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Can Coffee Be Better With Butter?

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Ottawa chapter.

Everyone orders coffee differently.  

A dry cappuccino, skim milk, extra foam.

Double Double.

Black.

One cream, two sugars.

Regular coffee with a cube of butter.

Wait, what? Butter in coffee?! 

That’s right, butter in coffee. As of late, people have started adopting a new trend of putting butter in their morning roast instead of the standard milk or cream and sugar. 

This new take on coffee, also known as Bulletproof Coffee, was first introduced to the world by Dave Asprey, founder and CEO of the American company, Bulletproof Executive. He claims that by adding one or two tablespoons of butter into your daily cup of coffee, you feel fuller longer, eliminating your urge to reach for snacks in between meals. In addition, he insists that you won’t experience crashes in energy if you drink butter coffee.

However, Asprey claims that to make a proper cup of Bulletproof Coffee and indulge in all its (maybe a little greasy) benefits, you must use filtered water, special Bulletproof coffee beans, medium chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, and grass-fed butter. Asprey stresses the importance of using grass-fed butter – a bit of margarine just isn’t going to cut it in this case. 

Grass-fed butter is known to supply a variety of nutritional benefits, including omega-3 fatty acids that can promote development of the brain and may help defend against heart disease and stroke.

On the other hand, grass-fed or not, butter is still butter and it is considerably high in fat. Adding a tablespoon each of grass-fed butter and MCT oil increases the calorie count of your cup of coffee by as much as a whopping 240 calories.  

In some parts of Asia, there is a custom of blending coffee with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. In Tibet, people add some butter to their tea which serves to keep off the colder temperatures and deter hunger. Some say that North America jumping onto this butter coffee wagon is great while there are a number of skeptics out there who question the nutritional value and health benefits of this twist on the regular cup of joe.

 There have been no real studies done that indicate whether butter coffee’s nutritional and weight loss claims actually hold any truth. Some people swear by it and say that they have been able to lose weight by incorporating Bulletproof coffee into their diet. Others are wary of this and instead choose to advocate for the more traditional health habits of eating well-balanced meals and incorporating regular amounts of exercise into their day-to-day routine.

            Buttered popcorn? All for it.

            Butter beer? Absolutely!

            Butter coffee? …

 

Article References

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Picture References

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An undergraduate student in her final year of study at the University of Ottawa, Melissa Poon is studying English and French as a Second Language with the hopes of working in publishing in the future. She has a passion for storytelling and finds it supremely fulfilling to bring the stories of others to life with a selection of choice words, a dash of character, and a touch of light humour.