Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or is it? How and what you eat in the morning has become the most controversial and contested meal of the day. No one balks at lunch except for the fact that you should take a break from your work desk and eat it. What you eat for lunch or dinner is hardly of any concern. The articles about the benefits of dinner are few and far between. But breakfast is a very deep rabbit hole.
The definition of the word breakfast is to break your fast. As in, you haven't eaten all night, supposedly because you were sleeping, and you are breaking that fast. You need the energy to start a new day. Energy to milk the cows, feed the horses and walk the dog. However, these things are done before breakfast. An energy boost is needed to yell at crazy drivers and check emails.
The saying, “Eat breakfast like a king, have lunch like a prince, and eat dinner like a pauper.” This plays on the thinking that eating late at night makes sleeping harder and will make you fat. Eat all your calories at the start of the day to burn them off. You will not sleep as well on a full stomach. But have you ever tried to sleep on an empty one?
Let's not forget the controversy of sugar cereals versus eggs and bacon first thing in the morning. What about yogurt or fruit or the oatmeal needed to lower our cholesterol? Carbs are quick fuel. Protein is a slow burn. If your engine has been dormant while you slept, wouldn’t the quick start be better? Or should we add pancakes to the sausage omelet? The bacon and eggs for breakfast was a marketing campaign in the 1920s.
So, what is our obsession with breakfast? It is the most skipped meal of the day. Being relegated to a cup of coffee, toast, and maybe a muffin or prepackaged yogurt. For being the most “important meal” of the day, it is the one that gets the least amount of time. Is it really that important, then?
Why is it the most rushed? Why is it the most microwaved and packable? We have breakfast bars and breakfast sandwiches. Protein Bars and breakfast shakes are designed to be eaten on the run. Foods designated as breakfast items are served for a limited time.
We don’t skip meals we are hungry for. If you are starving, you will eat. Follow what your body is telling you it needs. Maybe you need to be moving for a few hours before eating. Maybe you need to eat while the coffee is brewing.
A ham sandwich is a ham sandwich. You may eat it for lunch, or you may eat it for dinner, but it is still just a sandwich. If you have eggs and toast at 8 p.m., you eat breakfast for dinner. But if you have a salad at eight in the morning, it's not a dinner salad. Why the difference?
Nutritional science is one of the youngest of all the sciences. It changes hourly. I am waiting for the study on how chocolate chip cookies are the next best thing in the fight against whatever the next deadly disease is. I am sure there is a study on that.
Eat a king’s breakfast, or don't. Here's to another cup of coffee.
I like this one. So much fuzz about breakfast.
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