I have recently changed my coffee habits quite a bit, and my first cup in the morning has undergone a radical change in the last few months. To set the stage a bit, anyone that knows me - truly knows how much I enjoy coffee, and that I'm a bit of a coffee geek. Nearly everyday, I wake up and have my first cup within my first hour of being awake. It is definitely a ritual for me at this point, that has not changed for many years. What has changed is the recipe for the coffee now.
Before going into the makeup of the coffee I have each morning – here’s a preface. I still enjoy Dunkin’s coffee – my guilty pleasure is a large iced turbo with some milk. I know that there is all sorts of things at odds with that concoction with what I’m about to share, and I think the ‘turbo ice’ is still better than many of other high calorie laden drinks you can get out there – that claim to be coffee…
Here we go…
So my coffee is a knockoff of the now overhyped ‘Bulletproof Coffee‘ recipe. Here are the ingredients that I’m using daily for my first cup:
Brain Octane Oil – I love this stuff, and I pour a tablespoon or so right into the coffee. Yes, that means my coffee has an oil slick in it now. The bulletproof guys talk about blending their recipe together to emulsify the oil. I do not have time for that kind of overhead on most days, and I find a stir of the coffee before each sip is just fine. This ingredient is a major boost to mental clarity, as this goes literally straight to your brain. The science behind this centers on the pre-engineered makeup of the MCT oil that passes right through you blood brain barrier, and it does not require any digestion. It is a rush of neurons popping off. Cool stuff that does take some tapering, as the first few times you take this – it will wreck your stomach, and within an hour it will have you running for the toilet. Step into this carefully and gradually to avoid the bathroom sprints…
One other thing about the Brain Octane oil, it is a clean rush that is sustained over time. It is a very different energy than the usual caffeine pump and then crash when combined with the Brain Octane and the other ingredients mentioned below.
Finally, if you are in need of ketones – Brain Octane Oil will help your body jumpstart the production of those first thing in the morning. It will help to melt the fat off you, especially if you combine this with a solid 16 hour fast from the night before. I’m playing with the intermittent fasting thing again, likely another post down the line.
Ghee – Yes, this is butter. Butter in my coffee now. I put in maybe a half teaspoon, and this replaces my milk. I have only recently started with the Ghee which is a specialized form of butter. Bulletproof will sell you their Ghee, and I think it is way overpriced.
I bought this ghee at my local Aldi’s for a quarter of the price that Bulletproof was selling their ghee… The buttery flavor in the coffee is something I’ve grown accustomed to, and I now prefer it to the seemingly watery consistency of milk in my coffee. I have been doing milk in my coffee for 20 years at least, and the ghee for 3 months. The ghee tastes better to me now. Wild.
Ghee will also provide you with sustained energy, and in my case softer skin it seems. This notion of eating pure fat that has been purified, which is what ghee is, is also exceptionally beneficial for hormone production. Creating hormones is among the most intense things our body does, and it requires an unreal amount of energy that comes primarily from our fat. If you are low on testosterone, eating this will help. I’ll be outlining some other things you can do to pump your test up in a future article as well. I’m convinced there are a lot of guys out there that have no clue how much testosterone they have flowing, and it is killing their quality of life.
Pink Salt – I put just a little bit in, maybe a quarter of a pinch. This particular brand is what I have researched to be the best type of pink salt which is solely from the Himalayas. I have an unusually low sodium profile at the moment, and this is another reason why I put a little salt in. Pink salt is a super food, and I use this as a replacement for the iodized stuff in my cooking as well. It is not cheap, although I think it is worth the investment.
Keurig – I fought buying one of these for the longest time. The company was founded up in my home state of Vermont, and I have been drinking these pods since a friend at Starwood Hotels in Braintree – clamored for getting a Keurig brought in back in 2003. I could not reconcile getting one at home for two reasons.
The first being – I loved my old school coffee pot – it just worked, it was simple. When it comes to my coffee – this is sacred ground, and if it was not broken…
The second reason was the economic cost. Those pods are filling up landfills all over the place was my rationale. Well, when I discovered that my local Costco was selling this unit with a ‘mini basket’ that would allow me to grind my own coffee – I was hooked. I do have a box of Kirkland pods at my house, but I generally use freshly ground organic coffee. No guilt on filling the landfills…
Mushroom Coffee – For the last two weeks, I’ve been hammering the Adaptogen Coffee Mix from Four Sigmatic. I just heat up some water, and then mix the pouch of Adaptogen into the Brain Octane, ghee, salt, and the steaming water from the Keurig. Something in the Adaptogen has really resonated with me recently. It does taste weird the first few times of having it. I have come to enjoy it as my first cup of coffee of the day. These packets travel quite well, and the Brain Octane Oil also has mini oil packs that travel exceptionally well.
The ‘regular’ mushroom coffee mix from these guys is now relegated to a secondary cup of coffee later in the day from time to time. It is a nice charge of coffee, but it has 1/3 of the caffeine I think.
Back to the adaptogen concept for a moment. I have not seen a whole lot of science on this notion of adaptogens, although there are a ton of claims that adaptogens really do work. The claims are generally that adaptogens will fill in the gaps you have, and if you need more energy – it will provide that to you. If you need to be de-stressed and calmed down – it will provide that to you. It seems a bit wonky to me as a concept, and I’m still ambivalent about many of these claims.
Here’s what I know – this shit works. The adaptogen mushroom mix, as funky as it tastes – when combined with the stuff above – I am zooming and doing it smoothly for hours within the first 15 minutes of starting to drink it. When I combine this with a bunch of other vitamins that I’m taking – I really do start the day off feeling awesome.
Organic Coffee – I attempt to drink solely organic coffee. This is an outfit based out of Austin, and I got this whole bean gig at the local Costco. The story is very good, as they are a small shop that does profit sharing with the local farmers. They go out of their way to avoid chemicals and to avoid mold on the coffee. Mold is pervasive on the vast majority of coffee beans we consume. It is a degenerative thing, and it is just amazing that more people do not understand that we are addicted to the chemicals in the mass produced coffee, not the actual caffeine itself. Couple this notion of moldy coffee with the chemicals imbued into your usual coffee beans – no wonder we feel like shit from drinking it a couple of hours later.
Bulletproof sells their own coffee of course, and they certify it to be free of mold. They are among the few that actually certify such a thing. It is expensive, and I figure if I’m going organic with a small shop or just doing the mushroom mix – my exposure to the mold is very limited. In the case of the adaptogen – there is no notion of coffee beans to get moldy – so I sidestep the risk completely there.
Here are some other coffees that I am mixing up on my second and sometimes third cups:
Fire Dept Coffee – This stuff is seriously strong. I only drink this in cases of emergencies. I do not know if it is organic. What I do know is that if I drink this – I will be flying fast.
Joey Kramer’s Coffee – I got this here in Dallas a few months back, and I have yet to try it. It is beckoning me on most days to crack it open. He used to advertise the hell out of it up on sports radio in Boston. Unsure how big it is anymore, and I’ll eventually get around to trying it out. Aerosmith is one of my most favorite bands, so yeah – I’m a fanboy in this case…
Stainless Steel Cups – I use my awesome Patriots yeti for those days when I mix in some collagen and chocolate for my coffee. I did not get into that mixture here. Most days I’ll use a smaller cup that looks like this:
I use stainless steel as I have been made aware that some of our ceramics are not what we think they are. There may be chemicals seeping into the coffee we drink as the heat, particularly when combined with the Brain Octane oil (this raises the heat of the coffee substantially), pulls the chemicals out of the ceramics.
I am not sure how pervasive the issue actually is, although for me – I figure it is a risk I can sidestep very easily – so why not?
So there you have it, my morning coffee mixture. It travels well, and it will rock your world if you decide to give it a try. It helps to melt fat, and it helps you to produce more of the good hormones that many of us are struggling to produce given a typical American diet that is high on the overproduction.
Let me know if you give the adaptogen and Brain Octane mashup recipe a try!
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