Coffee + brain food = awesome day ahead

Coffee: supercharge your morning cup with great, healthy fats and collagen protein! This is the way I start each and every morning.

If you know me, you know I take my coffee seriously. Very seriously. Ok maybe that’s a little intense, but for real – good coffee is not to be taken lightly! As such, whenever I can pack more of a punch in my daily cup of joe, it’s a win in my book! Lately, I’ve been using full-fat organic coconut milk, Canadian maple syrup and collagen protein.

The Coffee

First thing’s first – use amazing coffee beans. It makes a difference, I’m serious. Make sure you’re buying high quality, organic coffee beans – and buy whole bean so you can grind them per cup. Yes, I know, it’s an extra step, but all the juicy benefits (like the antioxidants!) in coffee start to go away after the bean has been ground. You can get a good electric grinder for about $35ish or a hand grinder for $12. Just for good measure, I have both and love them both equally. Moving on! You can use whatever method of brewing your coffee that suits you, but I prefer the stovetop peculator or a French Press. Peculator over the press, just a personal preference.

Coconut Milk

Let’s talk about brain food – first the coconut milk. Skip that coconut beverage crap and go straight to the Asian cooking aisle and get the stuff in the can. Skip the “lite” version and go for the full fat kind. Here are some benefits consuming real coconut milk can provide:

• Can lower blood pressure and cholesterol to improve heart health
• Help build muscle and lose fat
• Provides electrolytes and prevents fatigue
• Helps lose weight
• Helps aid in digestion
• Helps manage blood sugar
• May help prevent anemia and ulcers

Furthermore, Onegreenplanet.org says “Our brains need fat – plain and simple. All fats will give you a mood boost, but coconut is one of the best fats linked to preventing depression, memory loss and aiding in stress management. One of the reasons is due to the MCT fats in coconut, which bypass digestion and are immediately absorbed. Your brain can turn these into ketones for fuel, which your mood benefits from as a result. These fats also enhance focus, ward off mental fatigue, and can help stabilize your blood sugar which also boosts your mood in a whole other way. Coconut’s fats and amino acids fuel neurotransmitters in the brain that boost serotonin levels to stabilize your mood and hormones. It can help with PMS, general anxiety, poor focus, and mild depression.” Subtitle: use coconut oil/milk in your coffee, your brain will thank you.

Canadian Maple Syrup

Next up – Canadian maple syrup. I won’t lie, there aren’t too many benefits to this except being a natural sweetener. Stevia, I just can’t. It ruins it for me and it’s just not worth it, so I still go with the syrup. I’ll caution you though, if you don’t use Canadian maple syrup or really really high quality stuff, you’re missing out. If you have a Canadian accomplice, get your goods from them – you’ll thank me later.

Collagen Protein

Lastly, let’s talk collagen protein because this was the one thing I had the hardest time coming to terms with. As a recovering vegetarian, the idea of using collagen protein was just repulsive. However, after realizing that damn near every other kind of protein either made me sick (gluten, grains and dairy make my Grave’s Disease go crazy) or wasn’t “complete” unless I added in _____, did a backflip, shook a monkey’s hand and sang a little tune (kidding, but for real – it was too much to think about every day), I decided to give collagen a fair shot. I use collagen protein in a lot of things now – post-workout smoothies, coffee, sometimes even tea. It’s recommended to have 2 scoops a day and it can give you these kinds of benefits:

• Improve health of hair and skin
• Reduce joint pain
• Help heal leaky gut
• Boost metabolism, energy output and muscle mass
• Help detox
• Help strengthen teeth and nails
• Reduce cellulite and stretch marks

Coffee Blending

Just a sidenote – there are a lot of options for mixing all these goodies into your cup, but the one that I’ve found the quickest and easiest is using a handheld emulsifier – cheap option, easy to rinse off. I stick it right in my mug and blend it up to minimize the need to clean dishes before 8am 😉

Happy brewing!

xoxo