But when I consistently heard my favorite podcaster rave about something called “bulletproof coffee” as if it were a magical health elixir, I became increasingly curious about its true nutritional value. Hey, I love coffee and I love having energy—something this beverage claims to give in high doses—so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I’ve now been drinking bulletproof coffee regularly for a month and what I’ve learned is, no, it’s not a magical health elixir. But it is delicious, fat-burning, energy-giving and straight up fun to make! So I wanted to share my experience in hopes that it might inspire you to give it a try and see if it works for you.

Keep reading for my take on bulletproof coffee!

What Is Bulletproof Coffee?

First things first: What is bulletproof coffee? It’s a blend of coffee, butter (or ghee, if you’re dairy-sensitive) and MCT oil (not coconut oil, which is important to note). While the term “bulletproof coffee” originated from the brand Bulletproof, which sells its own branded coffee beans, MCT oil (what they call Brain Octane Oil) and butter, it’s now a catchall term to describe coffee made with those three key ingredients.

You don’t have to use Bulletproof’s products to make “proper” bulletproof coffee—you just have to have:

• – Your favorite brewed coffee
• – Grass-fed, unsalted butter or ghee
• – MCT oil
• – A blender

When you’re finished blending, you’re left with a foamy, frothy and creamy cup of coffee that almost looks like a latte!

What Does Bulletproof Coffee Do?

Before we dive deeper into the ingredients that make up bulletproof coffee, let’s dive into why people drink it. If you’re anything like me, you might be wondering why anyone would 1) put their coffee in a blender and 2) associate coffee and butter, in any way whatsoever. But trust me, the two pair better together than you might think!

Bulletproof coffee is essentially designed to:

• – Replace your breakfast in the morning
• – Curb your hunger and keep you full for hours
• – Promote mental clarity and focus
• – Increase your energy levels
• – Support your hormones
• – Increase fat burning
• – Taste creamy and delicious

Okay, now let’s talk about the individual ingredients.

MCT Oil

I had never heard of MCT oil until I learned about bulletproof coffee. But now that I have, I’m noticing it’s popping up everywhere!

So what exactly is this stuff? MCT is a saturated fat that stands for medium-chain triglycerides. Most dietary fats you consume are considered long-chain triglycerides and have to go through a series of chemical reactions in order to be turned into a usable source of energy. But because MCTs are shorter chains, they do not need to be broken down into smaller molecules and are readily available to be used as energy.

While it may seem like a fad, MCT oil may actually be a health product worth adding to your daily diet. Here’s what it can do:

• – Have a thermogenic effect in your body and induce calorie burn, which gives you an awesome metabolism boost
• – Support a healthy gut
• – Stabilize blood sugar
• – Curb food and sugar cravings
• – Help increase exercise performance and endurance
• – Sharpen mental clarity and provide quick, clean energy
• – Decrease fat storage
• – Improve heart health

Due to its chemical structure, MCT oil is digested faster than other fats you might be consuming regularly, such as olive oil. It’s colorless, odorless and, unlike coconut oil, stays liquid at room temperature, so it’s a great alternative to add to food, salad dressings, smoothies and—of course—coffee!

Now, let’s move on to the next ingredient: butter.

Grass-Fed Butter

Blending butter into your bulletproof coffee is what makes it so creamy, and while adding this ingredient initially freaked me out, I quickly realized why the end result is so popular.

But you shouldn’t just use any old butter—you should always choose grass-fed butter. Why grass-fed? Because regular butter from grain-fed cows has a different fat composition that doesn’t offer the same great taste as butter from pasture-raised cows. Grass-fed butter also blends more easily, which is an essential part of any bulletproof coffee recipe.

More importantly, though, cows that graze on grass produce milk that is packed with healthy fats and fat-soluble vitamins that nourish your skin, eyes, heart and brain. Grass-fed butter is also rich in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has anti-inflammatory properties and helps to burn unwanted fat.

Ghee

If you’re dairy-sensitive or lactose-intolerant, substitute the grass-fed butter for organic, grass-fed ghee. Ghee is pure butterfat, so grass-fed ghee will have the same nutritional benefits listed above without the lactose.

The only difference you should see is the consistency of the bulletproof coffee. Since ghee is more oily than butter, you won’t get the foamy top after blending. But you’ll still get the creamy consistency!

But What About the Fat?

I’ll admit, the thought of starting my day by drinking butter left me pretty skeptical about the true nutritional value of bulletproof coffee. Wouldn’t I be consuming too much fat?

But it’s important to remember that the “fat makes you fat” claims are not all true, nor are they all backed by science. In fact, eating more fat can be a powerful way to combat your cravings, balance your hormones, gain more mental focus and even lose weight. Fat can actually be your friend, and here’s why:

• – Eating fat makes you feel more full for longer periods of time, thereby reducing your appetite.
• – Fat helps to keep your blood sugar levels under control by slowing the absorption of carbohydrates. And when you have a balanced blood sugar, this helps to lower inflammation and stress hormones.
• – High-quality fats allow your body to absorb and utilize fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E and K.

How to Make Bulletproof Coffee

Okay, so if you’re intrigued, why not give bulletproof coffee a try? When you’re ready, here’s the recipe!

• – Brew 8 to 16 ounces of your favorite coffee, depending on how much you normally drink
• – In a blender, pour in your coffee, 1 tablespoon of grass-fed, unsalted butter or ghee and 1 teaspoon of MCT oil. (Note: Traditional bulletproof coffee recipes often call for 1 tablespoon of MCT oil, but I’d recommend starting with 1 teaspoon and working your way up so you can determine how it makes you feel.)
• – Blend for 40 to 60 seconds, until the coffee lightens in color
• – Pour in your favorite coffee mug and enjoy!

A couple extra notes:

• – If you’re someone who likes to sip slowly and enjoy your coffee all morning (like me), make sure you pour the bulletproof coffee into a to-go mug that will keep it warm. You don’t want it to get too cool because the butter could start to harden. And that’s just not appetizing!
• – If you decide that butter and MCT oil are not for you, you can try making bulletproof coffee by simply blending coffee with coconut oil!

My Final Thoughts

I’ve now been drinking bulletproof coffee nearly every morning for the last month, and I’ve been loving it! Not only is it delicious, but it’s actually become a nice part of my morning ritual to allocate 10 minutes before heading to work to brew and blend my coffee. Doing something just for you every morning is important!

I’ve never been a big breakfast person, so it’s been extremely easy and pretty convenient for me to substitute my breakfast with bulletproof coffee. I normally make it around 7:30AM, and it keeps me full and energized for hours! I’ve found that it’s a great pre-workout beverage, too.

So, to summarize, here’s what I love about bulletproof coffee:

• – It’s creamy, delicious and fun to make
• – It tastes like a latte—but without all the sugar
• – I can drink it as a breakfast replacement but still feel full for hours
• – I’ve noticed increased focus and energy
• – It works well as a pre-workout beverage
• – It’s a nice addition to my morning routine

However, just because I’ve been loving it doesn’t mean you will. Some cons of bulletproof coffee include:

• – It requires more time—and more dishes—than making a typical cup of coffee 
• – It’s not meant to be consumed alongside food, which might be hard for those who prefer large breakfasts

I think the best way to figure out if bulletproof coffee works for you is to just try it and be consistent! Commit to drinking it for one to two weeks so that your body has time to adapt to burning fat for energy instead of sugar or carbohydrates.

When you try it, take note of how it makes your body feel. Does it increase your energy levels and improve your focus? Or does it bother your stomach and fail to curb your hunger? Either way, it’s helpful when trying something new to track how your body is reacting to it, which can help you decide if it’s something you’d like to stick with long-term.

So if you commit to trying it, let me know how you like it! We’ll swap stories.

So the question remains: Does eating fat make you fat or does it fuel fat loss? The truth is, the answer is yes to both. While no studies have actually linked natural animal fats and plant-based fats to weight gain, it has been shown that regularly consuming processed, refined oils will lead your body to store excess fat. Let’s break down which fats are good and which fats are bad, so you can make the best dietary choices and reap the benefits of nourishing fats.

Good Fats

Let go of your fear of fat and start adding more good fats to your diet! These fats are essential for achieving optimal health as well as losing excess body fat. According to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, “The ‘old’ fat stored in your body, especially around your belly, thighs or butt, cannot be burned efficiently without ‘new’ fat to help the process. Dietary fat helps break down existing fat by activating fat-burning pathways through the liver.”

Even more, in 2015, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory committee removed any recommendation of limiting dietary fat and cholesterol in its guidelines. Consuming dietary fat not only boosts your metabolism and increases fat burning, it also ensures you feel fuller longer, stabilizes your blood sugar levels, promotes better brain function, balances your hormones, increases your nutrient absorption from the food you eat and supports a healthy digestive system, among many other benefits.

Adopting a ketogenic diet is not mandatory to reap the many benefits of consuming dietary fat. Knowing the types of fat that fuel fat loss, as well as eating a balanced diet, will provide you with amazing health and fitness results. So which fats are considered “good”?

Good fats include organic extra-virgin olive oil, organic virgin coconut oil, flaxseed oil, sesame oil, avocado oil, avocados, olives, coconut butter, full-fat coconut milk, nuts and seeds (dry roasted or raw), nut and seed butters (no added sugar or processed oils), salmon, grass-fed meat, pasture-raised eggs, grass-fed ghee and grass-fed butter.

Bad Fats

The claim that “eating fat makes you fat” holds some truth. On one hand, good fats are required in the process of breaking down excess body fat, while on the other, bad fats promote fat storage.

The main sources of bad fat in our diet come from processed, refined oils, also known as hydrogenated oils, as well as trans fats. Hydrogenated oils and trans fats have been shown to damage your metabolism by putting a coating on your cells. This coating damages your cell receptors and stops you from burning calories like you normally would. These fats and oils also cause inflammation, leading to signs of aging, as well as greatly increasing LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.

Hydrogenated oils and trans fats have been scientifically engineered to be solid at room temperature and are found in most packaged foods, baked goods and fried foods. Unfortunately, that means they are found in your favorite coffee creamers, salad dressings, cereals, crackers, pretzels, chips and frozen dinners. Hydrogenated oils and trans fats come from margarine, canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, corn oil and cottonseed oil, to name a few.

Another way eating fat can lead to excess body fat is through eating too many fats high in omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-6s are required by your body in only small amounts. For optimal health, you must maintain a proper ratio between omega-6s and omega-3s. When you disrupt the ratio, you will cause your body to store excess body fat. According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the average American eats a omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of anywhere from 12:1 to 25:1, while many health experts recommend a ratio between 4:1 and 1:1. That’s a big difference!

Not only does an improper ratio promote weight gain, it causes inflammation in your body that leads to signs of aging, such as wrinkles and cellulite. The bad fats you should try to reduce in your diet include hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, oil-roasted nuts, cooked olive oil, non-grass-fed meats and dairy products.

6 Tips for Eating Good Fats

1. Limit Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Processed Oils

Limit your omega-6 intake is by avoiding grain-fed meats and dairy products. Always look for grass-fed meats and, even better, the American Grassfed Association (AGA) seal on the package.

To avoid processed oils, which are also high in omega-6s, cook your own meals more often, as restaurants usually cook their food in canola, vegetable, soybean or peanut oil. What may look like a healthy grilled chicken salad most likely is smothered in one of these health-damaging oils. Limiting the amount of packaged foods you consume and focusing on cooking whole foods will also help reduce the omega-6s and processed oils in your diet.

When purchasing packaged foods, avoid these bad fats by looking at the list of ingredients before studying the nutritional facts. If something contains a bad fat, looking at the amount it contains is irrelevant. Just don’t buy it!

2. Cook with the Right Fats

Depending on the oils you cook with and the heat at which you cook them, you may be damaging your health. When oils exceed their smoke point, they become oxidized and rancid and release free radicals. Exposure to these free radicals greatly accelerates signs of aging, such as wrinkles, gray hair and loss of hair and skin elasticity.

The safest oils and fats for cooking include coconut oil, avocado oil and organic, grass-fed butter and ghee. They have a higher smoke point and are less likely to go rancid when cooking.

While olive oil provides countless health benefits, many health experts recommend not using it as your go-to cooking oil. Olive oil has a lower smoke point than the fats and oils listed above, and when cooked with, it will likely expose you to free radicals. Continue to include olive oil in your diet by adding it to your meal after it’s fully cooked.

Canola oil and vegetable oil are other common household cooking oils. Not only do these oils have a very low smoke point and are not suitable for cooking, they should be avoided in general.

3. Eat Your Vegetables with Fat

Depriving yourself of the right fats in your diet also deprives you of absorbing vitamins and minerals from your foods. Fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K need the presence of fat in order to be absorbed by our bodies.

While eating a giant salad is extremely healthy, if eaten with a low-fat salad dressing or a salad dressing made from processed oils, your body will not absorb all of the essential nutrients it contains. Low-fat salad dressings can be packed with sugar or toxic chemicals and additives that increase fat storage. Dressings made from canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil or any similar processed oil with also slow your metabolism.

Pair your greens with a healthy oil and you will increase your nutrient absorption, stay much fuller longer and increase your fat burning.

4. Don’t Be Scared of Egg Yolks and Red Meat

Egg whites sound healthier, right? Actually, when you toss out the yolk, you are throwing out the most nutritious part of the egg. Just how eating fat doesn’t make you fat, cholesterol in eggs is not correlated to the cholesterol levels in your bloodstream. Eggs have the perfect balance of protein and fat, which will stabilize your hunger hormones and keep you feeling full and satisfied for hours. Don’t be scared—eat the whole egg!

Similarly, it has been disproven that there is a correlation between the saturated fat content in red meat and the risk of heart disease.

If you include red meat and eggs in your diet, buying the highest quality is worth the extra money if you want to reap the health benefits. When a cow or chicken is fed a grain-based diet, their meat or eggs contain a higher amount of omega-6 fatty acids and a lower amount of vitamins than grass-fed meat and pasture-raised eggs.

5. Increase Your Omega-3 Fatty Acid Intake

Try to include more omega-3s in your diet. Not only will it help you balance your omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio, it also helps regulate your blood sugar, decrease your stress hormone levels, promote lean muscle mass and fat loss, and reduce anxiety, inflammation and muscle soreness.

Flaxseed, chia seeds, fish (especially wild Alaskan salmon), walnuts, organic tofu, tempeh, navy beans, grass-fed beef, red lentils, wild rice and omega-3-enriched eggs and dairy products are a few omega-3-rich foods you can easily add to your meals in order to reach the proper ratio.

Most health experts recommend taking a daily high-quality omega-3 supplement to help keep your ratios in check.

6. Buy Real Olive Oil

An estimated 70% of olive oils found on store shelves are fake. These products have been mixed with lower-quality oils—usually canola, vegetable or soybean oil—making them cheaper to produce and sell. And as we already know, those hydrogenated oils should be avoided!

How do you know if an olive oil is fake? Generally, if the price is low, the quality is most likely low (although that is not always the case). Always look for cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oils, which have a darker color—if not, it’s most likely an oil blend. High-quality olive oils are often found in a darker-colored glass bottle, which prevents it from going rancid. Also, if you do a taste test, a real olive oil should create a weird feeling in the back of your throat or even make you cough.