The most significant meal of the day is breakfast. The proverb is well-known, and with good cause. After ten hours of fasting while we slept, breakfast is our opportunity to refuel our bodies.
Choosing wisely what to eat in the morning can increase our energy, focus, and productivity, empowering us to conquer the world!
Conversely, making the wrong breakfast choices, may give us a quick boost, but leave us feeling sapped and sluggish by lunchtime.
Here is our rundown of the 15 worst breakfast foods that you’re probably eating every day. Some of them will surprise you, particularly number 15!
1. Sugary, highly-refined cereals
We’re all aware that cereal for kids in brightly colored packaging should be avoided because of its alarmingly high sugar content. However, breakfast cereals that are advertised as “healthy” options but have a high sugar content are even riskier.
We actually love breakfast cereals. Cereal is a super quick, easy, wholesome, and nutritious way of filling up in the morning, ready to start the day. But only if they’re made with whole grains, and contain no added sugars.
Popular puffed rice, honey-coated nut cereals, and frosted flakes (either big-name brands or supermarket own-brand equivalents) will normally be ladened with spoonfuls of sugar.
Aside from the long-term health implications of consuming too much sugar, a sugary start to your day will only sustain energy levels for a very short time. But once this sugary hit has been digested, we’ll be left feeling hungry very quickly, and, quite possibly, reaching for another unhealthy choice.
Make sure you check the nutritional values of your cereal and ensure there are no added sugars. Opt for cereals that are made with whole grains and are rich in belly-filling fibre that will help to sustain you until lunchtime. Choose shredded whole wheat cereals, corn flakes that aren’t coated in sugar, or traditional porridge oats, but avoid microwavable porridge which can often contain hidden, sugary syrups to add taste.
2. Pancakes or waffles
If you’ve ever made pancakes from scratch, then you’ll know that they’re made from flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, plus a raising agent that gives them their fluffiness such as bicarbonate of soda. Vegan pancake recipes do also exist that include substitutes for eggs and milk and gluten-free flour alternatives can also be used to make gluten-free pancakes.
However, what unites them all is this? Sweetheart! Additionally, waffles are much the same. Nonetheless, they’re both a popular choice for breakfast. We don’t often eat pancakes and waffles plain, which increases the amount of sugar in a pancake or waffle-based breakfast. By whom?
We load them up with sugary syrups and crispy bacon that’s high in saturated fats and salt, only adding to the calorie content whilst not really adding much to the beneficial nutritional value.
Furthermore, white flour, which has been treated to eliminate whole grains and healthy B vitamins, is typically used to produce both. Thus, it’s actually better to limit these to breakfasts on holidays!
3. Bagels and their fillings
Bagels are heavier than many other bread products, and they’re a popular choice for breakfasts on the go as they tend to hold onto their contents better than normal bread without going soggy.
Most bagels are made using white flour, which as we learned above, is flour with all its beneficial nutrients and fibre stripped away. So you’re not getting much nutritional value from eating a bagel.
Then there’s the issue of the most common bagel fillings, which are butter, cream cheese, and salt beef. All of these fillings are heavy in fat, and in the case of salt beef, they also contain a lot of salt and chemicals used in processing.
So if bagels are your thing, keep them to a minimum and try them with low-fat cream cheese, smoked salmon, or peanut butter, all of which provide beneficial protein to help energize your morning.
4. Muffins and pastries
Muffins are delicious, but let’s face it, by eating a muffin for breakfast, we’re pretty much allowing ourselves to eat cake for breakfast and surely that’s only for our birthday each year?! Even a muffin that’s sold to us as ‘healthy’ such as a fruit-filled blueberry muffin, is still more or less a cake.
That said, a blueberry muffin does at least contain fruit, which is a healthier choice than a plain muffin or worse, a chocolate chip muffin. Blueberries are a great source of antioxidants and vitamins that help to keep the immune system healthy, so if you’re going to choose a breakfast muffin, choose a fruit one. And even then, save them for the occasional treat!
Savory muffins could also be a better option, but watch out for cheese muffins that are high in saturated fats. We’ve seen muffins made using courgette and minimal sugar, which might not tick the sugar craving box, but they certainly won’t start you off on the back foot for the day.
The same is true of the breakfast pastries in hotel rooms that seem so good. They’re most definitely left for hotel and holiday treats if we want to avoid a sugar overload for breakfast!
5. Fruit juice
Who doesn’t love coffee and orange juice with their breakfast? As a small addition to an otherwise balanced breakfast, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a small (around 150ml) glass of fresh juice. The problems start if you’re drinking much more than this every day.
If you think about oranges, how many could you eat in one go? One or two is our guess. But if you have a large glass of freshly squeezed (either by yourself or a shop-bought fresh orange) juice, you could be consuming double that.
Like all fruits used to make juice, oranges are healthy. They contain high levels of vitamin C and other vitamins and minerals. But fruit also contains fructose, a fruit sugar. So if you’re consuming one or two oranges, then you’re not consuming much fructose. But take that to four or more oranges in one sitting, just as a drink, then you’re consuming more sugar than you think. So if we drink fruit juice alone for breakfast, we’re likely to feel hungry pretty soon afterward.
Fruit juices also remove the fibre content from the fruit, since you’re not consuming the pulp. Fibre is important for good gut health. So consume whole fruits and keep juices to a minimum. And definitely opt out of fruit juices with added sugars!
