The coffee that promises fat loss and brain power

Your daily Cerebral Kick Start

Nootropics… a foreign word to most of us, it means literally 'Mind Function' or ‘Psyche Direction'. Simply put, a nootropic is any substance or supplement that enhances cognitive function or how well you can think.

Let’s face it, we all know how it feels to fall out of bed, foggy headed and lacking motivation for the day. Even if you have a great routine and have good energy levels Nootropics are a way of hacking your body and mind when you need it, giving you better health and functioning.

 Nootropics work by giving your mind and body the exact fuel needed in the moment, whether you have a work meeting to attend, a sharp mind needed for an essay that has to be handed in or you want to lose the brain fog and think with more clarity, nootropics can help in all these scenarios.

So let’s take morning energy levels and mental clarity, both tend to be at their worst together and at their best together.

A commonly used nootropic is caffeine. Always choose organic, high quality coffee and make sure that your decaffeinated coffee is decaffeinated by the Swiss water method and not the commonly used solvent method (it says on the label).

Caffeine has a bad reputation but is in fact excellent for boosting mental clarity if it’s high quality and in the right amounts. Coffee is also very high in antioxidants. 

Low quality coffee is bad for your health and should be avoided, especially freeze dried or instant. Coffee is one of the food choices where buying organic, always choosing Arabica and if you can find it, beans grown at high altitude, is a worthy investment in your health and well being.

Coffee boosts your mental clarity, your energy levels and has one of the highest ORAC counts in all foods. ORAC means Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity and is the measure of levels of antioxidants in food.

Other examples of more well known nootropics are Creatine, used in the fitness industry, Rhodiola and Ginseng which are herbs used in a variety of applications to boost energy.

Bulletproof coffee was created by Dave Asprey of The Bulletproof Diet. He includes coffee for the caffeine of course but also organic butter and MCT oil. In many parts of the world like Ethiopia and The Himalayas, butter has been used in coffee for centuries.

Butter is a superfood. It contains many kinds of saturated fats that are excellent for your health and has a balance of omega 3 and omega 6 (you need a balance of these for optimal health), plus Vitamin A, essential for good vision. We have been told for years that fat is bad for you and will make you gain weight but this is misinformation peddled by the sugar and processed food industry who substitute fat with sugar to make it attractive to you and boost their profits while your health suffers. Butter is a great food for weight loss and for great health. 

Not all fats are equal, the fats in margarine and vegetable oil are very bad for your health. More information about the benefits of butter can be found at the Weston A. Price foundation (WAPF) Click here for more information.

MCT oil is made from coconut oil, it’s a particular kind of fat called a triglyceride that is readily absorbed by the body and boosts mental energy really quickly. If you aren’t used to this kind of fat then go easy and use a smaller dose, building it up slowly. It can cause stomach upset in people who aren’t used to the rapidity of absorption. MCT oil can aid weight loss due to how quickly the liver is able to process it. It increases energy and mental clarity which is the reason we add it to bulletproof coffee. It also can aid digestion and lower ‘bad’ LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol.

Bulletproof coffee tastes great, it’s filling and gets you quickly ready for the day, physically and mentally. It comes with numerous health benefits and it’s so easy to build into a healthy morning routine. It’s great for people who work out regularly too as regular consumption of MCT oil decreases lactic acid build up in muscles during exercise, leading to better endurance and recovery. 

Recipe 

Ingredients 

1 Cup   High quality organic coffee  

1tsp to 2tbsp MCT oil (start with small amounts and build up)

1-2 tbsp  Organic (ideally raw/cru) butter or ghee

Equipment 

Coffee filter or cafetière 

Blender or Nutribullet 

Instructions 

Add 1 cup of coffee with your chosen amount of MCT oil and butter or ghee into your blender. Blend for 20-30 seconds until it looks creamy. Pour and drink! You will be surprised at how delicious it is. If you want to add a tsp of honey then you get an healthy superfood Latte-tasting coffee. It’s absolutely delicious!