Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Is Breakfast the most important meal of the day?






According to 2007 International Food Information Council foundation survey (http://www.ific.org/research/upload/2007Survey-FINAL.pdf ), 90% of consumers named breakfast as the most important meal of the day and only 49% of consumers eat breakfast 7 days a week. Also recent research found that not having breakfast affect children’s intellectual performance. (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/nutrition/facts.htm,http://www.mrbreakfast.com/article.asp?articleid=7).
I believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I eat breakfast 7 days a week. I am not sure my intellectual performance is good by eating breakfast. I felt nervous and drove badly when I had to fast to test blood glucose. My family hardly skips breakfast and we are in good health. My family members usually have quick American breakfast such as cereals and Waffle except my older son who has often left over rice. I often have cooked oatmeal with Banana and raisins. Although it is not my favorite breakfast, it contains fibers, lowers my bad cholesterol and supposed to be good for my health. The website (http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/food-and-nutrition/NU00197/METHOD=print ) describes the benefit of healthy breakfast.
Most popular breakfast in US is cereal with Milk. It doesn’t require cooking, and supposedly includes with all necessary nutrients to start the day. The companies who sell cereals have fun sites to attract youngsters (http://games.yahoo.com/free-games/minis-focusizer), and to promote its health benefit (http://new.groups.yahoo.com/allbrangroup ). Disney’s family food webpage (http://family.go.com/food/article-gs-18241-start-with-a-healthy-breakfast-t/ ) includes two recipes, banana peanut butter smoothie and breakfast burritos for children. Burritos seem OK but I don’t think I have smoothie for my breakfast. This site also includes other good breakfast recipes such as some delicious muffins, cinnamon rolls, and scones recipes.
I like eating big American breakfast once a week. My American breakfast contains bread(toast, muffin, pancake, cinnamon rolls, pastry or Croissant), eggs, meat which usually is choice of bacon, sausage, or ham, cooked potatoes, fruit, orange juice, and coffee. It fills my stomach well and I feel warm after eating this although I feel the need of some vegetables. Some people in US including my husband have supplements such as multi-Vitamins, minerals, and fish oils as a part of their breakfast. I don’t like putting many tablets into my half-awake stomach.
I love traditional Japanese breakfast although I grew up having thick slices of toast with butter and Jam and coffee for breakfast. Japanese breakfast contains Cooked white rice, Miso (soy bean paste) soup, cooked eggs, meat (the same as American), or fish(roasted dried fish, cooked salmon, and etc), Nimono(cooked vegetable), Tsukemono (pickled vegetable), Nori (seaweed), and green tea. I often cook this for Saturday lunch instead of the breakfast. After I have this breakfast, I am comfortably full and am satisfied with all nutrients although I think I took too much sodium. My American family love Japanese breakfast.
I seldom eat out breakfast. Breakfast is cheaper than lunch or dinner. However, most of the breakfast items are easy to make including muffins and Cinnamon rolls. I love to order and taste something new and tasty at the restaurant and it is hard to find something new for breakfast except contents of omelet and freshly baked bread.

1 comment:

Adjil said...

My trainer would kill me if I skipped breakfast! I like to mix bananas into my oatmeal too - but I don't like raisins very much. I'll also put some blueberries in my oatmeal, and also like cinnamon and a drop of almond extract.