Why put butter in coffee?

Why put butter in coffee?

Have you ever put butter in your coffee?

Butter in coffee is delicious.

And it's growing in popularity, so much so that you can now find butter coffee on the menu in many Whole Foods.

Part of the reason it is growing in popularity in the states is the connection between drinking a butter coffee and fasting (skipping breakfast).

Adding butter to your coffee (and MCT oil) is a great way to skip breakfast in the mornings while still getting a boost in energy from fat calories and the effects of fasting.

Without going deep into intermittent fasting, try the following: skip eating whole food and try coffee and/or butter coffee instead. Then eat later in the day whenever you feel hungry, ideally 4-8 hours after waking.

Below is our recipe—The Wild Butter Brew—but before we get to that, I want to talk about fat for a hot minute.

After all, the mass of people still believes that fat is unhealthy.

::Sigh::

Fat is not bad for you. Fat is an essential nutrient for humans.

Essential nutrients mean if you don't eat them, you'll die.

How can something that we have to eat to live to be "bad" for us?

Well, here's a perfect example of something counterintuitive for a reason: because it's counter to intuition... or in other words, it's wrong!

All that being said, the kind of fat matters. Fats that are highly processed and that come from seeds—canola, soy, etc.—are what you want to stay away from.

Fats that come from animals—grass-fed beef, fatty fish, wild game—are not only ideal but the most nutritionally packed foods on the planet.

This article is supposed to be about butter coffee, so I won't expand on the topic of fat anymore. Read the Wild Foods Guide To Fat for the full skinny on fat.

"Butter was demonized and replaced with margarine, one of recent memory's most supremely stupid nutritional swap-outs. We discovered that the supposedly healthier margarine was laden with trans fats, a really bad kind of fat created by using a kind of turkey baster to inject hydrogen atoms into a liquid (unsaturated) fat making it more solid and giving it a longer shelf life. (Any time you read "partially hydrogenated oil" or "hydrogenated oil" in a list of ingredients, that means the food in question contains trans fats.) Unlike saturated fats from whole foods such as butter, trans fats (at least the manmade kind) actually do increase the risk for heart disease and strokes!" 

-Jonny Bowden, The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease-and the Statin-Free Plan That Will

Butter coffee is a delicious and nutritious way to start your day. You can use it to fast in the morning and skip whole food, or you can add it to whatever you already do in the mornings.

Personally, a mug of Wild Butter Coffee is all I have in the mornings. This keeps me going for 4-8 hours before my first meal. (To learn more about intermittent fasting, check out Leangains.com)

Wild Butter Coffee

​Ingredients:

  • 10 oz Wild Coffee (Organic, Fair Trade, Single-Origin, Ultra-Premium Beans 
  • 1 TBSP Non-alkalized cocoa powder (Available here)
  • 1 TBSP Wild MCT Oil (Buy MCT Oil here)
  • 1 TBSP of Kerrygold Butter (or 2 tbsp, this stuff is the ticket)
  • Optional: 1 dash of Wild Vanilla Powder (Available here)
  • Optional: 1/2 TSP Organic Cinnamon
  • Optional: 1/2-1 TSP Xylitol from maple (not corn)
  • Optional: Add a scoop of Wild Whey after step 3 after coffee has cooled then shake lightly to combine. Avoid blending or adding Wild Whey to hot liquids as this can damage the beneficial immunoglobulins!

Tools:

  • Preferred brewing vessel
  • Mason jar or mug
  • Blender

Process:

  • Brew coffee with preferred method (Scroll down for brewing methods​)
  • Place hot coffee in a blender with 1-2 tbsp MCT oil, 1-2 tbsp pastured butter, 1 -2 tsp of Wild Chocolate powder, a dash of Wild Vanilla powder, and desired sweetener
  • Blend until frothy
  • If you prefer it hot, drink your beverage now. If not, proceed to the next step

The "Wild Butter Brew" Iced​

  • Add 4 oz Wild Cold Brew and lightly shake to combine.
  • Place Butter Brew in the freezer to cool down for 3-5 minutes.
  • Remove from freezer
  • Add ice and give it a shake.
  • Enjoy!

Common errors making butter coffee:

  • Blending too aggressively. Blend/Pulse in short bursts.
  • Using coconut oil over MCT oil. Coconut oil leaves a coconut aftertaste and doesn't have the same smooth consistency as MCT, which has trouble emulsifying.
  • Not using the best beans. Wild Coffee beans are fresh roasted, single-origin, fair trade, and organic. They are ultra-premium and uber-fresh. Using quality coffee makes a HUGE difference in how your butter brew comes out and how you'll feel after you drink it.

How To Make Buttered Espresso

Some tips for Butter Espresso:

  • Let the butter come to room temperature for a few minutes. It will thoroughly blend if it's too cold, and you'll end up with (delicious) chunks of butter in your espresso.
  • Blend for 30-60 seconds. Because there is such a small amount of liquid in espresso, it takes some time to blend the butter and form the emulsion thoroughly.
  • Test the amount of butter. I've successfully used up to 2 tablespoons of butter in a double shot of espresso. However, 1 TBSP is plenty. Test and find what you like.
  • Use unsalted pastured butter

Optional ingredients you can add to make your butter espresso concoctions:

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