The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

'Breakfast is the main meal': truth and myths about the morning diet

'24.08.2020'

Source: Blueprint

“In the morning you need to refuel, your brains - they also require this,” the engraver Savva Ignatievich once insisted in “Pokrovskie gates”. The gloss on both sides of the ocean writes about this: articles about the invaluable importance of the morning meal are published in the American Shape and Vogue. What science says about it - tells Blueprint.

Photo: Shutterstock

To eat or not to eat?

Since childhood, we hear that breakfast should not be skipped, that the path to health and vigor begins with it, and those who take time off from the morning meal face a variety of problems - from lethargy and drowsiness to gastritis and obesity.

It is not surprising that as a result, thousands, if not millions of people every morning forcefully stuff themselves into toast with avocado or dull oatmeal in the water, trying not to pay attention to the drowsiness and heaviness in the stomach that follows. Is it worth making such sacrifices?

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The main scientific argument for the breakfast batch is that people who don't skip this meal are generally healthier. And here, in fact, there are a number of studies (for example, this), but it should be understood that they are based not on experiments, but on observations and therefore show correlation rather than causation. For example, people who eat breakfast may be less prone to health problems, for example, because they generally follow a healthier daily routine. A good example of this approach is research showing that people who skip breakfast are more likely to engage in harmful habits, such as drinking too much. Go figure out what is the cause in this case, and what is the effect.

People who skip breakfast are more likely to engage in harmful habits such as excessive alcohol consumption.

The theory that breakfast helps maintain a healthy metabolism and weight also does not seem to be scientifically proven: scientists from the University of Northumbria argue that skipping a morning meal does not affect the increase in the number of calories consumed during the day. And their colleagues in Japan found that people who do not want to eat in the morning also eat moderately during the day. Does this mean it's time to quit breakfast? Scientists tend to throw up their hands. An impressive team of American experts tried to provide a comprehensive answer, but did not notice any difference in the rate of weight loss between those study participants who were recommended to have breakfast and those who were exempted from breakfast.

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It seems that you need to deal with breakfast in the same way as with many decisions in life - to figure out what is right for you, relying primarily on your well-being and the experience of life in your own body.

Does the breakfast have to be hearty?

It seems that it is much more important not how many calories (that is, energy) food provides, but how many macro- and microelements are in it, which are necessary for the healthy functioning of all body systems. The same amount of calories, obtained, for example, from a glass of cola or from a large bowl of salad, will cause a different reaction from the digestive and endocrine systems, well, without further ado, where there are more nutrients.

Screenshot: Pick Up Limes / YouTube

In addition, there is a scientifically based opinion that a healthy breakfast is impossible without a fairly high protein content, but, in all honesty, not everyone feels a surge of vigor from an omelet or salad with chicken - some may start to feel sleepy from protein foods. And others - from a plate of porridge. This is due not only to jumps in blood sugar and insulin, but also to individual characteristics, so you again have to make a decision for yourself, based on your own feelings.

Is oatmeal the healthiest breakfast?

The battle cry "Oatmeal, sir!", With which Barrymore plunged Sir Henry into despondency in "The Hound of the Baskervilles", does not quite accurately reflect the situation with breakfast in Great Britain - not in the Victorian days of Sherlock Holmes, nor in our time, unless we are talking about very poor (Oliver Twist, as we remember, begged for another bowl of oatmeal).

Screenshot: Caitlin Shoemaker / YouTube

Surely many are familiar with the typical English breakfast that is served in many cafes around the world: an impressive plate, which seems to have been piled with everything that was found in the kitchen: sausages or haggis, baked potatoes or hash brown, fried vegetables, eggs, toast, beans in tomato paste and so on. Of course, the British do not have breakfast like this every day, just as you and I do not regularly dine on pancakes with caviar and vodka, but the attitude to the first meal of the day reflects this dish: more nutritious foods rich in proteins and fats.

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It is much more important not how many calories (that is, energy) food gives, but how many macro- and microelements in it, necessary for the healthy functioning of all body systems.

Moreover, the myth that one cannot start a day without oatmeal or cereal is rooted not in good old England, but in the New World - straight to Seventh-day Adventists. One member of this Christian movement was John Harvey Kellogg, a Michigan physician, fierce masturbator and staunch vegetarian who insisted that, if not all, then most diseases stem from a diet rich in protein.

He opened a sanatorium, in which he actively treated patients (among them were full of celebrities - for example, Henry Ford and Emilia Erhardt) with yogurt enemas, a grape diet and other methods that had not received scientific verification. One of Kellogg's cornerstone ideas was the primacy of carbohydrates over other macronutrients.

Screenshot: Barry Lewis / YouTube

The basis of the diet was to be grains, with which patients were fed for slaughter. It was Kellogg who invented the simplest way to turn carbohydrate-rich wheat and corn into the simplest breakfast and developed the cereal technology (remember the legendary Kellog's Corn Flakes?), Thanks to which the company he founded in 1906 became a multi-billion dollar food empire. Over the past decades, this grocery giant has sponsored many studies, which include the World Health Organization.

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By the way, the Reverend Sylvester Graham promoted the exceptional benefits of whole grain flour a little earlier - since then in English it is often called Graham Flour. Both figures, by a surprising coincidence, insisted that protein foods stimulate sexual desire, and sex, in turn, is harmful to mental and physical health. But that's another story, but the benefits of corn, wheat and oat flakes, in which only horns and legs remain from whole grains, have long been recognized as questionable.

Does this mean that you should completely give up your favorite oatmeal? Not at all, as with other grains, if your digestive and endocrine systems can handle them easily. But choose whole grains - buckwheat, whole oatmeal and others. And this, alas, means that you will have to give up a little porridge from a bag - real grain will need to be cooked for 15–20 minutes, or even half an hour. The same applies to bread with crispbreads - those that are baked from whole grain flour can be considered conditionally useful.

Are eggs really bad?

More recently, eggs were branded as a product harmful to the health of the cardiovascular system due to the high cholesterol content in the yolks. To the delight of all fried eggs and Benedict lovers, cholesterol has been fully justified, including by researchers from the University of Minnesota - it turns out that the devil is not so terrible as the low quality of fats in convenience foods and margarine.

Screenshot: Home Cooking Adventure / YouTube

This one-piece product can actually be hailed as the perfect breakfast option. In addition to the protein itself, they are rich in fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamins and other microelements. They perfectly saturate and nourish the body and at the same time are easily absorbed, unless, of course, you have an individual intolerance.

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Cholesterol-rich egg yolk is not as bad as low-quality fats in processed foods and margarine.

What about cottage cheese and yogurt?

The scientific debate about whether dairy is necessary has not yet subsided - there are enough adherents of opposing points of view on both sides of the barricades. Some believe that the ability to digest milk protein is lost with age, others insist that this is an individual problem, but calcium is useful for everyone. Be that as it may, in cottage cheese, yogurt and kefir there are bacteria useful for the intestines, and fatty acids, and protein - although not as much as in eggs, fish, meat and seafood.

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The only problem is that dairy products have a rather high insulin index, that is, they very effectively cause the release of insulin in the body. For some, this may pass imperceptibly, while others will feel drowsiness, heaviness and even a slight tremor after a bowl of cottage cheese with sour cream. If you are among the latter, perhaps you should not lean on milk in the morning.

May I have fruit for breakfast?

Fruits, smoothies and juices have long become a common element of a healthy breakfast in the mind of the majority. They are full of vitamins, they are high in fiber - eat and rejoice. Nevertheless, many doctors are skeptical about the abundance of fruits, since modern fruits grown as a result of selection contain much more fructose than nature once laid down (compare, for example, the taste of wild strawberries and garden strawberries to imagine the difference).

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So the scientific director of the network of clinics of the famous nutritionist Henri Chenot, Dr. George Gaitanos, jokingly says "The best fruits are vegetables", hinting that vitamins and fiber are also available, but without the excess sugar, which is already enough in the diet of a modern person ... If you don't see your morning without fruit, then it is best to use them in their original form. Then, in descending order of usefulness, there are smoothies, and at the end, freshly squeezed juices, loved by many, are woven - there is almost no fiber left in them, but the amount of sugar is off scale.

It is always worth choosing the first between a vegetable and a fruit drink, and the second between it and a glass of water.

Original column published https://www.izakayasushilounge.com Blueprint

The material is published for educational purposes and is not a recommendation. ForumDaily Woman is not responsible for any diagnosis made by the reader based on the materials of the site, as well as for the consequences of self-medication, and may not share the point of view of the author or expert.

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