We’ve been told breakfast is the most important meal of the day. While that isn’t exactly true, it is important to make sure that if you’re having breakfast, you are breakfast healthy. That means you are choosing to start your day off right, with a healthy meal that will supply you with micronutrients that help your mind and body perform at its absolute best. That means you aren’t fueling your body with sugar or highly processed garbage that aggravates the body, causing it to focus its energy on repairing the damage from your garbage breakfast.
Many of our breakfast favourites are the harmful to our system.
- Breakfast cereals
- Breakfast pastries
- Muffins
- Bagels, pancakes, waffles
The list could go on. Starting the day with highly processed, sugary-sweet desserts is not the way to start the day. The packaging may promise it’s a good source of fibre, or some other nutrient, but the fact is, the food is still highly processed, and the carb/sugar levels in these foods will cause an onrush of insulin. This is hard on the body, and not what your body needs before an 8-hour workday.
When you start your day, you should look to good whole foods rich in the nutrients you need. Look to nutrient dense food that will satiate your hunger, optimize your neuro performance, and help your body complete the tasks ahead of you. Here are some good whole foods that’ll help you be breakfast healthy.
Be Breakfast Healthy
Eggs
Eggs are a super food. They are the perfect blend of the amino acids used to make up healthy protein. This is great for building muscle, and tissue regeneration.
Eggs are also a great source of vitamin A, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B12, choline, vitamin D, and phosphorus. Choline deficiency is fairly common, which is scary considering it is an important brain nutrient. Not getting enough choline can result in liver and heart disease, as well as neurological disorders.
Omelets are a great way to pair eggs with other great foods too. Try a spinach omelet in the morning to add even more vitamin A and protein to your diet. Plus you’ll add niacin, zinc, dietary fibre, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamin, and riboflavin. Spinach also contains vitamin B6, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, copper, and manganese. On top of all this, spinach is an excellent source of anti-inflammatory antioxidants.
That is just one example of how adding good whole foods to your morning can give you a wide range of the nutrients your body craves (because it needs these nutrients to work properly).
Avocado
Avocados are a great breakfast fruit that’ll fill you and supply you with many important vitamins and minerals. They are a good source of vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, and potassium. They contain vitamin A, vitamin E, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, and manganese. On top of this huge list of nutrients, avocados are also a great source of dietary fibre and contain almost no sugar. The low sugar and high-fat levels make this a popular fruit for anyone on a low-carb diet.
Avocados help support a healthy cardiovascular system, can help with weight management, and healthy aging. A 2013 study found, “avocados have both a medium energy density of 1.7 kcal/g and a viscose water, dietary fiber and fruit oil matrix that appears to enhance satiety.” An increase in satiety helps decrease food consumption, and in turn, can help with weight loss.
The fat in avocados can help reduce inflammation, and its damaging effect. They help the gut absorb nutrients so you can truly get the most from your food. So many of the high-sugar foods that are often eaten at breakfast cause inflammation in the gut and heart, and put strain on the body. By swapping out these foods for foods that soothe the body, you’re reducing physical stress and allowing your body to work at the important things you need to do.
Kefir
Dairy is a common component in breakfast food. Whether you’re pouring milk on your cereal, or grabbing a bowl of yogurt, you could unknowingly be causing your gut to become inflamed. Most adults are lactose intolerant to some degree, even if they don’t show any signs. The body wasn’t meant to regularly have milk as we age. However, kefir is a one dairy product you definitely want to add to your breakfast.
Kefir is a probiotic, and great for the gut. Kefir is milk, fermented with bacteria and yeasts, and a polysaccharide matrix known as the kefir grain. This amazing process takes normal milk and turns it into something wonderful.
Kefir is both protective and strengthening for your gut. One study, conducted on mice, found that kefir greatly protected the mice from developing Giardia intestinalis infection. This is one of the most common intestinal diseases worldwide. It is the result of a parasite latching on to your gastrointestinal tract, and causing an infection.
If you’ve been loading up on dairy products to maintain healthy bones, switch to kefir. Kefir milk doesn’t just protect your gut. It also protects your bones. Kefir milk has shown to have a much higher intercellular calcium uptake. It showed an increase in bone mineral density.
Kefir also protects tissue. This fermented milk is able to protect the tissue from repercussion injury, which is damage caused by a lack of oxygen and nutrients in the tissue’s blood supply. This saves you from cell death, which could lead to many diseases, or an overall weakening of the body. Kefir will keep you strong and healthy.
Kefir also has neuroprotective effects. It protects the brain the same way it protects other tissue in the body. It protects the spinal cord and the brain from oxidative stress, and neuronal degeneration.
If the taste of kefir is too strong for you, you can add a few berries to mask the flavour. Berries, dark berries especially, are great sources of antioxidants and vitamins
So tomorrow morning, when you wake up and you go to reach for your favourite breakfast food, be breakfast healthy and choose a food that is going to help you get through the day.
