On the Metro: Life in Copenhagen #11

Most of the time I ride my bike when I want to go somewhere. I even have winter tires (after my time in Umeå) for when the ice just won't melt. But I can't be bothered to change tires if I think the snow won't last, so I do get to use the wonderfully efficient Copenhagen metro.

This morning I got to overhear a very funny conversation. To understand what made me bite my tongue to keep from both laughing and getting involved, you need to know that Copenhageners want to be trendy, healthy, and international, while they love food, drink and coffee. They like this to the point that they don't really care to research the trends they adore, as long as these trends are international and claim to offer some kind of health benefit.

Today's conversation was on butter coffee, or as the Americans call it, "bulletproof coffee". This is, according to the conversation, incredibly healthy, it gives you energy, helps burn calories and helps stave off cravings! A miracle! And it's the way they drink coffee in Tibet, probably with some kind of goats butter though.

Somehow, all of those statements are correctish, but let's peek at why, you well-groomed Danish trendfollowers (just to let you know, I know this because I am interested in the same things, so this is a joke on me too, sometimes.)

First, what they drink in Tibet is butter tea. They have done so forever, it's black tea with dri butter and milk. Dri is the female yak. Of course, if Tibetans drink coffee, it's quite likely that they will think "why not drink this coffee the way we drink our tea?"

Next, butter, oil, coconut oil has a lot of calories. Do you remember what calories are? It's a measure of energy. So when you eat or drink something with a lot of calories, you get more energy.

Does butter in your coffee help you burn fat? Well, some say it may, such as slide 9 from this webMD. It is a claim that keeps being repeated, so there may be something in it. But if so, it's the coffee, and hardly the fat.

As for the cravings, well, if you take in enough calories, you will be less hungry. If you are not hungry, you have less cravings. Also, these are slower calories than sugar, so you don't get the peak/crash of blood sugar you get when having sugar in your coffee.

Anyway, the really funny part is the mystery of the butter coffee. It magically gives more energy, helps burn fat and is invested with the magic of the Tibetan, as well as the magic of grass-fed cattle butter and secret oils.

The one main benefit over your regular coffee with cream? No lactose. So if you are sensitive to lactose you can get the benefits of cream in your coffee without the pain. I'll keep drinking my coffee Italian style, though. Did you know Cappucino was invented by monks living in the high mountains in modern day Italy, Switzerland and Austria? Makes you feel full and sates cravings, gives you more energy, and wakes you up. Also, it's really nice on a cold day, of which there are a lot in the Alps and in Tibet. It's a miracle, and you don't need to start breeding yak to benefit.