter to blend nicely in the cold coffee?
NIk@PT
Hi Josina,
Not really, it’s getting past the idea that all fat is bad for you. There are good fats and bad fats, and according to Paleo (well, Primal), grass-fed butter falls into the “good fat” category. Paleo & primal are really different ways of thinking about food compared to the standard food pyramid, and “all fats are bad” is just one of the beliefs that turns out to be upended by the Paleo way of thinking. While lots of great resources exist on the Google-machine regarding fat, fat consumption, and healthy fats, I just recorded a great podcast on fat burning here: http://www.paleotreats.com/blogs/paleo-treats/45568963-episode-39-peter-defty-ofm Long, but definitely worth a listen. Cheers, Nik@PT
Josina
I don’t really understand. If you are adding a tablespoon a
day to your coffee that is 7 tablespoons of butter in a week assuming you have this everyday. Isnt that much butter bad for you?
Nik @ PT
Hi Chris,
Sure, you can use any brewing kit you want. We’re fans of the Aeropress, but as long as you start with good coffee you should have a solid (and tasty) base. Cheers! Nik@PT
Chris
I have limited space and I don’t want to purchase yet another brew station. Can I use my Kuerig system and still make bulleroof coffee?
Debbies21
Does it work w all teas meaning black or earl gray or do you need a green tea or what I would call Chinese restaurant tea. Can you provide a recipe.
Nik @ PT
Hi Michael, I usually use about a tablespoon of butter. Everybody makes it a little differently; we add another tablespoon of coconut oil, a teaspoon of cacao powder and (just recently) a teaspoon or two of collagen to ours. It seems the critical thing (once you’ve got the ingredients you like) is to blend it. Cubes of butter just don’t taste that great in coffee, but blended in (with an immersion blender) they’re pretty awesome.
Nik @ PT
Hi Raquel,
Tea with butter will work well; it’s what got Dave started on the whole “add butter to your hot drink” kick. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but we’re kind of tea snobs by default; one of our good friends (Lambert Ninteman, podcast episode 16) is a tea fanatic, and uses his fluent Chinese and long experience over there to import some of the finest tea available directly, so we get our tea from him and I don’t have specific tea brand names for you; ours come in little bags covered with Chinese and we just trust Lambert to guide us in tea excellence. He does! Having said that, go ahead and experiment with the tea flavor you like. As long as the quality is good and you’re using grass fed butter (see article above for sources) I think you’ll dig it. Cheers! Nik@PT
Manny
Love the blog treats and bulletproof coffee thanks!
Raquel
What if you don’t drink coffee? Is tea okay? If tea is okay, is there one you recommend?
Michael
How much butter to how much coffee? Or just enough to taste good?
Danielle
Ive been drinking bulletproof coffee since the summer and I feel a difference. I have more sustained and steady energy throughout the day instead of the crashing side effect I used to get. I’m also more alert and clear headed. Love bulletproof coffee!!
Melissa Ramsey
I was soooo skeptical the first time i tried this concept. But I said to myself why not lets give it a try…….I loved it! I drink my coffee like this every sinlge day. I follow a Keto/paleo diet and this coffee keeps my cravings down. I add 1 tbs of unsweetened cocoa to mine. soooo good.
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