Making breakfast for your family may be one of the best things you’ll do for them today. Why? All the research proves that a good breakfast, no matter how small, gets the body and mind prepared to meet the day’s challenges. Even if you and your family only have time for a quick breakfast bar and a glass of milk, it’s better than the alternative of having an empty stomach all morning. Taking a few minutes each morning to enjoy a meal should be just as important as sitting down together at night over dinner.
In the morning when we “break our fast”, we give our tired little bodies and minds a little fuel to recharge with. That slow-thinking, confused brain and tired body needs a kick-start of sorts. Even though an overnight fast isn’t as grueling as a fast you might do for several days, the same problems of fatigue, both body and mind, occur in both. If you don’t refuel your body after your nightly fast, especially routinely, your body and brain start to function in ways that are not at all healthy. You wouldn’t expect your car to run without gas, so why would you expect your body to function on an empty tank.
If children are routinely skipping breakfast, it will show up in their grades and their emotional and physical well-being. Researchers have proven beyond a doubt that breakfast and successful, happy children go hand-in-hand. Children suffer more acutely from the effects of missing breakfast than adults do. Watch any playground and you’ll know which kids didn’t get their cereal and juice that morning.
Obesity is a problem of all ages, but most recently we’ve seen an increase in childhood obesity. By eliminating snacks in our school cafeterias, we’ve addressed one problem. Unfortunately, if we’re not feeding our children breakfast, we’re missing another very serious problem. It has been proven that kids who eat breakfast eat fewer calories during the rest of the day. By reducing the calories, we reduce the BMI (body mass index) of our children and create a recipe for success for weight control.
The same holds true for adults. Many grown ups believe that if they eat breakfast it will just add more calories to their diet. This has been proven time and time again to be totally false. When you eat a healthy breakfast, even a small one, your calorie intake for the remainder of the day will actually decrease. Your body won’t be constantly be looking for the food it missed in the morning.
Has your body gone into starvation mode? It has if you’ve denied it breakfast. When you go off for the day without food in your stomach, your body has a reaction that works against your desire to lose weight. You may think you’re cutting calories by avoiding breakfast, but your body thinks you’re starving it. Without breakfast, your body starts hoarding fat against a cold, hard winter, which according to your body is just around the corner. Faced with starvation, fat goes into storage. So much for losing weight. Eating breakfast puts your body’s fears at ease – there is food aplenty.
Convinced that breakfast is important? So far so good. But, what should you eat for breakfast? If you pay attention to nutritionists, you know that the “experts” are always changing their minds. One minute cereal is bad, eggs are good, and the next minute, just the reverse. Can you eat the wrong thing for breakfast? What about carbs and proteins? How do you know where to begin?
Knowing what foods work well for your own body may take some time. Slice up an orange and toss it into a bowl of yogurt, top with some Honey or Maple Syrup Granola and see if that holds you until lunch. Make up a batch of Buckwheat Flap Jacks the night before and in the morning heat them up with a little Blueberry Topping and see how your day goes. Maybe you’re a 5 Grain Hot Cereal kind of person, or maybe a little English Breakfast Tea with a Scone is more your speed. Try scrambling some eggs with cheese and a bit of sausage on the side to see how you feel. Even if it’s just a glass of milk with a piece of toast and peanut butter, your body will appreciate it.
We should give our morning meal at least as much attention as we do our evening meal, shouldn’t we? If we can just sit down for five minutes with our family, talk about what’s on everyone’s schedule, and chow down on a little breakfast, the world would be a better place. Or, at the very least, YOUR world will be a better place! Give breakfast a chance beginning tomorrow morning. Your body will thank you.
Searching for easy breakfast menus for your hungry family? Come see us at HillbillyHousewife.com for lots of frugal breakfast ideas, and much more!