Bulletproof coffee with CBD oil - benefits

14. 02. 2024

What is bulletproof coffee and what benefits can it have with prolonged use? We bring you the experience of a journalist who decided to consume this special drink for many every morning for 14 days. Did it make him feel faster, smarter and more efficient? Read his diary entries.

A bulletproof coffee is coffee + butter + oil.

Let us start with a little interjection. To make the bulletproof coffee that Chris Gayomali describes, and which he did a 14-day experiment on himself, you can use not only "just" MCT (or other) oil, but also CBD oil (perhaps some of our own). This can tweak bulletproof coffee to perfection. How does CBD work in coffee?

CBD primarily increases caffeine-induced mental alertness in coffee and reduces unpleasant side effects such as anxiety and nervousness. Caffeine and CBD can act synergistically - their combined effect can result in both increased productivity and the ability to better concentrate.

You can also reap the long-term benefits of taking CBD, which include supporting natural cardiovascular and immune system function, skin health, and much more, in addition to relaxation and stress relief. So, if you don't consume it only as a dietary component, it can be a good addition to a balanced diet that can properly kick-start you into a productive day. But now to the observations of the author, who tested the effects of bulletproof coffee in its "classic formulation".

Coffee. Butter. Oil.

Separately, these ingredients certainly don't fit the traditional idea of a balanced breakfast. But together, they're the only 3 ingredients you need to make bulletproof coffee - an energy-packed beverage whose popularity has skyrocketed in recent years

In California's tech hub Silicon Valley, for example, it has become a hit. It promises a lot, at least according to its creator, cloud computing pioneer and "bulletproof manager" Dave Asprey, who perfected his recipe after trying a tea made from yak butter in Nepal.

The benefits of bulletproof coffee include promoting weight loss through ketosis, a metabolic state triggered by a lack of carbohydrates that jumpstarts fat burning. It takes away cravings, boosts cognitive function and adds a tremendous dose of mental clarity to your foggy morning mind.

But above all, bulletproof coffee is supposed to be an effective and easy way to slurp up fat and calories (460 of them, even!) without even a whiff of processed carbs. Why eat donuts that go straight to the fat stores around your waist when you can drink the metabolic equivalent of a fully charged battery every morning? That's why I looked into whether bulletproof coffee is a hyper-efficient, energy-packed breakfast finished down to the last detail, or if butter coffee is something more insidious, the latest in a long line of deceptive preparations designed to charm overwhelmed shoppers looking for the next effective diet shortcut.

To find out, I recently gave up breakfast for two weeks and decided to dive headfirst into the (dark, mysterious, hot) phenomenon of bulletproof coffee. My goal was to assess a few things: How did I feel at lunchtime each day? Did I feel significantly more alert at work in the morning? And was brewing a cup of bulletproof coffee more convenient than, say, pouring myself a bowl of cereal? And who knows, I might even lose a few pounds.

I started by ordering a starter kit that included:

Enhanced coffee, which Asprey claims is free of harmful mycotoxins, which are basically fungi and moulds, thanks to its top-secret roasting process. (More on that in a moment.)
High-octane brain oil, which is an improved version of MCT oil (medium-chain triglycerides). It's supposed to be kind of like coconut oil, but it "works directly in your cells to give you an extra boost and maximize your performance." Whatever that means.

Finally, I went to the grocery store looking for butter. But just plain wasn't enough for me! The recommendations said it should come from the milk of grass-fed cows. I finally managed to find one. I think now is a good time to reveal my eating habits: I usually have black coffee. I used to follow a paleo lifestyle and later other healthful diets, but now I eat everything. I mean, mostly "blahs" of all kinds. Fortunately, I still have the metabolism of a fresh 20-something. I'm not as much of a sports enthusiast as I used to be, but I do play basketball a few times a week, which is about the only thing that keeps me fit.

So, I'm glad the obligatory introduction is over.

And now, here's a greatly simplified and unscientific diary of what I discovered after drinking bulletproof coffee for two weeks.

Day 1

I usually wake up at 6:30am and try to get to the office before 8am. Today, however, I decided to get up at 6:00 and brew my first cup of bulletproof coffee. After grinding the beans and brewing the coffee in the coffee maker, I added a tablespoon of butter and a drop of MCT oil, with the expectation that I would gradually work my way up to the recommended two tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of oil.

I peered into the cup. The result was what looked like an oil slick with a yellowish sheen lying on top of the dark sludge. I stirred the contents of the cup a few times and took a sip. It tasted wonderful. Mostly because of the butter. The drink was thick, warm and thick. The mysterious alchemy slid effortlessly over my tongue and esophagus, lubricating my throat and insides. By 6:45, I was fully awake.

On the way to the office I felt more alert than usual, though it may well have been a placebo effect. Reading the morning news went like clockwork. But by the time I got to work, I was hungry. By ten o'clock, I was absolutely starving. When it came time for my lunch break at 1 p.m. at an upscale downtown restaurant, I ate what should have been a decadent hamburger in perhaps one bite. I spent the rest of the afternoon staring at the monitor, weakened by the feeling of a heavy stomach.

Day 2

I decided to try to make bulletproof coffee in our office. I increased the amount of butter and MCT oil to the recommended two tablespoons and one tablespoon of each, respectively. Taste-wise, the drink was fine (less bitter, actually). And I was a little surprised at how quickly I got used to the broth-like consistency of bulletproof coffee. I felt like a fish. But as it approached half past eleven, I was hungry again and had to fight using all my willpower not to have lunch before eleven.

Days 3 and 4

Work was fine. I didn't notice the usual morning drowsiness on myself. But the problem was starting to feel hungry by 10:30. On the fourth day my stomach started to hurt, which was probably due to the acidity of the coffee. I decided to write an email to Asprey, specifically to the address listed on his website, and ask for his advice on how to optimize my coffee use and get rid of the stomach pain. While I was waiting for a reply, I browsed the forums and came across a very popular solution to hunger pains by bulletproof coffee users. Add a raw egg to the mix. Here is a recommendation directly from Asprey:

I've used the egg several times. The problem is that if the coffee is really hot, it oxidizes the cholesterol in the yolks. It flies through the air when you stir it... oxygen + heat. But if the coffee is just hot, it's not a major problem. Then if you want protein, that's fine, but I've found that adding protein to a morning fatty meal definitely ends the intermittent fasting induced by bulletproof coffee, so you lose the benefits of autophagy (the process used to remove unnecessary proteins and organelles). So on protein breakfast days, go for it, but not every day! I couldn't work up the courage to put an egg in my coffee.

But protein? I could handle that.

Day 5

The next day was Saturday, so I contributed. Upon waking, I did the least bulletproof thing I could: ate a piece of toast. The goal was to give the coffee and its acid a solid base so my stomach wouldn't hurt like it had the day before. On the advice of one of the forums, I also slightly reduced the amount of MCT oil. And to be fair, after eating the toast and slowly drinking a cup of coffee, I felt great. Perky, strong, ready for the challenges life puts in my path.

Day 6

I had a basketball game at 9am that I was late for. I brewed a weak coffee, added a sloppy spoonful of butter and coconut oil to it, and downed it all. On the way to the game, my stomach was growling. So I cheated. I ate a very powerful donut. It was getting a little weird. The sugar tasted pretty damn amazing in the morning. Suddenly I felt amazing. Everything felt amazing. I had a lot of energy during the game. Was my body trying to tell me something?!

And the game? We lost.

Day 7

Monday. I decided to get up early again and make coffee at home. I figured that judicious cooking might trick my body into feeling full longer, similar to chewing something 24 times before swallowing it.

It didn't work. By the time I got to work, I was hungry. As I exited the subway station, I passed a bakery and smelled croissants. Buttery croissants full of carbs. I put my head down and hurried to work. I needed help. I asked Asprey on Twitter if he'd be willing to chat. He told me to email him (for the second time). I did.

No response.

Day 8

I had some excess coffee in the coffee maker from the day before, so I heated it in the microwave, poured it into a cup, added a couple tablespoons of butter and MCT oil and shook it up. Drinking coffee with butter on public transportation is weird. I felt like my lips were glistening a lot, like I'd put gloss on them.

But by the time I got to work, my stomach was hurting terribly. And, amazingly, I was hungry. When a company email arrived in my inbox around 11 o'clock telling me that there were free bagels on the snack table, I was the first one out of my chair and pounced on the table like a lion coming across a fresh zebra carcass. My zebra had poppy seeds in it. I felt guilty. This "experiment" had gone wrong. Quickly. One thing was clear: something fundamental had to change. I bought whey protein on the way home that night.

Day 9

Before leaving for the office, I first mixed a scoop of whey protein in a glass of water and drank it. At work, I made myself a perfect little cup of coffee through the Aeropress with two tablespoons of butter and the recommended amount of oil.

And guess what? I felt fantastic. I had reached a new benchmark: my stomach didn't hurt. And by noon, I wasn't hungry. My brain was working at full speed as I wrote, effortlessly bending metaphors and twisting sentences to do what I wanted. I felt a steady surge of energy that never seemed to subside. It was as if I had worked out hard at the gym in the morning and then dumped a bucket of ice on my head.</p

Have I finally discovered the secret recipe?

Days 10, 11 and 12

I had a blast at work! Hundreds of not-so-fucked-up words were perfectly transferred from my brain, passed through my fingertips and organically lined up in phrases on the internet. At that point, I was all in a bulletproof express and it seeped into other aspects of my eating. I drank less beer, ate fewer carbs and generally felt better.

Asprey still hasn't responded to my emails, so I decided to ask how others have acclimated to drinking bulletproof coffee. "I've been drinking it for almost two years," says Jeff Ake, a personal trainer and fitness coach from Denver, Colorado. "I don't drink it every day. But when I woke up in the morning, I was stuffing myself with things like cereal and simple carbs, and I was burning those off really fast."</p

Ake says he felt miserable before he started taking bulletproof coffee. Drinking it was a revelation for him: it kept him full for five to six hours straight and gave him plenty of energy, allowing him to stay on the training floor with clients for long and challenging stretches. His favourite coffee was one with stevia, coconut oil and a little vanilla extract. I made a note to try it. Then I asked Ake, "Do you remember when you first heard about bulletproof coffee?" "I learned about it through... what's its name," he said, referring to Asprey. "It was on Joe Rogan's podcast about two years ago."

I noticed. Apparently Asprey had appeared on Rogan's podcast a few days before and expounded on the many wonders of bulletproof coffee. Asprey charmed Rogan, who watched him wide-eyed, and then sang the coffee's praises wherever he appeared. It did not last long, however. Rogan soon discovered that one of Asprey's key claims, that 70 per cent of all coffee beans are infested with vitality-reducing mycotoxins, which he claimed cause coffee bitterness, turned out to be false.

"Good coffee suppliers know how to remove it from coffee," Rogan said on his show, citing a 1980s study he found on PubMed. "For decades, they've been solving this with something called wet processing." When coffee berries are harvested, the beans are "washed" in running water before being fermented and dried, reducing the mycotoxin content to negligible amounts. All suppliers wash their beans in this way.

That's why Rogan was upset. He felt cheated and accused Asprey of using pseudo-scientific facts masquerading as truth. "I'm sure there's some bullshit in there," he said. "He used my platform in a way that's not ethical."

Days 13 and 14

It was the weekend. Since I had time in the morning, I made the coffee as intended: slowly, using a dripper, with all the ingredients thrown into the blender. The resulting porridge was thick, like a milkshake. Drinking bulletproof coffee this way had one surprising side effect: The butter chilled in the fridge made the normally hot coffee lukewarm, just above room temperature. Even so, I had plenty of energy. I missed my morning meal, though.

Day 15

Believing that my two weeks of drinking bulletproof coffee were essentially up, I gave in and decided to celebrate that morning with a breakfast sandwich - eggs and cheese on a croissant from the aforementioned bakery. In a co(s)mic fit of clumsiness, the croissant exploded like a snowflake piñata and showered my keyboard with crumbs. An hour or so later, I was feeling noticeably sluggish. My brain was a step behind, as if its gears were jammed, like a hangover.

Around ten o'clock, then, I went to the office kitchenette to make myself a cup of bulletproof coffee. When I opened the fridge, my fancy Kerrygold butter wasn't there. I leaned over to the fridge and looked for it behind each cup. Someone had either thrown it out or taken it home.

My feelings about bulletproof coffee are mixed. On the one hand, it gave me a lot of energy (although I should get my cholesterol checked). On the other hand, like an increasingly vocal group of critics, I am wary of the claims that Asprey - a very clever man who has clearly figured something out with his bulletproof empire - uses to promote it.

"I definitely wouldn't recommend it," says Christopher Ochner, a nutritionist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. "There is some data on the use of medium-chain triglycerides in weight loss and cholesterol control. However, the effect is very, very small."

However.

A few days after the experiment ended, I asked Dr. Ochner why I was still hungry when I drank hundreds of calories in the form of saturated fat every morning. "Well, it's actually not surprising," he says. "There's a lot of evidence that drinks and shakes don't actually make people feel full. Even if you have a large Coke or whatever with your meal, and it may have 400 calories or more, it doesn't do much for people's appetite. It's the same concept."

To sum up, I probably wouldn't waste any more money on mycotoxin-free specialty grains (whose processing process Asprey won't share publicly) or MCT oil. Brewing bulletproof coffee every morning wasn't very convenient either. As a meal replacement, drinking whey protein and then steaming a cup of coffee was more laborious than, say, scrambling a few eggs. In fact, brewing coffee this way even gave me more dishes to wash.

Unless I dramatically overhauled my diet and lifestyle - and I'm well aware that I didn't during my fortnight with bulletproof coffee - I don't think that strict adherence to a butter and oil-based approach would make anyone feel invincible or noticeably healthier. I still enjoy a cup of bulletproof coffee from time to time. But the truth is, I much prefer breakfast.

Original article can be found on the Fastcompany website

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