Fuel up your day

Breakfast matters

It is easy to skip it, though the dietary truth is it shouldn’t be. To be precise, the refrain ‘Eat breakfast like a king’ is not quite adhered to. Missing breakfast, say experts, is the prescription for a drab day. What’s more, it could lead to overeating and consequences later on. A good breakfast not only keeps one energetic but helps make some, well, intelligent choices, through the day.

“Skipping breakfast is a definite no-no,” says Neelam Singh, dietician and nutritionist. “Breakfast is important as the body needs to be replenished with glucose and nutrients. Starting the day without breakfast is like trying to run a vehicle without fuel,” she adds. 

Letting go of the most important meal of the day (blame it on oversleeping, attempt to lose weight or running late for work!) is increasingly becoming a lifestyle pattern. Many a time, brunch or lunch becomes the first meal of the day. “The ideal time to have breakfast is within 7.30 am and 8.30 am,” Neelam explains.

 A healthy breakfast, according to her, includes whole grains like wheat brown cereals and in the Indian diet, ‘roti’ with vegetables, ‘rava dosa’, ‘idli’, ‘upma’ and the like. “If it is porridge that you prefer, go for oats or muesli. Opt for multigrain breads with toppings of fresh vegetables. It is also important to include fruits as they are high in fibres. Apple, papaya, watermelon and peaches are good choices. Consume the original source (the fruit) rather than fruit juice,” she elaborates.

 Eating habits are bound to fall by the wayside when work takes over. As a rule of thumb, skipping breakfast to lose weight is not of any use as there is the tendency to snibble on mid-morning snacks. 

“The body is already in a fasting mode for 12 hours,” says Dr Shalini Joshi, Senior Consultant, Internal Medicine, Fortis Hospitals. “If you skip breakfast for a prolonged period, your immunity is going to get affected. During the course of the day, you will suffer from fatigue and will be unable to concentrate”  The food industry has been marketing healthy food. But it is tough to distinguish the grain from the chaff.

Elaborating, Dr Shalini says, “The brown bread you get here is just brown in colour, they may not have those multigrains as is claimed.” Also, variety is the key. “If you want variety for breakfast, you can have cereal on one day, oats with fruits on the second, ‘chapatti’ (not ‘paratha’), ‘idli’, ‘moong’ dosa on the subsequent days. As far as kids are concerned, they should have whole milk and not skimmed milk like their parents. It addresses the fat requirements, creates good amino and fatty acids. They need to have lot of carbohydrates for breakfast for a good amount of sugar. You can go for honey, and not a whole lot of jam. It is good  that schools have a snack break at 9 am,” she says.

The importance of yoghurt too is something experts talk about since it has calcium and proteins. “If you deny the body of all these essentials, you tend to feel sleepy throughout. Breakfast should have a balance of complex carbohydrates and proteins. The bottomline is not to go by convenient choices but by healthy ones,” adds Neelam.    
     Clearly, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee, rather, the facts!