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James_Miller comments on Is it a good idea to use Soylent once/twice a day? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Bulletproof coffee = coffee+MCT oil+butter from grass fed cows, which I have instead of breakfast and lunch, is relatively cheap and very easy to make and probably a lot healthier than traditional breakfasts and lunches.
Help me understand: why is bulletproof coffee healthy?
Specifically, it has a really, really low micronutrient:calorie ratio. My understanding is that these calories funge against calories from food that would have a much, much higher micronutrient:calorie ratio. Of course, it's probably better than, say, donuts, with their high glycemic load, wheat which may or may not be bad, and other assorted "goodies", but that's a pretty low bar. By the time you're investing that amount of resources into bulletproof coffee, my intuition is that you can come up with something that does all the good things that bulletproof coffee does without eating several hundred essentially "empty" calories.
I'm not a medical doctor and what I know comes from blogs, podcasts, twitter, and general audience books so don't take this too seriously.
Coffee seems to be one of the few foods that has significant proven health benefits. But most coffee contains harmful micro organisms. Bulletproof coffee supposedly has far fewer of these toxin producing organisms. MCT oil and butter from grass fed cows supposedly has lots of great stuff in them.
I only consume fats until about 4:00 pm to promote autophagy which is what you body does when it goes into starvation mode. Bulletproof coffee contains only fats, and fats do not inhibit autophagy as carbs and protein do. Autophagy, from what I have read, is fantastically beneficial.
Your argument is reasonable, although I'm skeptical that benefits from autophagy outweigh a likely micronutrient deficiency. Romeo_Stevens suggests intermittent fasting, which would give you the autophagy benefits without losing micronutrients. The obvious failure mode is not having energy to get through the day, although I remember spending a few weeks around finals de facto intermittent fasting and having perfectly reasonable energy levels.
I take bulletproof coffee to enable my intermittent fasting, which I define as going without carbs and protein. There is a transition period while your body becomes fat adapted. Also, if you do paleo like I do, there are a lot of calories to make up from need eating grains.
Healthier is pretty hand-wavy. It's got pretty much no protein, which makes it not a great meal substitute for some people. That said, it was tastier than I'd have expected. Butter tea is a similar drink that's also surprisingly tasty, but easier to augment with spices if you don't like the base flavor.
Also... that guy came to speak at the company I work at, and uttered an incredible variety of nonsense. (Mentioned in passing that kale causes autism, said that you have to buy his special coffee beans because the headache you get after the coffee wears off is not caffeine withdrawal but mold poisoning and his beans are the only non-moldy ones on the market.) Kind of put me off the whole concept.