New Coffee Diet Inspired By Tibetan Butter Tea Claims To Help With Weight Loss & Improve IQ

Dave Asprey, the founder and CEO of the Bulletproof Diet, claims “You become a better employee, better parent, better friend, better person,” said the former Silicon Valley entrepreneur now living in Canada. “My energy changes, my brain changes. I can pay attention, I can follow through.”

The cornerstone of Asprey’s diet is a drink called Bulletproof Coffee, a modified version of the caffeinated beverage which uses beans stripped of mycotoxins — essentially mould that forms during the fermentation process.

Add to that butter from grass-fed cows and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil. The ingredients are blended together to produce a creamy, naturally sweet beverage a bit like a milkshake, taken at breakfast in lieu of a meal.

“You drink a couple of these and all of a sudden you don’t care about food for a very long time,” Mr Asprey said.

“Your brain has energy that doesn’t come from sugar, you didn’t want sugar in your coffee and you lose the craving and you sort of have freedom.”

Mr Asprey used to weigh 300 pounds (136kg), and spent much of his life battling to lose weight.

The coffee diet idea came to him during a trip to Tibet in 2004. He was weak with altitude sickness while travelling in the mountainous region — until he drank yak butter tea.

Asprey was so impressed by the energetic effect of the drink that he tried to reproduce it at home.

After years of trying all kinds of ingredients and combinations, he unveiled a patented formula in 2009 through his blog and on social media, claiming the coffee and an associated health regimen helped him attain a “bodybuilder” physique.

Asprey’s diet is now one of the most popular in the United States, where a third of the population of some 320 million people is obese.

Past the hit of morning coffee, the method advocates a diet free of gluten and sugar that draws around half of its calories from ‘healthy fats’ such as MCT oil, 20 per cent from protein — preferably grass-fed meat and dairy or wild caught seafood — and the rest from organic fruit and vegetables.

Several celebrities have publicly lauded the benefits of the “miracle drink,” like actor Shailene Woodley — protagonist of ‘The Divergent Series’ saga — and comedian Jimmy Fallon.

“While the idea of minimising alcohol and processed food is positive, the classification of foods is at odds with health recommendations and lacks evidence.” UCLA Medical Center nutritionist Amy Schnabel told AFP the diet could work short term.

“Initially, any diet that has you restrict large food groups does result in some weight loss,” she said.

She also said the diet’s popularity was understandable — whether or not it is rooted in actual health benefits.

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