Starbucks Bulletproof coffee has become an essential part of keto and paleo diets, which both have a heavy focus on healthy fats like coconut oil and grass-fed butter.
While you can brew a satisfying cup of bulletproof coffee at home, it’s not easy to grab your bulletproof breakfast brew or quick keto pick-me-up while you’re out and about.
Even Starbucks hasn’t seized the opportunity to serve the 12 million Americans who follow a keto diet yearly by adding bulletproof coffee to its menu.
Don’t worry; we’ll show you some ways to get a Starbucks bulletproof coffee, even if it’s not on the menu.
How Do You Order Starbucks Bulletproof Coffee?
Unfortunately, Starbucks bulletproof coffee isn’t an actual menu item. So, how do you get your hands on a bulletproof coffee at Starbucks?
It’s very simple.
All you need to do is order a cup of regular black filter coffee with a couple of pats of butter on the side.
If the store is busy, don’t fuss about it and insist on having the barista mix it in for you; add the butter yourself and stir your coffee. You’ll have to accept whatever butter the store is using. You could get lucky and find a store using grass-fed butter but don’t count on it.
Starbucks bulletproof coffee recipe
If you prefer to make this keto coffee at home, here’s what you will need:
calories: 220, Serving: 1
- 8oz – Black coffee
- 1Tbsp – Unsalted Butter
- 1Tbsp – MCT Oil or Coconut Oil as an alternative
- Powerful Blender
Instructions:
- Brew 8oz of Black coffee.
- Microwave butter and MCT oil for 20 seconds.
- Pour coffee, butter, and MCT oil into the blender and blend for 1 minute.
- Pour into your favorite mug and enjoy!
The Easiest Way To Get A Starbucks Bulletproof Coffee
Bulletproof coffee in its purest form is black coffee with a serving of butter mixed in. The whole point of bulletproof coffee is that it gives you an easy way to ingest the fat that you need for energy when you’re following a keto diet plan.
The reason that bulletproof coffee uses butter is that bulletproof coffee is simply an adaptation of the yak butter tea, which has long been a staple in Tibet.
But you can use other forms of fat, like heavy cream, in your bulletproof coffee, too. Heavy cream is part of the keto diet because the cream is mostly fat.
In a one-quarter cup of heavy whipping cream, there’s a tiny 1.7 grams of carbohydrates. Order an unsweetened black coffee with whipping cream for a fuss-free Starbucks bulletproof coffee.
Does Starbucks Have MCT Oil?
No, they don’t serve MCT oil, and they won’t have coconut oil either. If you prefer to drink bulletproof coffee with MCT oil, you can carry a small bottle of oil and pour a little into your black coffee.
Carrying pats of butter would be awkward, but MCT oil is easy to tote around.
When you buy MCT oil, it usually comes in 24-ounce or 32-ounce bottles, which are far too big to take out with you.
The typical amount of MCT oil you add to a bulletproof coffee is 1 to 2 tablespoons.
Two tablespoons of oil are equivalent to 1 fluid ounce. If you wanted to take enough oil out to make two coffees during the day, you would only need a 2-ounce bottle.
So jump over to Amazon and pick up a couple of 2-ounce twist-top squeeze bottles, or root around at home for an empty mini-bar bottle. With a small bottle of MCT oil tucked away in your purse or backpack, you can easily make your Starbucks bulletproof coffee just as you like it.
Starbucks Keto-Friendly Beverages
While you’ll want to start your day with a bulletproof coffee and possibly grab one later in the day to banish hunger pangs, drinking bulletproof coffee all day long in the place of your regular coffee isn’t a good idea.
The fat in bulletproof coffee is a great energy source, but taking in too many calories can still scupper your weight loss efforts.
Luckily, Starbucks has some keto-friendly beverages for you to choose from.
Remember that some of these options contain carbs, and although the actual carb grams are on the low side, you might prefer to spend your carb budget on real food.
1. Plain Tea And Coffee
Any unsweetened fresh filter coffee has zero carbs, so you can freely enjoy your mid-morning or afternoon caffeine boost. The unsweetened brewed tea is also carb-free, and if you fancy something cool on a hot day, unsweetened iced tea and iced coffee are firmly in the zero-carb zone.
2. Starbucks Espresso and Cafe Americano
Starbucks espressos are a low-carb option, whether you choose the solo with 1 gram of carbs or the doppio with 2 grams.
Add a splash of milk, and the carbs in an espresso don’t increase too dramatically. An espresso macchiato solo comes in at 1.2 carb grams, and an espresso macchiato doppio will give you 2.4 grams.
Watch out for Cafe Americano, though. A short Americano with only 1 gram of carbohydrate won’t add much to your carb load, whereas a venti packs 4 grams.
3. Starbucks Skinny Mocha With Cream
Starbucks mochas are loaded with sugar, and a 16-ounce cup delivers a hefty 43 grams of carbohydrates.
A skinny mocha isn’t as bad but still clocks in at 24 grams of carbohydrates because of the milk.
But if you order a skinny mocha and ask for half whipped cream and half water instead of milk, you can knock the carbs down to 1 gram.
Most of the carbs in a mocha come from the mocha syrup. A skinny mocha uses skinny mocha syrup instead. The low-carb syrup replaces the sugar with a sugar-free sucralose sweetener.
Choose this option for an occasional treat. Why occasional? See the syrup warning below.
4. Custom Starbucks Keto “Frappuccino”
You can get a low-carb Frappucino, which isn’t on the menu, by adopting a regular iced coffee. A Starbucks Frappucino contains a whopping 46 grams of carbohydrates. That’s enough to blow your carb allowance for the entire day.
Instead, order a tall, unsweetened, iced coffee with added whipping cream, then ask the barista to blend it Frappuccino style without using the Frappuccino base or adding any syrups.
This way, you get a delicious iced coffee using only 1 gram of your carb budget.
FAQ
Is bulletproof coffee healthy?
Bulletproof coffee is unhealthy because of its high saturated fat and caloric content. However, as with other low-nutritional value and high-calorie drinks, consuming it occasionally is fine.
Does bulletproof coffee help you get into ketosis?
Yes. Since bulletproof coffee is high in fat, it can help you reach ketosis a lot more quickly, according to a nutritionist and gut expert.
The Bad News About Sugar-free Syrups
If you’re used to drinking coffee flavored with syrup, you might think there’s no harm in adding a few pumps of Starbucks sugar-free vanilla or caramel syrup to your bulletproof coffee cup since you aren’t adding any carbs, but you would be wrong.
Artificial sweeteners, except for sweeteners like xylitol and stevia, have some nasty effects on your body, and all sweeteners stimulate appetite, which you need to avoid if you’re trying to lose weight by following a keto diet.
Artificial sweeteners like sucralose, the sweetener in Starbucks syrups, are big business, so you don’t hear too much negative press about them. Still, it doesn’t take much digging to discover how detrimental they can be.
Take a 2018 study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, for example. Researchers found that consuming artificial sweeteners led to an increased appetite because of a system in our brains that calibrates the sweetness of food and its energy content.
When the brain detects a mismatch between the sweetness of food and its energy content, it sends out hunger signals, so we eat more food to balance out the mismatch.
A brain given the expectation of calories because of the sweetness of the food consumed triggers hunger signals to make us eat more food so that the anticipated calories come in.
The takeaway from the study is that you can drink an artificially sweetened low-calorie beverage, but you’ll still end up eating those calories later on.
Artificial sweeteners also contribute to hyperactivity, poor sleep quality, and insomnia.
Keto diets are effective if you can stick to them, but that’s not always easy. The last thing you want to do is sabotage your efforts by consuming substances that stimulate your appetite.
Poor sleep quality negatively affects your body; it’s not funny. A major effect of a bad night’s sleep is wanting to eat more food.
So, keep your sugar-free syrup intake to a minimum.
Summing Up
Starbucks doesn’t cater to the keto crowd, and you’ll get a polite no if you ask if you can have a Starbucks bulletproof coffee.
Most of the signature beverages at Starbucks are loaded with sugar, which is why they taste so good. But you can adapt a regular, unsweetened Starbucks coffee and make it bulletproof by adding a couple of pats of butter or a serving of heavy whipped cream to your order.
If your bulletproof coffee isn’t complete without a tablespoon of MCT oil, carry a small bottle around with you so that you can add your own.
A few Starbucks menu items are low carb, just as they are, and others can be altered to reduce the carb content. Coffees with a milk base should be switched for half cream and half water, and the flavor syrups should be swapped for the sugar-free versions. Just remember to go easy on artificial sweeteners because they’ve been shown to increase appetite.
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