Butter Coffee…Should I?

This has been a really interesting, kind of fun, if not confusing journey into the wild and contradictory research of fat. Had I know I was about to descend down such a winding and complex rabbit hole, I would have considered just living in ignorance. 😉 Actually, no that’s not true, I love digging in and untangling the research and truth behind health claims and trends. So here is what I was able to decipher, translate and scratch out of the garble that is the research out there about saturated fat, coconut oil (Medium-chain-triglycerides) and coffee (less research about this, more about this in a later article). I do have to get a little technical and nerdy here, but I will do my best to not bore you to tears. And if you don’t really want to hear about the research, just skip to the bottoms to my “Experiment and conclusion.

First off, here is a bit of history about fat and dietary fat recommendations…in the late 1977s Dietary recommendations came out saying we should all be on a low fat diet to combat heart disease (obesity epidemic hadn’t started yet). This recommendation was based a hypothesis that dietary fat caused high blood cholesterol (blood cholesterol are fatty acids being transported to the cells through the in protein suitcases) and that this high cholesterol caused heart disease. This low fat recommendation resulted in an increase our carbohydrate intake, unfortunately this increase was mainly an increase in simple (empty) carbohydrates…anyone remember when snack wells came out? I do, and I was just beginning my long descent into “dieting” and thought, “these are fat free, so they are healthy, I can eat the whole container!”. Sound familiar? Well, I am sure this is not necessarily what the researchers and policy makers intended with the recommendations, but it setup the climate for a perfect storm, where food manufactures began to provide us with cheap, shelf stable, tasty (engineered for max taste benefit) that could be labeled as healthy. Then our population’s obesity, diabeties, heart disease and cancer rates skyrocketed and we needed to “be healthier” more than ever…so the storm rages on and gets stronger. I am not saying this carbohydrate/fat ratio is the only thing fueling this storm, there is diet quality, quantity and lack of exercise that contribute to this problem, but those topics I have to save for another time.

So after 30+years of following this advice we are further away from our goals than ever, so researchers and health care professionals started to wonder why? Many started to rethink the assumptions and dietary recommendations in place, especially the recommendations about fat, saturated fat, and carbohydrates. Because of new research, new lab tests, rethinking of old ideas, they are finding that dietary fat and saturated fat aren’t as dangerous or highly correlated to heart disease and obesity as previously thought (more about this below). Also, research on Medium chain Triglycerides (found in high concentrations in coconut oil) provides evidence of it’s role in the body to improve clotting factors, benefit the immune system, increase metabolic rate and increase satiety.

Enter Butter Coffee  (BC)

 

Butter coffee was made popular by one Dave Asprey of the Bulletproof Executive, who felt our current coffee was not doing us any favors because of the “molds”(not going to even discuss because it has no basis in fact) in our coffee, the caffeine crash mid day and adrenal fatigue. Mr Asprey states that this 450calorie beverage suppresses hunger, promotes weight loss and provides mental clarity, and recommends as part of the Bullet Proof diet that we drink this high calorie/fat coffee in lieu of a breakfast.

(In this article, I will refer to this beverage as Butter Coffee, because I don’t want anyone to think I am reviewing Mr Asprey’s product. )

Actually, adding butter to coffee is actually nothing new, many populations around the world from Nepal, to Northern India to Southeast Asia to Africa have enjoyed hot coffee or tea with butter. But this is a pretty new idea for us westerners. One of the arguments for BPC is, if fat and saturated fat are no longer “bad” and all these other super healthy (lower incidence of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity ) cultures drink this stuff, then why shouldn’t we? Well, if all things were equal, like quality of diet (whole foods, no processed foods) and lots of exercise and activity then the answer would be an easy, yes! But these things aren’t equal and although fat and saturated fat are not evil (like once thought )their role in diet is complicated and complex, therefore we should proceed with care and have a broader view than thinking this in a good or bad, black and white sorta way.

Let’s talk about Fat Baby (Salt n Pepa…anyone?)

Fat and Saturated fat play a very important part of our diet, providing us with some important building blocks( vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids) to allow us to build cells, bone, hormones and neurotransmitters and to look and feel happy and healthy.

The fat that is added to BC is grass fed butter and coconut oil (MCT oil), but mainly saturated fat, which also has a place in a normal diet, but let’s look closer. Saturated fat is known to cause an increase in total cholesterol, which has been associated with Heart disease, and is the reason why it was villainized for some many years. But now that we know that there are different types of cholesterol molecules and have tests to differentiate between them. It is also now known that in most people, eating saturated fat increases good cholesterol HDL and changes the bad small sticky cholesterol vLDL to the bigger more floaty LDL that is not associated with Heart Disease, making a diet higher in saturated fat (than the current recommendations) possibly heart protective. Unless you are the unlucky 10% of the population for whom saturated fat has the opposite effect, causing increases in Total cholesterol, the bad VLDL cholesterol an triglycerides (a genetic variation that can be tested for) .   Also, Grassfed butter has been found to be higher (than conventional butter) in Omega 3 fatty acids, Butyrate and a form of Vitamin K called menaquinone, all of which have very positive effects in the body (GI, heart and Immune system). BPC also uses Coconut oil, which is made up of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) which have also been shown to increase metabolic rate and suppression appetite effecting weight loss (there are other MCT benefits that have been theorized, but are unproven, so I won’t talk about them here).

But, on the other side, there is still strong evidence to suggest that a diet high in saturated fat is associated with higher incidence of cancer (breast and colon especially) and is pro-inflammatory (in my opinion is the underlying cause of many chronic diseases), so this is very concerning to me. Also, saturated fat intake is stored more easily than unsaturated fat because if it’s long chain fatty acids.   So if this fatty coffee drink puts you at a calorie surplus, there is a good chance you will weight gain. Also, a high fat diet increases leptin secretion, which is associated with high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and obesity.

So as you can see this a complex complicated situation, and because nutrients don’t work in the body alone, we can not just look at dietary fat intake, we must look at our whole diet. Fat metabolism (breakdown and use of fat by the body) is also affected by the other components of our diet, like amount and quality of carbohydrates and quantity of vitamins and minerals in our diets. Focusing on any one nutrient as the fix-all or culprit for problems is myopic and not effective. You really must look at the diet as a whole to decided what is right.

My Experiment with Butter Coffee and My Conclusions.

I had heard a lot about this trend and wanted to try it out for myself. I am a proponent having a good amount (30-40% of calories from fat) of the right types of fats in your diet. Which provide food satisfaction, satiety and nutrients. But was dubious about the amount of fat and saturated fat be added in BPC, along with the the unbelievable claims by the BPC peeps. So I decided to experiment on myself as a case study, and yes, I know this isn’t super scientific and I am a sample size of one, but I still wanted to give you my professional and personal observation on this trend.

I actually used 2 different versions of the BC recipe. I started with a lower fat amount because I read the butter amount incorrectly at first so corrected it once I noticed my mistake during my research. But really I felt this was adventitious because it gave me more data to discuss.

Butter Coffee version 1: 2 ¼ cups (18oz) of Brewed Coffee + 1 Tbsp Grassfed Butter + 1 Tbsp Unrefined Coconut oil. Blend this in a high powered blender, stirring won’t cut it. Makes 2 mugs.

229calories, 25g total fat (12% of calories on 1800kcal diet) and 19g saturated fat (9.5% of calories)

 

Butter Coffee version 2: : 2 ¼ cups (18oz) of Brewed Coffee + 2 Tbsp Grassfed Butter + 1 Tbsp Unrefined Coconut oil. Blend this in a high powered blender, stirring won’t cut it. Makes 2 mugs

329calories, 36g total fat (18% of calories) and 26g saturated fat (12% calories)

You must use a blender to emulsify  the fat particles in the water of the coffee, otherwise it just leaves a gross oily film on top of the coffee and doesn’t taste very good.

Day 1: Butter Coffee version 1

• 1^st thing I noticed was the urgent need to use the restroom in the morning, caffeine + high fat = active GI tract. Dang!
• Really enjoyed the taste, was delicious, rich and coconutey.   Yum!
• Was still hungry for Breakfast, had my fruit and vegetable smoothie + boiled egg (normal BF)
• Energy was sustained and didn’t have late afternoon crash, which was awesome!
• Ate normal meals throughout the day with normal level of hunger.
• Possible that my evening desire to graze was decreased
• Recorded my weight this morning to note any change

 

Day 2: Butter Coffee version 2

• Same GI urgency. 😉
• Same Yummy taste.
• Same hunger and breakfast as day 1 (in fact this is the same BF I will have all week…being scientific)
• Normal Meals throughout the day
• Was drowsy in the afternoon, but I had a horrible tension headache and that always zaps my energy. Stretched my chest muscles and my neck and headache resolved.
• Weigh same

 

Day 3: Butter Coffee version 2

• Same as day 1 – normal hunger, meals and GI patterns
• Energy was great in afternoon, similar to day 1 and I had sick kids so I had gotten less sleep. Interesting…
• Weight increased by 1 lb. Didn’t love this, but I know weight is variable and is effected by many things, so not really concerned.

 

Day 4: Butter Coffee version 1: I figured I would change back to version 1 to save the extra calories and fat grams because I really couldn’t tell a difference.

• Same as day 1 – normal hunger, meals and GI patterns
• Still great energy (I think there is something to this sustained energy piece)
• Weight decreased to 1 lb. below starting weight…see fickle.

 

Day 5: Butter Coffee Version 1

• Same GI pattern, hunger and meals
• Great Energy
• Weight down 4 lbs from starting weight. Very unlikely I lost 4lbs of adipose weight in 5 days. Will watch this trend.

 

Day 6: Back to my normal coffee: 18oz brewed coffee 2 mugs with ½ cup plain soy milk

• Bland flavor, like having dry toast after having a croissant for breakfast for 5 days. J
• Energy was good, but this was a Saturday, so I had slept later in the morning (6:30am instead of 4:30am)
• Weight same (and was back to my normal weight by Monday). Weight fluctuates so is not a good measure of day to day progress

 

So let me wrap this up! (Finally, I know!)

Ok, so here is my personal and professional opinion, there are some really great things about BPC, such as taste, sustained energy and potential for weight loss, but I don’t think I can recommend this for everyone. There is still enough compelling evidence to suggest that a high saturated fat diet has some major drawbacks and can be in fact be damaging.  So, when deciding whether this is right for you, I would really look at your whole diet. If you are a person who eats really cleanly, with very limited processed foods, fairly low carbohydrates (high fat, high carb combo is especially deleterious), with lots of fruits and vegetables, limited fat in rest of diet (no more than 40% of total calories), are calorically balanced (excess calories will cause weight gain) and partake in regular moderate intensity exercise, then you are an adult and able to weigh the pros and cons and can make your own decisions. Everyone else…I wouldn’t recommend it.

I feel like I have a pretty good diet (I strive for all the things I mentioned above,) and I will probably still have bulletproof coffee, but only on occasion as a treat (like once a month or so) because it is so tasty, just like I will occasionally have a croissant or donut for breakfast because they are so yummy. But I really don’t think Butter Coffee (or donuts) should be part of a normal everyday diet, especially not as a breakfast replacement. My diet philosophy will always be, use every meal and snack time as an opportunity to nourish your body… so don’t waste that opportunity on only having fatty coffee.

Happy Coffee Drinking my friends!!

Let me know your thought and experiences in the comments below!