You Should Know This Before Adding Butter To Your Coffee

Butter has dominated the baking scene for decades and now it has found its way into the coffee shops.

Buttered up coffee has been praised for its purported fat-burning and mental clarity benefits, even though many coffee drinkers find this non-traditional.

If you're wondering if adding butter to your coffee is healthy or not, you're in the right place. This article provides confirmation on the potential health benefits and risks of adding butter to your coffee, just in case you want to give it a try.

Butter coffee or Bulletproof coffee

Butter coffee contains brewed coffee, unsalted butter, and medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), an easily digested type of fat.

It’s close in consistency to Bulletproof coffee, which was developed by an entrepreneur named Dave Asprey.

Asprey’s Bulletproof coffee utilizes a specific type of coffee bean, a liquid high in MCTs, and grass-fed, unsalted butter.

Butter coffee is basically a do-it-yourself (DIY) version of Bulletproof coffee that can be made without special coffee beans or MCT oil. In fact, any coffee with unsalted butter and coconut oil, which is a good source of MCTs, will work.

Butter coffee is usually consumed in lieu of breakfast by those observing a keto diet, which is high in fat and low in carbs.

To make butter coffee, do this: 

• Brew about 1 cup (8–12 ounces or 237–355 ml) of coffee.
• Add 1–2 tablespoons of coconut oil.
• Add 1–2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, or choose ghee, a type of clarified butter lower in lactose, if you don’t eat regular butter.
• Mix all ingredients in a blender for 20–30 seconds until it resembles a foamy latte.

Is it nutritional? 

Some studies have associated saturated fat to an increase in risk factors for heart disease, such as high LDL cholesterol, but research suggests that saturated fat doesn’t directly lead to heart disease.

Despite that fact, there is no doubt that the amount of saturated fat in butter coffee is excessively high for just one serving.

Research has proven that replacing some of the saturated fats in your diet with polyunsaturated fats can lower your risk of heart disease. Foods high in polyunsaturated fats are nuts, seeds, and fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, herring, or tuna.

Aside from its high fat content, butter coffee contains other important nutrients, namely vitamin A.

Butter coffee also contains minute amounts of calcium, vitamins K and E, and several of the B vitamins, but it’s not a good source of these nutrients.

Note that the MCTs in butter coffee may help promote fullness and aid weight loss when used with a calorie-restricted diet. 

The caffeine and MCTs in butter coffee may also help boost your energy and focus. However more research is needed.