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Sorry, There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast (nytimes.com)
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Plenty of people certainly believe that, but according to a new report, that notion is based on "misinterpreted research and biased studies." The New York Times has run a piece authored by Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, who looked into numerous studies -- and found flaws in them -- to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all. (Could be paywalled; alternate source) He writes: The [reports] improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others' results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad. Carroll also points out a conflict in many of such studies: most of them have been funded by the food industry. He concludes: The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you're hungry, eat it. But don't feel bad if you'd rather skip it, and don't listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.
Next he'll be saying there's no magic in bacon.
I wonder if the debunkers have provided evidence that supports their position that breakfast is unimportant and can be skipped? Just because the "proof" for a hypothesis is debunked, does not automatically mean the opposite of the hypothesis is true.
I typically don't have breakfast until 2.5 hours after I wake at 4:30AM and ride the express bus for 25 miles to work, getting my large skinny vanilla latte and breakfast sandwich at the cafeteria. Better to have breakfast after I'm done traveling in the morning. No risk of getting motion sickness and hurling on someone.
Yes it does. It led Kellogg and General Mills to a bottomless pot of gold.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Big Breakfast has been trying to get people to eat a big breakfast for years!
My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime. I've always felt that you should be a little hungry when you go to bed, then have a good size breakfast in the morning. Improves sleep, and sets you up for the day, with only a light lunch and dinner required. I also find that it prevents you from feeling tired in the afternoon.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
I've been working out on an empty stomach in the mornings for years, only to be criticized by armchair specialists about how bad or impossible this is... There's plenty of reserve energy floating around the human body and there's nothing miraculous about physical activity on an empty stomach.
You think our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked refrigerator every morning?
Mostly random stuff.
I'll let google decide such important matters.
I personally never eat breakfast -- during the work week.
I'll eat a minimal lunch (always left overs = free mortgage payment per year :). Oh, wait, I don't have a mortgage anymore because I did that...
On the rare weekend days that I do eat breakfast I'll skip lunch altogether. I'm not hungry.
Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.
No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot. Of course they have always said that about me since grade school. I've always ignored it all. Even my doctor looked me up and down and said, "No -- you're just fine. Keep doing what you're doing."
Any magic things you hear about food are usually false:
- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).
- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.
- Aspertame has no significant health effects.
- Fat isn't bad for you.
- You don't have old undigested meat in your gut.
- You don't need 8 glasses of water per day.
- [Food item XYZ] isn't "brain food"
- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems
- You don't need X servings of Y food per day
- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food
- Eggs don't give you a heart attack
- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.
- Chemicals are not bad for you.
If I start my day right - I'm absofuckinglutely starving by the time lunch rolls around.
If I skip breakfast? I can easily ignore food until dinner, have a reasonable meal, and be perfectly fine until I fall asleep, when the cycle repeats anew.
My reasonable dinner may be unreasonable, of course, but at the end of the day, it's less calories than eating three meals a day like a chump.
If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...but my personal experience speaks elsewise.
If I sleep in I feel fine. If I force myself to get up early for work (which I do most days) then I feel groggy and not-hungry for 2-3 hours, if I force myself to eat something shortly after waking (usually a banana or prawn sandwich) I feel better for those 2-3 hours and gain an appetite for a full meal quicker.
nothing special about breakfast?
of course this is true.
everybody knows it's *second* breakfast that's the magical one!
Seriously, nutritional science is more of a pseudoscientific joke than sociology. Whatever isn't a completely biased endorsement made by food companies to push trendy products is disproved within 10 years, and then reproved another 10 years after that.
Ain't nobody got time fo' breafast anyway!
I find it ironic that in an article about how imprecise and loose language led to the notion that breakfast is somehow special compared to other meals, the summary uses the term magical and the article uses the term mystical.
I haven't had breakfast on a weekday in 10 years and my engineering work hasn't ever suffered. I get up, dress, shower, drink my coffee and walk out the door. by the time I'm hungry it's close to 11Am and what most folks consider "lunch" so that's when I eat. as a side effect I don't overeat having only one meal in such a small time period (7-11am) and don't tend to have that "afternoon crash". I then scoot home and eat a light-ish dinner and done. I'm sitting behind a desk most of the day I don't need 5,000 calories like a construction worker might, 1800 - 2200 does me fine.
I agree; if you aren't hungry, don't eat (breakfast or any other meal). On the other hand I love something in the morning and my preference is Bulletproof Coffee. It is nice because it only contains fat and therefore doesn't get your insulin going right when you wake up.
We need government funding with no strings attached. Or just like wikipedia it only is correct for things no one cares about.
Especially if it is a lembas only elevenses...
Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.
I think the whole point of driving the importance of breakfast has less to do with forcing people to eat at a certain hour, and has more to do with the fact that your body hasn't consumed any fuel at that point in roughly 10 - 12 hours, and things start to go downhill for most humans with regards to energy levels and overall alertness after a certain point of no food or drink. This tolerance to avoiding varies from individual to individual, thus no "studies" are necessary, only personal experience.
Bacon is served at breakfast more so than other meals. Magic.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
He also did a youtube version of this on his Healthcare Triage channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My wife, who had a long career in medicine, often says about changing ideas on what's good and bad for you, "That's what they say today."
When you eat and what you eat should depend on when you are active and how you are active so that your blood is rich leading up to periods of increased activity. This situation molds an overall conditioned response to your daily routine in terms of hormone production, which, among just about everything else you feel, is what causes you to be hungry, meaning you're anticipating a workload and feel that you ought to fuel up.
But you don't have to eat for energy to be mobilized to the blood due to the fact that you have body fat. But it's not possible for some people to utilize this faculty due to their poor diet.
The root of the problem is that people jam up their hormones, especially insulin, by eating grain and sugar which makes the body produce hormones out of proportion to what is preferable.
Hormones have multiple functions and triggering too much production of a hormone for one task will disrupt all of its other tasks. Simply put humans are not genetically suited to diets based on carbohydrates.
Thank god, I'm usually still asleep during breakfast time, so I'll move to lunch instead.
But any first meal you have is the breakfast. Is the breakfast better if it is one type of food or another? Perhaps, but if you don't break a fast at some point, you will die of starvation.
to know if I don't eat something in the morning, I will be very distracted until later for lunch time.
One thing to note is ***never*** eat melons along with other foods. If you do eat melons, have them alone then wait for at least 30 minutes before something else. A chart showing food combinations pointed this out, before I saw that my stomach never felt that great after eating melons along with other stuff especially at hotel breakfast buffets.
mfwright@batnet.com
So one guy reviews the work of several Teams (probably) and proclaims them all bunk?
If Climate Science worked like this, it would have been considered to be debunked years ago.
Empirical studies have shown conclusively that Lucky Charms are magically delicious.
4chan containment failure detected.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Anyone else here old enough to remember the Four basic food groups, one of which was entirely taken up by Dairy, which a lot of humans flat out can't digest properly at all? After a while (and a lot of embarrassing gastrointestinal distress), they decided that was BS and created the Food Pyramid. The basic idea of that one was that you should be eating a metric shitload of breads. Today we call those "carbs", and these same types of people will tell you to avoid them like the plague.
Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.
Breakfast thing being case in point. Young people should probably be fed if they are hungry, but if they aren't its usually downright stupid to force food on them. For older people this goes triple. I found with advancing age that my metabolism has slowed down to the point where if I try to force even 2 meals a day on myself, I gain weight. That's bad. Much, much worse than just eating only the 1 or 2 times a day I'm actually hungry.
As usual, way, way oversimplified. In and of itself, no, but when taking the overarching effect in tandem with the rest of a person's eating habits and susequent metabolic state, yes, it matters. In the context of a fitness plan, it can matter quite a lot, in fact.
Well I haven't eaten what is normally known as "breakfast" for about 7 years. (Of course, as it is technically defined as when you "break your fast", your first meal of the day is breakfast even if eaten at 10 pm). For what it's worth, I have noticed absolutely no ill effects of any kind.
Instead, following the recommendation of a growing number of nutritionists and doctors, I eat two meals a day at approximately noon and 6 pm. That's ample for someone of my age (late 60s) and conveniently allows for an 18-hour semi-fast between dinner and the following day's lunch. (I don't count coffee with lashings of double cream, although strictly it has quite a few calories).
The idea that you have to eat every few hours or you run out of blood sugar and faint has certainly been debunked. And anyway, it makes no sense. After a decent meal, it takes the food over an hour even to be liquidized in your stomach - before it can move on to digestion proper - and then your guts take 12-24 hours to extract most of the nutrients. So it's fairly obvious that you are getting nutrients drip-fed into your blood all that time. And indeed, it's very easy and painless to fast for 24-72 hours, because by the time the food in your intestines has been thoroughly absorbed, your body has automatically and transparently shifted to burning body fat. When I fast, I sometimes feel mild hunger pangs a couple of times the first day, but from the second morning a different (and very enjoyable) state sets in: no hunger, no indigestion, no feeling of fulness at all. It's almost as if you were without a digestive system for the time being, which gives it and you a rest. Incidentally, this is an ideal state to be in if you want to get a lot of work done without interruptions. If you can get into flow, you can work steadily for hour after hour without getting any hassle from your body.
What most of us mistake for hunger is a conditioned reflex, which we have set up to hit us at "mealtimes". Real hunger manifests as tiredness, and may be hard to recognize at first if you are not used to it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
All the arguments they claim were debunked weren't the one I've heard. Namely: that your body can only process so much protein in a meal (~40g or so). Meaning if you are active and buy into the hype of 0.5-1g per kg per day the only way you can get the protein you need and actually digest it is to have 5 meals/snacks a day. Skipping breakfast just makes it that much harder to fit the meals in. Even a less active person going for say 0.25g/kg/d would need 3 solid meals a day to get that.
The other thing with it, protein wise is if you are into bodybuilding, the theory is your body won't stay in a anabolic state if its been too long since your last protein (well really meal since you need fats and carbs too to "protect" the protein from being used as a calorie source rather than for growth).
Depending on your metabolism, bla bla bla...
The essence is: If you have a normal life cycle, breakfast means you haven't eaten anything for the past 10 hours, and probably it's not a bad idea to give your body some energy.
Of course, if you're eating for three already, like most overweight people, you can just as well skip three days to burn some fat.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
it definitely helps jumpstart your metabolism in your work out every morning.
if you don't expend any calories like the pastey faced scientist who wrote this then yes, I agree breakfast is not magical
I work out in the morning, and always eat "first meal" before starting. Usually just a low-sugar protein bar (140 calories, 4g of sugar). On times that I've skipped it, I just feel groggy.
Then, mostly out of habit, I grab a bowl of cereal or two when I'm done.
I also found it very useful to limit calories in the evening. I seem to do better when I eat only a light dinner (= 400 calories). Days when I wake up with dinner still digesting are not good ones. ...Yes, I also plan around a big job-provided lunch.
My grandfather told me to watch out for those so called, "free cholesterol test". He said, "That test cost me my bacon!"
Side note, he lived to be 91 years old. ~ 30 years after the test.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I very rarely eat breakfast. In fact, I rarely have an appetite until I've been up for at least an hour or two.
When people say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, I generally reply that Lunch is the least important meal of the day - except when it's first. And for me, Lunch is almost always first ;-)
What are human energy reserves called?
Seems like exercising without food intake would prompt the body to "fork over" them reserves.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
"...to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all."
Breakfast isn't as important as what? Lunch? Dinner? Oxygen? Jack Daniels?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Argh! What a bad news — just as I was about to call for criminal prosecution of breakfast deniers...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Or Is it lunch? Does it matter? Why bother studying this kind of nonsense? If you're hungry, then eat. And if you're not hungry, then don't eat. It's not that complicated.
All these dollars spent on nutritional research are a huge waste of money.
http://www.generalmills.com/en...
Doubleplus unslim!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Breakfast is a culture thing.
Even in my country they once spread the mantra "Breakfast is the most important meal" ... I doubt the majourity is following it.
I stopped eating breakfast around my 5th grade. It was simply impossible. There was no time for it and frankly I was not hungry, but around 9:00 we had our first 15 minutes break in school, so then I ate "breakfast".
In our days my first meal is lunch, depending when it is. And in rare cases, e.g. on vacations or when I do Aikido seminars (5h to 6h training per day) I have a small breakfast before the first training.
Depending on how much sports I do and how much work I have I eat only once a day anyway ...
Contradicting the idea of what to eat as they spread it in magazines or "new science of the day", I eat a huge meal in the late evening.
Culture, wow. In Mediterranean countries you have an espresso and a small sip of olive oil in the morning. Breakfast is when work/school long has started. Somewhere between 9:00 and 11:00. And it is a very small one as you have your first real meal somewhere around 13:00/14:00 ... and afterwards you have siesta till 16:00. Then your work continues till probably 20:00.
Sure, having enough nutrition to be able to perform, e.g. brain work, as in school, is important. But there are plenty of ways how to achieve this. E.g. not having school started at an absurd early time in the morning for little kids just because the teachers want to go home at 14:00.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
...can science prove that there's no magic?
I never had the custom of eating breakfast. I wake up and work till noon and have lunch. I never ate before school as a child. I haven't experienced any negative side effects from this, I'm not overweight, I don't have digestive issues and I don't run out of energy in the morning. I doubt people from one of the many countries/cultures around the world that don't have a "breakfast" meal have any major issues either.
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/LhN...
Let's be clear. Breakfast is quite literally the first meal you eat after you have gone without food for a length of time. You "break" your "fast"
That's about the only reason to consider breakfast as more important than any other meal. One would hope that the first thing you eat after a fast, no matter how long it is, is something reasonably good for you. In that sense, Breakfast *is* the most important meal.
So what's the meal you eat after going without food since breakfast? Is that also breakfast? After all, I have been fasting since breakfast.
Because that has discredited anything ever in the face of literally anything else.
> To most of you, the breakfast of champions is to eat a dick.
Yes, a spotted one. I also like faggots.
Indeed, and that's why the notion of Breakfast being the most important meal is senseless - in fact it's almost a tautology.
Every meal is the most important.
I've found that the best morning routine that keeps me lean and fit is to have only a strong coffee and arginin after I get up, and then vigorous workout for half to one hour (stop when feeling weak or dizzy), and then have a rich breakfast with proteins and carbs. I try to reduce carbs overall but of course I need them after workout, and they don't go into storage as long as I don't overdo it. My brain also needs carbs for the day. Working out on an empty stomach not only revs me up more than any food/caffeine could, it also helps burn fat and build muscle to keep burning fat even when I do nothing. OT: another method to burn fat and make brown fat is to dress a bit lighter when it's cold, but of course watch out for infections.
The saddest five words ever:
Breakfast has no mystical powers.
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
Please don't propagate this myth. It is simply not based on anything.
It isn't calories, it's what you eat and comes down to HOW your body works. It's about hormones, largely insulin and how your body handles it.
You cut calories without fixing how your body works because you've been abusing it, and you will simply be starving yourself. And that simply doesn't work and is unhealthy.
Cut out sugars and carbs. Eat natural (unprocessed) fats. (two other myths - fat doesn't make you fat, and don't cause heart disease)
It is THAT simple. But people refuse to believe it. Don't just trust a Slashdot post. Read the research papers - and read the criticisms about them, researcher bias, etc. Learn what we have been 'fed' about diet. Educate yourself. Look at the data around obesity, heart disease, diabetes. It is amazing to me how much info is available to us, yet people just want a quick fix. Take some time and read.
Good Calories Bad Calories
The Primal Blueprint
Grain Brain
Many others.
I have been doing this for almost 4 years now, and in my mid-40s I am healthier than I have ever been. We have been an agriculture society for 10k years, but humans have been around and evolving for 2.5 million years. Do a visual comparison of those two numbers. Look at how little time we have been farming, then look at the Standard American Diet. Look at the sheer percentage of your diet that is grain and sugar based. Cut those things out. You will be much much healthier and that is what got us to where we are today.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Rubbish of course it is the most important meal of the day, you try having a meal without having breakfast.
Also it is the only meal of the day when you are likely to eat
Never eat baked beans with breakfast, that it is a sin. Now that is how empires are created.
The most dangerous drug
Hey Aaron Carroll is the guy from the Healthcare Triage Youtube channel. Great channel.
We're on the same page. I have always ate well but I slowly started putting on weight in my late 30s and I realized that the issue was portion control. I simply ate too much food. Even if the quality of one's food is excellent if you eat too much you will gain weight.
I lost weight and have kept myself at a good weight for years by simply paying attention to calories consumed. Of course this is above and beyond paying attention to what I'm putting into my body and generally eating very well.
And, as you mentioned, I quickly realized that the way to get the protein I wanted in the allowable calories I had to reduce my carb intake. Lucky for me sugars have never been my poison of choice. (Unless you consider potatoes, pasta and bread to be sugar.)
Ultimately, as a point of logic, you will starve to death (lose weight first) if you eat too few calories even if the calories are rubbish (twinkies and rum).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
No, but I consider pasta and bread to be poison. Potatoes and sweet potatoes only in small amounts on occasion.
It has nothing to do with portion control. I know, because I used to think that. But nope, not at all.
Avoid grains or grain products
Avoid sugar
Eat as much healthy fat as you like (low-fat is bad for you). Animal fat, olive oil, butter, coconut oil, avocados, eggs
Eat meat - the best sources you can get
Those four things will slim you down and reduce inflammation greatly. It will also help you get off the insulin roller-coaster. Once you get there, you will realize how bad you felt before, and will wish you would have started sooner. I also avoid nuts/legumes as well. Some people say avoid dairy, but I still eat cheese and full-fat dairy products. (no milk though) My health is better, my bloodwork is better. I just am ready for the medical establishment to realize their advice has been wrong all these years, and based off of bad or biased reporting of scientific studies.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Interesting. I allow myself the "poison"(bread and pasta) on weekends only. Veggie, meat, dairy, eggs during the week.
Perhaps I'm healthy because I limit my intake of "poison." You added legumes to the mix of don't eat..
Why? What sources do you have that indicate that legumes are bad - as for instance a white bean and beef stew casserole.
As far as breads are concerned have you seen the Netflix documentary "Cooked" with Michael Pollan. There is a good one on bread focusing on the difference between traditional bread and mass produced bread.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
It gets worse. They expect you to cut the end of your dick off!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I can not accept that Colossus is wrong about this.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.