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Comment by Renaud | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering if there is real strong evidence, other than anecdotal accounts, for the wonderful claims that are made for the quasi-magical properties of that coffee melange.

I get it that under extreme physical circumstances (high in the Tibetan mountains) coffee mixed with butter can be a good way to replenish your energy quickly, but I'm not sure how this can be extrapolated to our more sedentary lives.

Even if the boost in energy (undeniable since you're ingesting a lot of fats) does make you feel good, it doesn't necessarily translate into long term benefits.

I'm wondering if there are any studies showing the effect on cholesterol, insulin levels, fasting sugar levels, over time.

And then can't help but getting very skeptical of the whole thing when I read that some of the products on sale on the website are marketed for 'brain detox'.

Sounds like snake oil to me.

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The science behind controlling your insulin levels is pretty solid.

As far as the coffee goes, it's pretty good coffee, but Dave uses the "no mycotoxins" as the selling point for his brand. For me, the whole mycotoxins thing is where things start to get a bit muddled as there's a debate on whether or not they actually matter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwY4H3cNTH0).

I wouldn't go so far as to call it snake oil, but I don't think all of his stuff is 1000% necessary.

I really want to see one serious double blind study where someone extracts oil out of snakes and tests its effectiveness on various common ailments. Not for scientific rigor. At this point, I just really want to know what would happen.

I am betting you could get kick starter funding.

See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesmen...

They reference Kunin 1989 [1], Shirai 2002 [2], and Shirai 2007 [3].

Chinese snake oil is a reasonable source of omega-3s.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1026931/pdf/west... [2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0271-5317(02)00426-8 [3] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1444-2906.2003....

I've done a lot of introspection when it comes to things like this and how their marketing affects me. Although I know it is snake oil and can't help but laugh at the concept of putting butter in your coffee, let alone selling it - something in me REALLY wants to buy his products. Great marketing lesson if you ask me.

I'm curious as to why butter is perceived to be so "out-there" when compared to something like "half and half."

I'm a confirmed, life-long coffee fanatic, and pretty adventurous when it comes to food. I just couldn't stand the stuff.

To me it tastes like coffee, with butter. I take your point about half and half, but the butter just made it seem wrong, wrong, wrong. As weird as putting ginger ale in a piping hot cup of Earl Grey.

Valid point if you've tried it & don't like it. I just question people who write it off without trying it while seemingly putting equally strange things (half/half, sugar, equal, sucralose, etc) in their coffee. Just because something is "most common" doesn't make it better or make something worse. That seems like a very lazy way of evaluating options.

Did you blend it? I could imagine it being pretty awful if you skipped that step.

Someone who is really into the whole thing made me a cup, so I assume it was done right. Maybe not?

I've done the bullet proof coffee thing as my morning cup on and off, depending on how lazy I am. (I usually take it black from an Aero Press for the sake of convenience.) Anyway, I found it to be similar to a latte since it froths in the blender. You need to get grass fed butter or it is pretty nasty. But when I make it with Kerry Gold butter or similar, it's pretty good, if you like lattes.

As far as the, "it will change your life" crowd goes it just seems like different strokes for different folks to me. These are probably the same fad jumpers that were having their life changed by something else last month.

> As far as the, "it will change your life" crowd goes it just seems like different strokes for different folks to me. These are probably the same fad jumpers that were having their life changed by something else last month.

Very true :).

I drink coffee and eat buttered toast and can see the oiliness floating around just from the tiny amount of butter that gets into the coffee. it just doesn't look clean at all.

The whole thing is goofy. Coffee and caffeine without carbohydrate elevate adrenaline and cortisol. The way to take coffee is with sugar or with a meal including starch. Eating butter and coffee alone is an unambiguously bad idea.

The goal of the drink is to stunt hunger and prolong the morning fat burning process. The sugar will spike your insulin levels and put a stop to that immediately.

Exactly. Fat has a lot of calories but it doesn't produce an insulin response and isn't digested nearly as quickly as carbohydrates, so it keeps you satiated. A dose of fat early in the morning will help keep you from feeling hunger pangs for a while.

Yup. It's the same idea as Seth Roberts' "Shangri-la Diet" where you drink a tbsp of olive oil or something first thing in the morning which supposedly reduces hunger the rest of the day.

In Roberts' theory it's crucial to avoid taste or smell at the same time, while the time of day you take it doesn't matter -- so this wouldn't be the same, unless you drank your coffee with a noseclip on. I wonder if anyone does that.

I don't know why this made me laugh so hard. Just the idea of all these bulletproofers chugging their coffee with bag-clips on their noses. Thanks for that.

My pleasure!

I'd like to try it myself (sans clip). I have tried tea with butter, but, well, it probably needed a more thorough blending.

>Fat has a lot of calories but it doesn't produce an insulin response

So? Why are people so fixated on insulin?

>isn't digested nearly as quickly as carbohydrates, so it keeps you satiated

And yet potatoes are the highest satiety food. The whole "fat is filling so you eat fewer calories and lose weight" thing is just a hypothesis that was put forth to explain why people eat fewer calories on low carb diets. It is not fact.

Insulin is elevated when your blood sugar is elevated (which happens when you ingest simple carbs & sugars). When that happens, your body goes from it's fat burning mode (default state) to carb burning. Basically, insulin is elevated and your body starts storing the glucose as glycogen in your muscles. When those stores are full, then it stores the rest as fat.

Maintaining normalized insulin levels keeps your body burning fat, which is a slower burning, preferred source of energy, but most people eat so many carbs that their body never relearns how to do it.

This isn't rocket science, it's basic biology.

>Insulin is elevated when your blood sugar is elevated

Insulin is released when your blood sugar is elevated, yes.

>When that happens, your body goes from it's fat burning mode (default state) to carb burning

That is a complete misrepresentation of reality made by people pushing a fad diet.

>When those stores are full, then it stores the rest as fat.

So? What do you think it does with fat?

>but most people eat so many carbs that their body never relearns how to do it.

Your body does not forget how to burn fat, it does it all the time.

>This isn't rocket science, it's basic biology.

Yes it is. And it does not support this weird fixation on insulin. https://evolvinghealth.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/is-it-time-t...

> >When that happens, your body goes from it's fat burning mode (default state) to carb burning

> That is a complete misrepresentation of reality made by people pushing a fad diet.

What's your understanding that happens then?

>When those stores are full, then it stores the rest as fat.

>So? What do you think it does with fat?

For most people, it stores it as fat and does nothing because most people eat enough carbs (quick burning source of energy) to never have to switch to fat burning.

>What's your understanding that happens then?

Read the link.

>For most people, it stores it as fat and does nothing because most people eat enough carbs (quick burning source of energy) to never have to switch to fat burning.

So insulin is a problem because of what then? And how is that different from what would happen if you replaced those carbs with fats? (Please don't actually answer with the keto nonsense, read the link and see that the answer is "nothing would change").

> Read the link.

Were you the author of that link? Because if not, then that is someone else's understanding, what is yours? You've yet to describe it.

> Please don't actually answer with the keto nonsense?

Are you actually denying ketosis[0] exists? Or are you claiming it isn't reached through carb-restriction[1]?

I haven't quite understood you point (mostly because you haven't really made one), but it seems science disagrees with you :\

[0] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=ketosis <-- I'd say the academic community disagrees with you.

[1] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=ketogenic <-- Again, the academic community disagrees with you.

>Are you actually denying ketosis[0] exists? Or are you claiming it isn't reached through carb-restriction[1]?

No. What is the purpose of ignoring what I posted and asking completely random non-sequitur questions? Are you actually denying pancakes exist? Or claiming they aren't made with flour?

You so quickly ran out of actual knowledge that your discussion ran off a cliff.

Come back when you've actually read a little bit about how the body works. I've given you plenty of scholar links to start at. Maybe just strike up a conversation with a diabetic, explain to them your theory on how insulin has no effect.

The article you reference doesn't say insulin is pointless. it says you need to consider Leptins with it... which yes, is basic biology.

Insulin is the mechanics of how sugars and proteins are processed (whether as energy for muscles or stored as fat). Leptins are the process which update the brain. (i.e when you are hungry/full etc).

Both obviously have huge implications on weight management. So it isn't a "weird fixation on insulin", it is weird that Leptins are not mentioned more often. But maybe that is diets not wanting to over complicate things. Where as insulin is more widely understood because of implications in diabetes etc.

> >When that happens, your body goes from it's fat burning mode (default state) to carb burning > That is a complete misrepresentation of reality made by people pushing a fad diet.

No it isn't. It is a simplification, but not really a misrepresentation and definitely not a complete misrepresentation. Sugar enters blood, Leptins signal brain. Pancreas produces insulin, insulin blocks tri-glycerol from being released from existing fat stores, and begins either replenishing glycogen stores from the blood, or producing more tri-glycerol. (This is still a simplification)... But please point out the misrepresentation, because if were trying to be more concise I would say: "switches from fat-burning to carb-burning/fat-storing".

>The article you reference doesn't say insulin is pointless

Why would it say something that absurd, and why do you think I believed it did? I said nothing even remotely like that, and that doesn't even make sense.

>Both obviously have huge implications on weight management

Except that the evidence suggests otherwise, that's the point.

>But please point out the misrepresentation, because if were trying to be more concise I would say: "switches from fat-burning to carb-burning/fat-storing".

You just did. There is no "fat burning mode" and "carb burning mode". Again, the link I already gave you very nicely and clearly discusses this.

> Why would it say something that absurd, and why do you think I believed it did? I said nothing even remotely like that, and that doesn't even make sense.

You referred to insulin as a "weird fixation" as if it were meaningless in a weight management context. And your response above is just obnoxious, if you have a point make it, stop referring to it. Obvious troll is obvious.

> Except that the evidence suggests otherwise, that's the point.

No, it doesn't. Evidence suggests they both have huge implications. You remove leptins you get a high correlation with obesity (as mentioned in your own article). You remove insulin you get "difficulty storing fat", you pump insulin high, and you get high storage of fat. Try out a google scholar search on "insulin resistance", "diabetes and weight management", "insulin fat". Again make your point rather than referring to it, as it looks to me you are just running out of actual knowledge and resorting to rhetoric.

> You just did. There is no "fat burning mode" and "carb burning mode". Again, the link I already gave you very nicely and clearly discusses this.

You chose not to include my expanded description of what happens. Now I know you are trolling...

>You referred to insulin as a "weird fixation" as if it were meaningless in a weight management context

It is.

> And your response above is just obnoxious, if you have a point make it, stop referring to it.

I have no idea what that means.

>No, it doesn't.

Contradict the evidence in the link I gave you then. "Nuh uh" is not compelling.

> It is.

So when I say you said it was pointless, you say "No I didn't", when I say "you kinda did", you say: "yeah I did".

trollololol

> Contradict the evidence in the link I gave you then. "Nuh uh" is not compelling.

How about you contradict the peer-reviewed evidence I gave you... and I'll treat your wordpress blog for what it is: A wordpress blog.

You can't be bothered to even look at the "wordpress blog" to see what it is, but I am the one trolling? If you have something to say, then say it. Posting just to see your name isn't productive.

As a type 1 diabetic I can tell you that eating fat requires insulin commensurate with the energy it has. My own mental model of fat elevating my blood sugar level compared to other forms of energy is the rate at which it happens: somewhat slower than simple sugars, and much faster than complex carbohydrates.

Note, however, that the methodology of this particular study may have contributed to an artificially high satiety value for potatoes. Per the study's design, the participants were separately fed 220-Calorie servings of each food. A 220-Calorie serving of plain potatoes is larger and much less palatable than the other foods studied. The size of this serving may have influenced a repulsion to this test food that goes beyond the normal satiating response.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor

See my other response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8744945

Summary: "I don't like the evidence so I'll ignore it" is not compelling. Being a low calorie, high volume food is not "artificial" satiety, it is satiety.

It's arguing that poor palatability may have been confused for high satiety. Have you ever eaten a boiled potato with nothing else on it? It tastes terrible. After a couple of bites, you don't want any more. That is not the same thing as satiety. The starch in potatoes is also digested very quickly, so it doesn't keep you satiated for long unless consumed with fats.

>It's arguing that poor palatability may have been confused for high satiety.

I know that. And I am saying they are basing that on nothing. They just said "the data is less important than what we think the data should look like based on our feelings".

>Have you ever eaten a boiled potato with nothing else on it? It tastes terrible

Yes, they taste fine. Obviously they taste better with salt and pepper and butter, but they are not unpalatable without them. Have you ever eaten boiled pasta with nothing else on it? How is that more palatable?

220 calories of potato is one medium potato - maybe 300 grams.

I find it hard to think that amount causes a person to avoid potato. Did the researcher actually notice potato-aversion, or are they (and this is not a bad thing) speculating?

So? Why are people so fixated on insulin?

Because insulin regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood to skeletal muscles and fat tissue and by causing fat to be stored rather than used for energy[1]. Accordingly the body's insulin response has a massive role in weight management, and certain foods invoke a greater insulin response than others.

You're one of those "calories in - calories out" guys, I take it?

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin

>Accordingly the body's insulin response has a massive role in weight management

Except this second part does not follow from the first part, and all available evidence suggests it is false.

https://evolvinghealth.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/is-it-time-t...

So between obsessing over your coffee accompaniments and say, avoiding one stressful encounter per week, which is the better strategy?

(Obviously "do both" is an answer, but the idea is not to pick the optimum strategy, it is to illustrate where people should direct their limited focus...)

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