What is Bulletproof Coffee?
Bulletproof Coffee is not your usual latte. It’s a high-performance drink that has an immense effect on your energy and cognitive operations. Bulletproof Coffee has been of tremendous advantage to everyone from driven, multitasking CEOs to professional athletes to busy parents as it boosts their energy so they can do more of what fulfills and gratifies their creative and intellectual faculties.
People who promote bulletproof coffee claim that it has a wide range of benefits, like:
- Maintaining energy levels throughout the morning
- Preventing hunger
- Improving mental focus
- Keeping physically motivated
Since bulletproof coffee is a comparatively new product that has cropped up, there has not been enough scientific research into whether it provides any benefits or harms health. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who are responsible for evaluating the safety of food, medication, cosmetics, and other products, have not yet assessed bulletproof coffee.
Bulletproof Coffee Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
- 1 tablespoon MCT oil or coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons grass-fed, unsalted butter
How To Prepare
- Using freshly ground coffee beans, brew 1 cup of coffee. Use a French Press for more convenient use and to preserve beneficial coffee oils that paper filters leave out.
- Add 1 tablespoon (tbsp) of medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, which is usually derived from coconut oil. Start with 1 teaspoon per cup and increase up to 1-2 tablespoons over several days.
- Add 1 to 2 tbsp of grass-fed, unsalted butter or a non-dairy alternative.
- Mix in a blender for 20 to 30 seconds.
Why Add Butter and Oil to your Coffee
- First, putting plain milk lowers the number of catechins, a type of antioxidant found in coffee. By not putting milk in your coffee, you get 3.4 times more antioxidants because casein, the milk protein, binds to the catechins and makes them unavailable.
- Since coffee is a rich source of antioxidants, we might just try to get the maximum antioxidants out of our coffee. In fact, you might want these antioxidants even more because you’re dealing with relatively more mold toxins in your coffee.
- Second, when you add butter or oil in coffee, you can see small droplets of fat suspended. Those small droplets are called micelles, and they make the fat more digestible; one of the roles of bile in the body is to create micelles to help you digest fat.
- The bulletproof coffee recipe uses a coconut-derived MCT oil. MCT oil contains a medium-length chain of triglyceride fats. The shorter the chain of fats, the more quickly the body can break them down.
Benefits
- Drinking coffee in moderation has a range of health benefits and may reduce the risk of death from:
- Heart diseases
- Cancer
- Liver disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Drinking coffee in the morning can sharpen your mental focus and help a person to feel more awake, alert and energetic. The effect usually lasts for a few hours.
How Bulletproof Coffee Works
Bulletproof coffee works by driving the body into the fat burning mode. It does so by aiding the body to convert stored fat and dietary fat into ketones. This process is called ketosis.
It occurs when you have reduced consuming carbs long enough, and your carb or glucose reserves are empty. As a result, your body uses ketones as a source of fuel rather of glucose (sugar), and you start burning fat, and your hunger is reduced.
Benefits of Bullet Proof Coffee
Bulletproof Coffee Helps in Weight Loss
A scientific study found that MCTs may be more useful for weight loss than long-chain fats, which most other fats and oils contain. However, the authors concluded that there is not sufficient research conducted to determine whether MCTs are safe and effective as a food supplement.
Reduces Hunger
One of the reasons for drinking bulletproof coffee is to prevent hunger during the morning. Adding butter and oil to coffee may make a person feel less hungry than if they drank regular coffee.
Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is low in carbohydrates and high in fat. Those who promote bulletproof coffee claim that it fits into the mold of a ketogenic eating plan because it contains fat but no carbohydrates, and the body converts MCT oil into ketones. Thus, people who are following a ketogenic or low-carbohydrate diet for health reasons may benefit the most from drinking bulletproof coffee.
Harmful Effects of Bulletproof Coffee
Replacing a Nutritious Meal with something that is Low on Essential Nutrients is a Bad Idea
It is usually recommended to consume bulletproof coffee in the morning. Large amounts of fat in it wanes your appetite for many hours, especially for people who function on the keto diet and are used to eating a low-carb, high-fat diet. This could also provide plenty of energy by elevating ketone levels in the blood, which then become available as fuel for the brain. But there is a drawback as well.
By drinking bulletproof coffee, you are effectively replacing 1 of 3 nutritious meals with something that is low in essential nutrients.
Even though grass-fed butter contains some fat-soluble vitamins, CLA and butyrate but MCT oil has no calories. It is a refined and processed fat with no essential nutrients. Even though bulletproof coffee may contain small amounts of nutrients, this is nothing in comparison to what you would get from a nutritious breakfast.
High amounts of saturated fat are harmful.
As opposed to the dominant attitude towards saturated fats, recent studies have shown that it doesn’t cause heart disease.
However, pouring massive amounts of saturated fat into the coffee can definitely be detrimental. The fact remains that humans did not evolve eating (or drinking) such massive amounts of saturated fat.
Thus saturated fat fits into the same category- healthy in reasonable amounts, but harmful when we start consuming massive, unnaturally large doses.
There have been cases of elevated cholesterol because of bulletproof coffee.
The patients with high cholesterol happened to be drinking bulletproof coffee. Doctors have reported such cases.
It is important to keep in mind that this goes way beyond Total and LDL cholesterol, which we now know are not that accurate as risk factors. These are increases in ApoB and LDL particle number, which are much stronger risk factors.
Who Should Avoid Bulletproof Coffee?
Avoid bulletproof coffee if:
- You follow a low-fat, low-carb, and moderate protein diet.
- You have a BMI over 30.
- You have any medical condition that prevents you from being on a high-fat diet.
- You are on the Paleo or Mediterranean diet.
Bottomline
Bulletproof coffee is a trending drink that combines coffee, oil, and butter as a substitute for breakfast. No doubt it is a good option prevailing today, it can be immensely harmful if not taken in moderation. Taking saturated fats in large amounts can be inimical to long-term health. Moreover, it does not provide all the nutrients a person needs. Eating a balanced and healthful breakfast is the best way to start the day. It is better to drink it in small amounts along with breakfast and not instead of it.
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