What to Eat for Breakfast?

We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So let’s take a quick look at our choices: cold cereal loaded with sugar, toast with chocolate spread or peanut butter (or both!), some fruit, maybe a glass of milk, pancakes or waffles with syrup on the weekend, occasionally an omelet. Obviously, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but you get the idea, right?

What’s wrong with this picture? Simple: we are often surrounded by foods with very low nutritional value, especially at breakfast time. Choices include an excessive amount of sugar in the form of starch (cereal, toast, etc.) and simple sugars (sugar in cereal, chocolate spread, maple syrup). The risk of having this type of meal is pumping your body with sugar, making your pancreas work extra hard, and then having your energy levels crash fairly quickly, which will make you crave more sugar afterwards. Here is a graph that shows how your blood sugar varies with different types of carbs. 

A Perfect Breakfast

Breakfast should include protein and nutritionally-significant starch (complex carbohydrates). Choosing high-fibre starches such as brown bread, high fiber cereal or oatmeal will bring more satiety, which will help you reduce constant cravings and snacking. Furthermore, we have a bad habit of eating very little protein in the morning and eating a lot of it later in the day. However, your body needs protein at fairly equal amounts throughout the day. Also, even if you load up with protein at night, it will not store the excess protein; it will simply get rid of it. Hence, you need to provide your body with a steady supply of protein. The general recommendation is to have 20-30g of protein per meal, but I suggest consulting a dietitian for individual recommendations based on your body’s needs.

In practice, this can mean switching to brown bread and peanut butter instead of white bread and a chocolate spread, making plain oatmeal with a small amount of syrup, honey or fruit added instead of the sugar-filled flavored instant oatmeal, choosing high fiber cereal with milk instead of sweet cereal, or making a delicious omelet with cheese and even veggies! It is also recommended to have a dairy product as a source of calcium to help maintain your bone health by having a glass of milk or some yogurt, and a fruit for extra energy, vitamins and minerals. Another option would be to have leftovers for breakfast! Who says we need to have breakfast food for breakfast? Healthy homemade pizza also sounds delicious in the morning!

Strawberry-Banana Smoothie

My personal favorite breakfast is a strawberry-banana smoothie I make. I love it because it takes me under 5 minutes to prepare and I can drink it calmly while sitting in traffic on my way to work if I run out of time in the morning. This smoothie gives me my protein (16g from protein powder + 9g from yogurt = 25g), calcium and fruit. I can also add some granola for high-fiber starch or have a slice of brown toast on the side. Here’s my recipe:

*I am not sponsored by Natural Factors. I’m just an honest person sharing my personal recipe.

Here is a link to a list of breakfast recipes in French, for those that want more ideas. They even have a recipe very similar to my smoothie, with a couple more ingredients to add in healthy fats! The list was created by ChiroHamel, my favorite Chiropractic clinic:
https://chirohamel.com/2015/01/31/reccettes-pour-dejeuner-concentration-ecole/

Breakfast, the Most Important Meal of the Day?

And while we’re at it, let’s demystify the whole idea of breakfast being the most important meal of the day. Ever wondered why? Breakfast happens in the morning, yet we’re out and about using our fight or flight system, so why not wait until the end of the day when we’re in rest and digest mode, so that our body can truly focus on what we ate? Since we’re human, we get hungry. And when we’re hungry, we are not completely rational. The risk of skipping breakfast is that you’ll overeat later on, but more in forms of constant snacking, which is not a great idea. Therefore, it is recommended to have a balanced breakfast in the morning to be able to pace ourselves throughout the day and make better nutritional decisions at meal times. However, if you can assure me that skipping breakfast does not make you snack later in the day, even after supper when winding down by the TV, then don’t fret. Everybody is unique and works differently. The ultimate goal is to be in tune with our body and listen to its signals. You might even feel like having breakfast one day but not the next. Your body might not want to follow your daily routine, so just listen to what it is saying.

Sources:

http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/eating-nutrition/healthy-eating-saine-alimentation/tips-conseils/interactive-tools-outils-interactifs/eat-well-bien-manger-eng.php

http://notrickszone.com/2017/08/25/if-you-want-to-live-then-run-like-hell-from-sugar/#sthash.0VackMJZ.dpbs