#NOD’s: @MatthewCStamp

Welcome back to Nuggets of Deliciousness!  This is my third installment of #NOD’s, which is pretty much the coolest blog feature ever. Just Tweet a question at me (@ElivenGuy) and your question, along with your Twitter account could be featured in the next NOD. Enjoy!

@MatthewCStamp asked a question I know I can identify with:

@EnlivenGuy I NEED my daily coffee! And I can’t drink it black! What’s the next healthiest way to drink it and how many cups per day?

— Matt Stamp (@MatthewCStamp) September 1, 2015

I have never enjoyed the taste of black coffee.  I have never been a coffee drinker and that is primarily because I like my cream and sugar with a splash of coffee.  Drinking your coffee this way sort of negates all the wonderful benefits that coffee can have on your health.

DID YOU KNOW?  There has been a bevy of recent studies revealing that around 3-5 cups of black coffee per day can help to keep your pipes unclogged (aka – lessen the risk of calcium deposits in your arteries). But beware of partial information!  If you think that any one food or drink item is the answer to a healthy lifestyle then you and I need to have a chat; a sort of “come to cheeses” if you will. Coffee, black coffee, has also been shown to increase your LDL (aka – The Scary Cholesterol) and temporarily increase your blood pressure, but when properly prepared, coffee, black coffee, is beneficial to your health.  Here’s the thing though: for anything you consume to have it’s true health benefits unlocked requires balanced health and nutrition. This means bio-available vitamins and minerals, and exercise.  Want to get a little more in depth on the nutritional science of coffee?  Well then friggin google it for crying out loud! 🙂 Just kidding, you can start here:  http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6242467/ns/health-heart_health/t/coffee-cholesterol/

I like to joke that it took me about 36 years to figure out why I hadn’t lived up to societies expectations of me….it was COFFEE!! I drink coffee and I just want to get shit done!  No wonder I am broke and living with my parents at 37, I never drank coffee! All I ever drank was soda. FYI – Soda is death juice. But only the most treacherous carbonated beverages can provide you with the energy that the sweet java bean can give you and those carbonated beverages will put your body chemistry into a world of hurt (IE – Energy drinks, Mountain Dew, Coke, etc.). Oh and please don’t drink Four Lokos unless you want this to happen to your internal organs and this to your brain chemistry.  So when it comes to keeping up in this “gotta go” world you either develop a cocaine habit and inevitably descend into depravity and lawlessness or you brew yourself a nice pot of java in the morning.  They’re both addictions but one actually has an upside.

Okay okay I know, I’m getting all preachy, so let’s just get down to the #NOD shall we:

A Loaded Weapon

So let’s talk Bulletproofing.  No I’m not going to ask you to wear Kevlar or replace  your car with a Pope-Mobile; I’m talking about a rising trend in the world of nutrition that stems from a book by Dave Asprey called “The Bulletproof Diet”.  I myself think that “diet” is a four-letter word and that any “program” or “eating guideline” with those four dangerous letters needs to be seriously evaluated.  Although some of their marketing schemes do resemble those of the countless, profit-driven diet scams that have been perpetrated on the western world, the science behind Bulletproof is solid.  The tagline on the bottom of the homepage of their website does a great disservice to the concepts behind Bulletproof by insinuating that you can be healthy without exercising.  Weight loss and healthy living are not the same thing!  But on a positive note: Bulletproof stresses the importance of eliminating mold toxins from your coffee, which is not exactly easy and toxins in general are something to focus on removing throughout your entire diet.  Most of the mass-produced food that we consume in this country contains some sort of toxin;  some a great many. But for this #NOD we are focused on providing @MatthewCStamp with a healthy alternative to masking the coffee flavor of your coffee with cream and sugar so let’s just get right to the video. Mr Asprey himself can explain his coffee to you much easier than I:

 

Okay so first things first; I do not expect you to go out and buy all that guys stuff but his coffee recipe not only produces a delicious “Science-Latte”, it is literally brainfood and it encourages the construction of a powerhouse metabolism.  With that in mind I would like you to keep these two things in mind:

1. Toxin’s are a big problem in modern agriculture…

…yada yada yada…Monstano….yada yada. I urge you to consider the idea that all the toxins that we have unwittingly bombarded our bodies with over the years are actually at the core of many health issues we face today.  Since the 1970’s, when Big-Agra and convenience culture began to permeate our lives and leach the nutrition from our food, we have been strangling our bodies true ability to carry us through our lives.  Ironically, were we not so nutritionally deficient as a culture we probably wouldn’t need to drink so much coffee.

2. Grass fed butter is different from cream…

…and fat is not the enemy.  In fact healthy fats are essential to so many critical and high-level bodily functions that I just want to find the people that pushed their “low-fat” ways upon our world and punch them in the face.  You want to have your mind blown?  Try this on for size: Low-fat diet trends made everyone fat! (Seriously, look it up! It might not be the sole contributor but it threw our metabolic lives asunder.)

So while I would encourage you to follow the Bulletproof Coffee recipe to Mr Asprey’s exact specifications I understand that not everyone can afford to support the Bulletproof Executive and his capitalization on healthy living, so here are two Enliven Guy recipes for you to play around with:

Recipe #1 | “Bullet Resistant Coffee” 

Brewing Up Trouble

STEP ONE: Get rid of your Keurig! (If you own one do me, you, and the whole world a favor and scrap your convenience machine.  Not only are they a bane on our planet but they are, along with most all drip-machines, a veritable playground for mold toxins.)

STEP TWO: Use a paper filter.  I’m not sure why but Dave Asprey doesn’t address the cholesterol issue with unfiltered coffee.  Paper filters have shown a much lower instance of raised LDL and they are fully compostable.  More on that here.

I would say the ideal way to prepare your coffee is using the slow-drip method demonstrated in the video just with a paper filter instead of a metal one.

Beans’N’Stuff

• Organic Coffee Beans (Free Trade Please)
• Unsalted Grass-fed Butter (Kerrygold is good!)
• Coconut Oil (Free Trade)
• Organic Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (Free Trade…slavery is bad mmmkay)
• Vanilla Protein Powder (I use Orgain – beware of casein)

Whip It Good

I grind to order.  The coffee is much fresher that way.  However you do it go ahead and prepare your coffee now, then plop 1tbsp butter, 1 tbsp coconut oil, 1tsp Cocoa Powder, and a half to full serving of protein powder into your blender.  Pour 1 – 2 cups hot coffee over the top of the stuff you plopped and blend it…blend it good. When a problem comes along you can blend it and drink it and BOOM goes the dynamite! This is a powerful way to start the day and it curbs hunger too.

Recipe #2 | “Power In Coffee”

How about some dessert to start the day?

The Goodness

• 4 Cups Cold Coffee (I brew extra in the morning and save it in the fridge)
• 2 tablespoons organic, unsalted peanut butter.
• 1 Banana
• 2 Servings (4 Scoops) Orgain Protein Powder (substitute if you must)
• 1 Cup frozen mixed berries
• 3 tablespoons Flax Meal (Bob’s!)
• 3 tablespoons Hemp Seed (Du-u-ude)
• 1 tablespoon Chia Seeds (Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia!)
• 1 Cup Milk (I try to use rice milk or some sort of nut milk but if you really want to start the day off with some decadence then you can sneak in some creamy cows milk and/or some yogurt.)

The Big Mix Up

Blend it all up proper and let that sweet delicious flavor cool your throat and light those sweet sensors afire! This recipe makes about 6 cups of coffee infused goodness with roughly 20 grams of protein per serving and the only added sugar would come from your milk.  It’s so delicious I can’t even type right now…mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Before we shut this mother down I’d like to take a moment to hit you with some truth: We American’s tend to be mindless consumer machines and we forget that a great many people toil and even suffer and die to bring us things like the the nearly 3 billion ounces of coffee we consume every day in America.  Please take a moment to read this article and keep in mind that we can be unwittingly supporting great suffering simply by stopping at the grocery store and picking up a few things.  Stay informed and let’s make this whole world healthy!

Alright then, we’re done here.  You’ve got some coffee experiments to conduct.  Remember that both the amazing, free, genius recipes that have been bestowed upon you this fine day are fully dynamic.  By that I mean that you can play with the ingredients as much as you want.  Brew your coffee with cinnamon in the grounds.  Use vanilla extract, leave out the protein powder, do whatever the hell you want I don’t care – oh, wait, I do care.  I want you all to be well.  I want you all to be vibrant, healthy, loving beings because that is when the light of our lives shines the brightest!  Ready. Set. GO!

Salud!