Bulletproof coffee. What is it? It is: low-toxin coffee mixed with grass-fed butter and coconut oil. Why? To infuse your body with energy from both the coffee's caffeine as well as the fats' multi chain triglycerides (MCTs).
There's a lot of great science out there, research conducted by folks that are both smarter and more qualified than I am, but as a personal trainer I am at the forefront of how all these nutritional developments effect sports performance, and it is things like MCTs, low-toxin coffee (low-toxin everything, for that matter), and with the things I am learning on this Bulletproof/Paleo path I am finally gaining sight of what the full picture of health and energy are.
Why am I so fascinated with the Paleo Diet? For me it starts with the romantic attraction that the mountain man's life has always held. Native Americans' ways of honoring nature, men who live in tune with the land, hunter-gatherers have all fascinated me since very early. After reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, I begain thinking of grains differently; my mindset shifted. I realized that grains were introduced because of cultural factors, not biological factors. No one back in 8000 BCE, or whenever agriculture became part of our culture as humans, decided wheat was the next super food because of health benefits--the benefit was that you could make bread and avoid starvation! And only with the food surplus could our society developmet the way it has, so I'm not hatin'. I'm just saying it is time things come full circle.
As my intellect matured, I always felt something was off with commercial farming, but in those early days of the internet the proliferation of information wasn't on the scale that it now is, and the science was only just getting there. Lately, however, there has been an explosion of information that has focused my nutritional approach to mine and my clients' lives, and that information lies in the fields of 1) The amount of toxic mold found in grains and our coffee, 2) the bio accumulation of hormones in meat from commercially farmed animals, and 3) The deficit of nutrients created by not being on a diet that is based on grass-fed proteins and a high vegetable intake.
Now, on the first point my research is yet incomplete, however the statistics I've seen and their interpretation is compelling. (And I'll try to get those up soon.) The short version is this: toxic mold is found on a high percentage (up to 91.7% in one year's crop) of rice, wheat, corn, coffee, and other grains that come into the U.S. In addition to all farmed animals eating that toxic grain, it ends up in our bread. masa, maize, cereal, and of course, coffee. This toxic mold causes inflammation that hinders body and brain performance, and can result in other dysfunction as well.
The bio accumulation of hormones in meat is a scary one. I'm paraphrasing Dave Asprey as interviewed on the Joe Rogan Experience, but what happens in commercial cattle farming is that the cows are given a hormone that increases "feed efficiency." A higher feed efficiency means more weight gained per unit of feed. These hormones acccumulate in the meat, we eat the meat, and then voila--we have greater feed efficiency. That means it is easier to be FAT!
Beyond those hormones, we have a great dietary deficit due to a surplus of long-chain triglycerides and a lack of medium-chain triglycerides. I will post a link within in the next week on some solid research that I've found summarizing the extreme difference in how your body uses these two types of fats.
In summary, gone are my days of counting calories. Now I count toxins. Besides, if you eat everything you need to to be healthy, there won't be any time or stomach space (or desire, for that matter) to eat garbage. Make the switch--grass-fed beef or bison, pastured chickens and pork, and an extremely high intake of vegetables (especially dark, leafy ones).
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