Breakfast: Don't Make it More Complicated Than it Needs to Be

How about a delicious, healthy and satisfying breakfast that doesn't require a lot of time? Forget over-processed "healthy" products like Cheerios, low-fat muffins, and protein shakes. It's easier to eat real food than you think: use the leftovers. Leftover vegetables from dinner? Toss them in a pan with a couple of eggs and you've got a gourmet omelette in minutes! Leftover grains? Throw them in a pan with a little water, some fruit, cinnamon, chopped nuts and you have a delicious breakfast porridge that will keep you full all morning. Plus it's real, actual food!

So try this: Throw together leftover veggies or grains from the night before and make a delicious real breakfast. Check out two simple recipes below.

Instead of: Throwing yourself off by eating processed, fake, chemicalized, or isolated "healthy" foods that have all kinds of hidden sugar like cold breakfast cereals, low-fat baked goods, shakes, and bars.

For the recipes and to learn more about why you might not want to pat yourself on the back for eating Cheerios in the morning, read on...

Boxed Cereal

It's easier to eat real food than you think. Modern foods are all about convenience, not your health. Even breakfast cereals that carry lists of health benefits are not what they're cracked up to be. First of all almost all of them are laden with hidden sugar. If you don't believe me check the label and see how many sneaky terms for sugar you can find (evaporated cane juice, cane sugar, corn syrup, etc.). But who cares right, they have (insert trendy nutrient of the moment)! Secondly, they are highly processed. Even the whole grain ones with fiber, even the ones sold in health food stores. The machine used to make them cereals, an extruder, really screws with the grains used to make your trusty cereal. It subjects the grains to such high heat and pressure that the nutritional value of the grain once it's been processed is questionable, and dangerously toxic if you ask Sally Fallon of the Weston A Price Foundation. They fed Corn Flakes to rats and they died faster than rats that ate the box that the Corn Flakes came in! To read more about extrusion click here.

Low-fat Baked Goods

Those low fat muffins at the coffee shop are no gem either. Go ahead, check out the Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or other bakery's website for the nutrition info. They might not be super high in calories (I can't believe I just said "calories"), but the main ingredient is almost always white flour. White flour is processed, devoid of the fiber, b-vitamins, and antioxidants that come in the original form: whole wheat. Without the fiber, white flour is not much better than plain old sugar, spiking your blood sugar and leading to a crash and cravings for more sugar shortly after. Have any white flour product for breakfast and you're in danger of eating a lot more between now and lunch time.

Protein Shakes

Protein shakes and bars? Also questionable. Popular ingredients in shakes and powders are isolated proteins from soy, whey, casein, and egg whites. They are protein isolates, meaning they have been isolated, taken out of the context of the whole food it came from. The isolates are usually obtained by a high-temperature process that changes the protein to an extent that they are pretty much useless. Not to mention increasing nitrates and other carcinogens in the food. Yum! Our genes have evolved for generations and generations to know exactly what to do with food. The whole food and how to break up it's particles. Whey protein, soy protein, etc. is not a whole food. As for protein bars, just read the ingredients. Most are not much more than a glorified candy bar.

Of course there's a very small amount of quality cereals that don't use extrusion, meal powders that don't use isolated proteins, and muffins that use real ingredients. But why bother when you can make your own real food, quickly!

RECIPES FOR A BETTER BREAKFAST

Veggie Frittata

Olive oil

6 eggs

Salt

Fresh-ground black pepper

Chopped leftover cooked vegetables (i.e. greens, zucchini, tomato, onions, peppers, herbs, etc.)

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a 10-inch heavy pan over medium heat. Crack eggs into a large bowl. Add salt, 2 teaspoons of olive oil, fresh-ground black pepper and beat lightly. Stir the cooked leftover vegetables into the beaten eggs.

Pour egg mixture into preheated pan. As the eggs set on the bottom, lift the edges with a spatula to allow the uncooked eggs to flow underneath. Continue to cook until mostly set. Invert a large plate (or another pan) on top of the pan, turn the plate and pan upside down to turn out the frittata onto the plate.

Pour in 1 tsp of olive oil and slide the frittata back into the pan. Cook for 2 or 3 more minutes. Slide onto a plate and serve or wrap for the next day. Serves four.

Whole Grain Hot Breakfast

1 cup of leftover whole grains (i.e. brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, etc.)

2 tbsp rolled oats

1 cup water

2 tbsp dried fruit or fresh fruit (i.e. raisins or chopped apples)

2 tbsp chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans, etc.)

1 shake of cinnamon

Raw honey or pure maple syrup

Bring grains, oats, water, fruit, nuts, and cinnamon to a boil. Lower the flame to simmer and cook for about 5 minutes. Add raw honey or maple syrup to sweeten. Maybe a wee pat of butter too. Serves two.