Begin the Day with Breakfast to Stay Healthy

What You Don’t Know Can Be Harmful To Your Body

Often times, breakfast skippers have difficulty with concentrating, staying alert and lack energy. Why? In the absence of a fresh supply of glucose, which is derived from eating carbohydrates, our metabolism slows down while we sleep which in turn causes a chain reaction throughout the body including the brain.

For optimum performance our body needs to be refueled in the morning, which could explain why mothers have for years claimed breakfast to be the most important meal of the day. Simply put, without a continuous supply of glucose circulating through the body our metabolism uses the glucose already present in the body in a somewhat miserly fashion. In doing so, some things like the brain for instance may function at a slower pace.

Case studies carried out on school age children have shown the impact breakfast has on
the brain. Participants in school breakfast programs offered across the United States show significant improvement in school attendance, student behavior and academic performance. Other research has shown that breakfast skippers are more likely to have cholesterol and blood sugar levels, which may over time develop into health problems like obesity, diabetes 2 and heart disease. For these reasons, whether to eat breakfast or not is a decision we shouldn’t take lightly.

Unconventional Foods Provide Reasonable Solutions To Breakfast Dilemma

In colonial America, which is where meal times and eating patterns in America have evolved, our ancestors ate quite differently than today. For most, breakfast consisted of porridge and beer or cider eaten before heading out to do the day’s chores. Towards the 19th century breakfast, which was served later in the morning after the chores had been done – usually at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, consisted among other things of muffins, toast, cold meats, fruit pies, scrapple and tea, coffee or chocolate.

Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, who spent time with Thomas Jefferson both in Washington, D.C., during his presidency, and also in Charlottesville, in the summer of 1789, reported, “…we had teas, coffee, excellent muffins, hot wheat and corn bread, cold ham and butter.”1

In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “From my example, a great part of them left their muddling breakfast of beer and bread and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbed with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three halfpence. This was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer.”2

Realistically speaking, any type of food may be eaten for breakfast. If heating up some leftovers from the previous night’s dinner in the microwave makes the difference between eating and skipping breakfast then by all means heat them and eat. If a handful of fresh chopped vegetables are better suited to your schedule, go for it.

There is no “written in stone” memorandum stating you must have traditional foods first thing in the morning but there is documented evidence that skipping breakfast is harmful. Eating breakfast, from healthy food selections, is the better choice for starting your day off on the right foot when you consider the consequences you face by skipping breakfast altogether.

Getting Around The Obstacles

The most often explanations given for skipping breakfast is a lack of time or a lack of appetite. Fortunately, there are reasonable solutions to both these complaints, which involve merely reevaluating your meal times or eating patterns and lifestyle.

Serving up French toast, waffles or bacon and eggs can be a hassle during the week, but that’s why an entire grocery aisle is devoted to ready-to-eat cereal. Cold cereal, as it is referred to today, was originally intended to be a health food. Multi-grain cereals are especially suited to a well-balanced diet, providing the body with a good source of vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates. Oatmeal is another quick to prepare breakfast item. Recent studies have shown oatmeal has the ability to lower cholesterol levels, which is a major cause of clogged arteries.

Late night dinners and midnight snacks should be avoided. Eating close to bedtime, when our metabolism is working at a slower than normal pace, results in these foods being digested at a slower rate resulting in a sense of fullness in the morning. If your current eating pattern involves consuming a large dinner or carbohydrate heavy snacks late at night you could try eating earlier or reduce the amount of carbohydrates you are consuming at these times. Ideally, it is more beneficial to your body to be consuming the bulk of your carbohydrates during the time you are most active, when your body needs them most.