The diet Silicon Valley swears by – and why I’m on it

In the past I was always religious about eating breakfast. I knew it was good for me: that was one of the few things the nutrition bods agreed on. And if I didn’t eat it, I had been known to faint.

Yet now, at the age of 45, and again weighing – finally, effortlessly – exactly what I did at 35, not to mention 25, I start my day with a cup of coffee only, and don’t eat for hours. I don’t need to. I feel not remotely hungry, not in the slightest bit light-headed, and – especially from around 11am onwards – physically energetic and mentally alert. Why? Because I am not drinking any old coffee, but so-called Bulletproof coffee, which was invented in Silicon Valley by entrepreneur Dave Asprey, and has become something of a religion among the tech geeks of Palo Alto.

What is it? Just plain black coffee liberally spliced with something called MCT oil (of which more later) and butter: unsalted, lots of it. Asprey came up with the idea after feeling transformed by cups of yak butter tea while trekking in Tibet, as you do. You shove it all together, whizz it up in a blender – aficionados claim this turns it into something akin to a latte: it doesn’t – and you drink it. (In London you can now buy a cup of the stuff readymade at Crussh juice bars.) The first few times it will strike you as a tad oily – there’s 30g of butter in it alone – but it soon starts to taste like, well, a coffee.

Read more in The Times Magazine September 23, 2017