Meal Prep Sunday and a Bottled Keto Coffee: Why I Still Say Don't Drink Your Calories
This one is four minutes in my kitchen on a Sunday in May 2019. I'm unshaven, frying mushrooms, making my own chicken bone broth, and tasting the third flavour of a bottled keto coffee drink after reviewing two others for the community. It's a small recording. I'm writing it up because the nutrition knocks I gave the drink are the same ones I'd give any calorie-carrying drink today.
There's no link to the product here, and no brand name. The point isn't the bottle.
In this recording
- [0:00] It's meal prep day: mushrooms in the pan, homemade chicken broth on, the camera fogging up.
- [0:00] I recap the earlier reviews. One flavour tasted more like iced coffee than I expected, the other creamier.
- [0:35] The label as I read it: 80 calories, 10 grams of protein, some MCTs, and monk fruit as the sweetener.
- [0:35] On MCTs: they're not a problem, I said, but I don't recommend them and don't worry about them.
- [1:14] It lists no lactose, sugar, gluten, carrageenan or sugar alcohols, which I flagged for anyone sensitive to those.
- [1:55] I taste the vanilla. Smooth and very vanilla, maybe too sweet for me.
- [2:38] My nutrition verdict. 80 calories is low unless you compare it with black coffee. 10 grams of protein is a small bump. And I always recommend getting no calories from drinks at all: black coffee, seltzer and so on.
- [2:38] But if you're going to drink a coffee-type drink anyway and want a grab-and-go bottle, it may fit your meal planning (live SQLP5942).
- [3:17] I take the mushrooms off the heat. They were cooked in a little bacon fat, and my parting advice is to cook your vegetables and get some sear on them.
Watching this in 2026
The line that holds up is the one I tucked into the middle: no calories in drinks if you can help it. That isn't about keto rules. It's about where weight loss usually leaks. A drink doesn't feel like a meal, so it rarely replaces one. It gets added on top. I cover that in hidden calories.
The MCT comment matches what I'd said since 2017. You don't need MCT oil, special butter or other products to do keto (what do you actually need to start keto). Bulletproof coffee is optional (bulletproof coffee). "Not harmful, not needed" is still my position on most products sold with "keto" on the label.
What I'd leave out now is the review format. Three product reviews in a row, and a joke at the end asking the company for free stuff, isn't the community I want to run. A label read is useful. A product parade isn't. If you're looking at keto-branded drinks, keto-labeled products is the reading-the-label version of this video.
The protein bump, in context
I called 10 grams "not greatly significant," and the protein evidence page backs that framing. One review associates about 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day, with about 25–30 g per meal, with better appetite, weight management and cardiometabolic markers (Leidy 2015). Ten grams in a coffee is a fraction of a meal's worth. It's nice, but it won't carry your day. Get protein from your plate: see how much protein per meal.
The other half of the video: Sunday prep
The background is the part I'd show more of. Mushrooms seared in a little bacon fat. Broth made at home. A morning set aside to cook for the week. That's the cheap, basic version of keto I've always pushed: whole foods, cooked well, made ahead. The pork chop meal prep video from that January is the long version (slow-cooker pork chops), and meal prep for beginners has the plan.
Key points
- Best rule in the clip: try to get no calories from drinks. Black coffee and seltzer first.
- If you do drink a coffee drink anyway, read the label for calories, protein, sweetener and sugar alcohols.
- MCTs: not a problem, not needed.
- 10 g of protein is a small bump against roughly 25–30 g per meal (Leidy 2015).
- Cook your vegetables properly. Sear beats soggy.