Turbo charge your caffeine fix – for your body and your mind

BULLETPROOF COFFEE is the modern version of yak butter tea – with similar health claims. Here is its story.

Take one Silicon Valley product manager and serial entrepreneur (Dave Asprey) who weighed 300 pounds and set him on a quest to fix himself – and help people perform better, think faster and live better.

In Tibet, he found health benefits from yak-butter tea drinks and brought the recipes home to adapt them. The result is a BULLETPROOF Buttered Coffee drink which Asprey designed to reduce inflammation, aid cognition and lead to weight loss. Citing high calorie and fat content, nutrition experts are skeptical, but devotees report that they have seen positive results. Bulletproof Coffee is delicious. I usually sweeten my morning Joe and I did not want to add anything to this drink. Caffeine is oil soluble and we digest oil more slowly than water, so by mixing the caffeine with oil, BULLETPROOF suggests that our bodies get the buzz from caffeine spread out more consistently over a greater time period.

Here is the recipe:

How to make BULLETPROOF Coffee (from the Bulletproof website)

Ingredients:

2 ½ heaping tablespoons ground BULLETPROOF Coffee Beans
1 teaspoon – 2 tablespoons Brain Octane Oil (purified coconut oil)
1-2 tablespoons grass-fed, unsalted butter or Grass-fed ghee (clarified butter).

Directions:

Make your coffee. Brew 1 cup (8-12 ounces) of coffee using filtered water with 2 ½ heaping tablespoons of freshly ground Bulletproof Coffee Beans. Use a French Press for ease of use and to preserve beneficial coffee oils that paper filters keep out. (I used my usual machine)
Add Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil. Add 1 teaspoon to 2 tablespoons of Brain Octane Oil (start slow with this stuff – it’s powerful!)
Add grass-fed butter or ghee. Add 1-2 tablespoons of grass-fed, unsalted butter or grass-fed ghee. Make sure your butter is unsalted. Salty coffee is gross.
Blend. Mix it all in a blender for 20-30 seconds until it looks like a creamy latte. There will be a good amount of foam on top.

BULLETPROOF 12 oz. of whole beans for $24.87

Sixteen oz. of oil distilled from 100 percent Coconut Oil. Odorless and tasteless. $22.03.

Grass-fed Ghee, 13.5 oz. $25.96.

All three elements of the BULLETPROOF coffee drink intrigued me – and my family thinks that it is cool to try it.

Pure BULLETPROOF Coffee Beans – Asprey asserts that there is residual mold on most of the coffee beans we grind (yuck). His beans are processed to avoid mold and are independently certified for their purity. I drink coffee every day, so getting into a purer habit is appealing.

Brain Octaine Oil – I have read that high quality fat is preferable to sugar as a source of energy and many vitamins and minerals are fat soluble. Asprey has developed a pure form of coconut oil.

Ghee – Grass fed cows in New Zealand produce the milk which BULLETPROOF clarifies over an open flame to remove casein and lactose. It still has a buttery taste.

Having made and enjoyed the coffee, you can now read about the Bulletproof Diet which is described as an anti-inflammatory eating program. It suggests eating foods which are high in ‘good’ fat, and low in carbs. It seems like a purified Atkins diet turbo charged with caffeine – maybe a fad? If you are interested, either for weight loss or enhanced performance, Asprey has written a book: The Bulletproof Diet: Lose up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life, $11.83.

How should I think about mold in my coffee? The National Institutes for Health (NIH) tested 60 samples of coffee beans from Brazil and 91.7% of them had mold. The toxin levels were below the limit suggested by the European Union, but clearly the less mold the better. These mycotoxins are not good for the liver or digestive tract. They may be what causes heart palpitations and jitters from coffee.

You pay a premium for BULLETPROOF Coffee, Brain Oil and Ghee, so here are some possible alternatives for a buttered coffee drink which may be similar.

Beans: You want to buy the purest beans you can get. Peru Wild Coffee, $18.95/lb.
Ghee: Grass-fed Organic Cultured Ghee 14 Oz. – Pure Indian Foods. 14 oz.$23.95
Coconut Oil: Nutiva Organic Virgin Coconut Oil, 15 Ounce for $7.47