So People Are Putting Butter In Their Coffee Now

I think the idea was promoted by "The Bulletproof Executive," a health guru.

Supposedly grass-fed butter (and not the usual cheaper sort of butter) helps you burn fat all day, and helps your brain, because it has oils in it that promotes brain functions.

I do this on occasion when I forget to buy cream. It's surprisingly... good. It actually tastes a lot like cream (which is understandable, as it's basically the same thing), except there is film of butter at the top of the coffee, which gives it a slippery sort of feel.

But it's not slimy or anything. Just a little different in the texture of the aftertaste.

Just thought I'd share. It's pretty convenient just to keep a big bar of this in the fridge for when you run out of cream.

Oh, and then there's the miracle berry.

Apparently the berry contains a protein which is almost as sweet as sugar.

Anyone interested in cutting carbs can see the value of that -- a healthy protein which can be used as a sweetener.

Miraculin was discovered 50 years ago. It's only being seriously developed as a sweetener now.

Why?

Why, Government Corruption, of course.

As a chef and entrepreneur, Homaro Cantu has a reputation for an avant-garde approach to gastronomy. He believes the answer to one day eliminating sugar from our diets lies in a protein known as miraculin which was first discovered almost 50 years ago. Miraculin is a taste-modifier, one of only a handful of such naturally-occurring molecules in the world. It is found in the berries of a plant known as Synsepalum dulcificum or, colloquially, the “miracle fruit,” which grows in parts of West Africa.

...

The idea of introducing the miracle berry into food as a sugar replacement was actually first conceived almost 50 years ago by an entrepreneur called Robert Harvey who began to create a range of sugar-free products coated with the berry extract. Initially, his company Miralin appeared destined for instant success. In a poll in which schoolchildren were asked to choose between a sugary food and one of Harvey’s new treats, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the latter.

However, things were about to change rapidly. The sequence of events which ensued would not look out of place in a Hollywood film. Harvey began to suspect that he was being followed on the way home from work; then one night in the summer of 1974, he reported that his office had been raided and his files stolen.

Shortly afterwards, the previously supportive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared that miraculin was an additive, meaning that the berries could not be sold as a sugar substitute without further testing. Harvey suspected foul play. He suggested that the FDA had been pressured by the powerful manufacturers of sugar and artificial sweeteners, keen to quash this new challenge to their business, something both parties denied.

“For the FDA to overturn the ruling, as far as I understand it, would require years of testing and a large amount of money, which it was not possible for Harvey to raise in the poor economic climate of 1974,” explains Canadian author Adam Gollner, who chronicled Harvey’s story in his book, The Fruit Hunters.

...

As the FDA ruling stands, it is possible for the berry to be distributed to customers in restaurants and coffee shops but any food product containing it would only able to be marketed and sold outside the United States.

The big problem with miraculin powder as a general substitute for sugar is that it breaks up, denatures, when it's cooked -- so you can't use it in donuts or cookies.

posted by Ace at 06:36 PM

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