What can the most important meal of the day do for you? We have expert advice on the most tasty and nutritious breakfasts.
Nutritionists believe there is great logic in the old saying, "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper", because the best way to kick-start your body in the morning is to give it the right fuel.
The word 'breakfast' literally means to 'break the fast' from the eight or 12 hours since your last meal the night before. By morning, your brain and muscles are crying out for starter fuel to spring them into action and face the day ahead.
Why is breakfast so important?
Eating breakfast has been identified as one of seven healthy habits that promote long life and good health.
Three keys reasons not to skip breakfast:
1. It boosts your nutrient intake
Studies in the USA and UK dating back as far as the early 1960s consistently show that breakfast eaters have better overall diets. Breakfast eaters have been shown to have a lower fat intake, a higher fibre intake, plus significantly higher intakes of almost all vitamins and minerals, especially calcium, iron and magnesium.
2. It improves memory and concentration
Nutrition researchers have found that people who eat a balanced breakfast can concentrate better and are more efficient at their work than those who skip it. For kids, there's no doubt that breakfast is a must. Studies show that children who miss breakfast are less alert during the late morning hours and find it hard to concentrate on tasks that require prolonged mental effort.
Factory workers who skip breakfast have been found to be more prone to accidents and have a lower production output compared to those who have something to eat in the morning.
3. It helps prevent binge eating
Contrary to the beliefs of those who skip breakfast in the hope of losing weight, breakfast is a good friend. Skipping it means we are more likely to over-eat later in the day, usually something that's quick to hand or a non-nutritious, high-fat fast food.
Unless you have a physically demanding job or play a lot of sport, a light cereal-and-toast style of breakfast is perfectly adequate and will meet all your nutrition needs. Comparisons with other breakfasts like egg and bacon, scrambled eggs, croissants, cheese on toast and banana smoothies show that cereal-based breakfasts are nutritionally superior, being lower in fat, cholesterol and kilojoules and higher in fibre and essential nutrients.
Here's a checklist of healthy breakfast options:
Eaten whole or sliced over cereal. To save time, prepare a plate of sliced fruit the night before and leave in the refrigerator. Melon slices, kiwifruit, berries, grapefruit segments, papaya or oranges in quarters are all good choices.
Fruit juice is a quick alternative with the same valuable vitamin C, but has little fibre. Vitamin C also improves the absorption of iron from cereals. Prunes, sultanas and other dried fruit add fibre and the mineral potassium.
Many people get most of their fibre for the day at breakfast so it pays to maximise your fibre intake at this meal. Aim for a mix of soluble fibre such as oats, for a healthy heart, and insoluble fibre such as wheat bran for regularity and bowel health.
Choose a non-sugary whole grain or bran type cereal, or else go for muesli or rolled oats (porridge) in winter. There's no shortage of choice at the supermarket. Sprinkling some wheatgerm, rice bran or oat bran over a plainer puffed or flaked cereal will boost your nutrition. Many cereals are now fortified with B vitamins and iron which, along with the milk that is consumed with them, makes them a nutritious food.
If you prefer toast or muffins to cereal, make these wholemeal, mixed grain or white high-fibre if your kids hate 'brown bread'.
Milk, yoghurt or cheese
These offer calcium for strong bones and protein as well as the B vitamin riboflavin. Many children are happy to drink a glass of milk (or hot milk with malt chocolate powder in winter) with breakfast. Cottage cheese and ricotta team nicely with raisin toast and make a good low-fat option, but are not as rich in calcium as cheddar cheese or yoghurt.
Eggs (boiled, poached, microwaved or lightly scrambled), or baked beans
These are ideal if you're super hungry or want a hearty Sunday brunch. Add mushrooms, tomatoes or spinach for more bulk.
Breakfasts to suit different lifestyles
Ideas for breakfast-on-the-run
Scale up the servings to suit your activity and lifestyle. If you exercise regularly or have a physically demanding job, you will need larger portions, or a cooked breakfast to refuel your body, than if you don't get to exercise much or are trying to lose weight.
No time to eat in the mornings?
Try our quick and easy ideas:
Breakfast at home
- Try a liquid meal. Pour one cup of milk into a blender or food processor with any cut fruit (banana, strawberries, pear), 3-4 tablespoons of yoghurt and a pinch of nutmeg. Blend for 30 seconds until smooth and frothy. For a high-fibre shake, add 1-2 tablespoons of bran cereal or wheatgerm. Drink and run.
- A bowl of muesli or bran cereal with low-fat milk and sliced banana.
- Bircher muesli: start this famous oat breakfast the night before: Soak 1 cup of rolled oats and 2 tablespoons sultanas in 3/4 cup low-fat milk and leave covered in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, peel and grate an apple (with the skin) into the oats with a squeeze of lemon juice. Top with 2-3 tablespoons of yoghurt and a sliced banana if you're ravenous.
- An orange or half a grapefruit.
- Half a grain muffin, toasted and topped with cottage cheese or a slice of cheddar cheese.
- Muffin with grilled cheese.
In the car, train or bus
Bolt out the door with
- A sandwich you've made the night before plus a carton of flavoured milk.
- A breakfast bar or muesli bar and a drinking yoghurt.
- Throw a handful of Mini-Wheats, dried fruit and nuts into a plastic bag or container. Munch on the way to school with a carton of milk.
Gluten-free or wheat-free options
- Avoiding wheat, oats and barley at breakfast is not easy! Look for cereals based on rice or corn (maize).
- Fresh fruit salad with a bowl of Rice Bubbles or Corn Flakes (check for malt if you need to avoid it). Add cows' milk or soy milk.
- Rice cakes or rice crackers spread with margarine can replace toast. Add peanut butter, jam or marmalade as required. Tea, coffee or milk.
- Eggs with tomato on gluten-free toast.
Breakfast out before work
Try these healthy café options
- Thick fruit loaf toasted and topped with ricotta or cottage cheese. Cappuccino, flat white or latte with trim milk.
- Grilled cheese and tomato on grainy toast. English breakfast tea.
- Poached or scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast with mushrooms and grilled tomato. Glass of fresh juice.
- Fresh strawberries or diced melon tossed in a bowl with passionfruit pulp. Top with thick Greek yoghurt and crunchy muesli.
- Wholemeal muffin topped with grilled mushrooms or sliced tomato and a large glass of reduced-fat milk.
- Milky coffee (latte, flat white) with bran and raisin muffin.
Breakfast and kids
Children need to start the day with a good breakfast. Breakfast functions as 'brain food', re-fuelling children's brains as well as their bodies. Deprive children of breakfast and you may be depriving them of their ability to learn. Study after study shows that children who skip breakfast report tiredness and lethargy, have trouble concentrating on the morning's lessons, and find complex mental tasks difficult.
- working memory
- problem-solving abilities
- accuracy in maths and other complex tasks (which teachers often schedule for the morning)
- creative thinking
Breakfast makes a significant contribution to children's overall nutrient intakes, according to the many studies on breakfast eating patterns. Children who eat breakfast tend to have a much healthier diet and are more likely to be consuming their recommended intakes of key nutrients such as iron, calcium, B vitamins and fibre. Children who skip breakfast do not make up the differences in dietary intake at other meals. A higher percentage of skippers do not meet two-thirds of the recommended intake for vitamins and minerals compared to those who eat breakfast.
Most children miss breakfast for two or three reasons: lack of time, being too tired, or not feeling like eating in the morning. If this sounds like your child, offer something light like fruit or a bowl of flake cereal with milk. Eating breakfast often helps them to wake up!
If he or she wants to rush off to school without eating, give them a breakfast bar to munch on the way to school or even a glass of milk, so at least they have something to see them through the morning. This combination is preferable to arriving at school with nothing to eat – it will still provide carbohydrate, some protein, B vitamins and fibre, depending on the cereal.
Choose a good cereal
"It's better to eat the cardboard box than the cereal" is often chuckled over when buying cereals. But the truth is that even the sugary kids' packet cereals today make a contribution to nutrition (especially with milk) and are better than having nothing to eat for the morning. Certainly they aren't ideal in terms of fibre and whole grain content but they are inexpensive, low in fat, fortified with a range of vitamins and minerals and can be eaten as a snack any time of the day.
That said, how do you pick a good cereal?
Fibre: More than 6g per 100g minimum. Preferably more than 10g/100g or more
Sugar: Less than 15g per 100g; Less than 25g per 100g if from dried fruit
Sodium: For a low-sodium diet, look for less than 400mg per 100g
High fibre: Look for a minimum of 6g fibre per 100g, but preferably about 10g. Check the list of ingredients for wheat bran, whole wheat, whole barley, oats, brown rice. Oats and corn are always whole grain but what, rice and barley are often refined. Bran cereals (All-Bran, Sultana Bran) have 6-9g per serve, while Corn Flakes and Rice Bubbles are down at 1g.
NZ adults should aim for 25-30g fibre each day,but man get a lot less. An easy way to increase your fibre is to choose a high-fibre cereal like All-Bran and start the day with over a third of your requirement.
Look for less than 15g added sugar per 100g serving. When a cereal has dried fruit, you can't tell from the nutrition panel how much is coming from the fruit and the added sugar, so you can allow a higher sugar level (up to 25g per 100g). The dried fruit adds fibre and vitamins.
If you are watching your sodium intake for health reasons, look for a cereal with under 400mg per 100g.
The standard serve of cereal used to be 30g, which means one cup of bubbles or flakes or two breakfast biscuits. Some manufacturers have decided to say a serve is 40g in an effort to claim the 'highest fibre content' or the 'most vitamins'. So to get a true comparison, it's best to use the 100g column when you're looking at similar products.
For those who burn up lots of kilojoules with a physically demanding job or are into sports in a big way, here are two hunger-buster breakfasts:
- Fresh fruit salad; cheese omelette with wholemeal toast; tea, coffee, milk or juice.
- Bowl of whole grain cereal with sliced banana and low-fat milk; crumpet, toasted and covered with a slice of cheese and grilled until melted; tea, coffee, milk or juice.
There are good reasons not to skip breakfast if you're exercising but trying to lose body fat. Skipping breakfast reduces the quality of your training session due to lower blood glucose levels. It also makes you hungry and invariably leads to impulsive snacking and increased kilojoule intake later in the day.
How good is the liquid breakfast?
They taste good and they're quick – grab one from the fridge and drink it in the car or bus – and Sanitarium's Up&Go® claims to contain the goodness and fibre of two Weet-Bix with milk, although a quick glance at the ingredients list will tell you that it is not a liquefied version of that.
The fibre is from chicory inulin, which acts like soluble fibre. This is fermented in the gut. Soluble fibre from oats has been shown to be good for heart health. Insoluble fibre, found in whole grains, is good for your bowels.
Nutritionists are cautious about comparing the fibre from inulin with the fibre from cereals, which have been well researched over many years. While there is good evidence so far that inulin has a positive effect on health, there is still a lot of research to be done to fully understand whether it is as good. Plant foods contain other nutrients, and fibre is not the whole story as to why whole grain cereals are so good for us.
They're a handy alternative when you're in a rush, but plan to include insoluble fibres from whole grains and brans in your breakfast on most days. And be aware that they're high in sugar: one Up&Go® has 18.5g, one CalciTrim Liquid Breakfast has 19.5g – both are more than 4 teaspoons – of sugar.