With the popularity of Ketogenic diets, and bulletproof coffee, it is easy to think this is a new crazy dietary fad happening, but the history of this dates back over 1400 years.
Butter in Coffee or Tea over 150 years ago
Recently while sitting in a Christine Cronau conference, talking about a book called The English and Australian cookery book written in 1864 (over 150 years ago) regarding how it was a common practice about all classes consuming a coffee cup for coffee of butter or ghee, to the point that ½ their daily income was spent on butter, so they could have some butter in their morning tea and evening meal.
Butter in Tea over 1,400 Years old
Butter Tea dates back to the 7th century during the Tang dynasty. However, it did not reach its nearly universal status until about the 13th century, the time of the Sakya hierarchy and the Phagmodu kings.
To this date Making butter tea is a Tibetan speciality here is a cute little video showing a little child, dancing to the Beat of his mother churning the butter, to make some butter tea also known as po cha.
How Butter Tea Made a come Back as Bulletproof Coffee
Bulletproof Coffee is a trademark name Dave asprey invented after he visited Tibet and was introduced to Yak Butter Tea in 2004, he learnt in a low carbohydrate state ketones are produced from the butter, but he refined the process and mixed in some medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) derived from refining the coconut oil to isolate the MCT that directly convert mcts straight to ketones in the liver with minimal processing.
Simple Bulletproof Coffee Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup hot coffee freshly brewed
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp MCT oil or coconut oil
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth and frothy.
- Serve immediately.
Summary
And that’s the interesting history of butter tea, it’s not a new thing at all. My personal thought is, since the fats produce energy by turning into ketones I would not recommend consuming butter tea or coffee with a high carbohydrates meal, otherwise the liver will need to deal with the carbohydrate load before it processes the fats, and may lead to quick weight gain.
One thing I personally noticed with a lifetime of no butter growing up, and when I started consuming butter tea back in 2014, I could not get enough of it for several weeks, it was as if i was craving a nutrient in the butter, then got to the point where i had enough, now I do not consume butter tea that often now, I am interested in your personal experiences with bulletproof coffee and if it is still a regular feature in your ketogenic diet?