January 07th, 2021

"Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day!"

That was a big thing when I was growing up.  We heard it in school, at the doctor's office, and, naturally, at the grocery store.  It was in newspapers and magazines, especially that category of magazines referred to as 'Women's Magazines'.  I speak of Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Womens' Day and the like.  I'm not sure any of them even still exist, do they?

And that meant a full breakfast.  Fruit, eggs, bacon, and toast or perhaps fruit, pancakes and hashbrowns.  On a special occasion there might be fried ham and eggs with toast and jam.  Or perhaps something more decadent like cinnamon rolls or coffee cake (with the apparently requisite fruit and eggs of course) 

Anyway it was one of those things considered to be, 'common knowledge'. Like putting butter on a burn (don't do that).  When I was a kid, it's what you did because everyone KNEW it was true. Except of course that it wasn't.  At least not in our house.

My mom must have been way ahead of her time because she never once suggested putting butter on a burn and she absolutely didn't force us to eat breakfast.  Encourage, yes, force, no.  And what's more, breakfast was pretty  much a do it yourself proposition.  And I have no issue with that at all.  It was a good step on the road to becoming self-reliant.

There was always food available.  If Nana was in residence there would for sure be baked goods.  If she was not, well there was always cereal.  Help yourself.  And so we did.  In my mind, there was little difference between a jelly topped toast and cookie,  sooooooo cookies for breakfast?  Sure, why not? And when I explained my logic to my mother, she agreed.  Leftover pie, similar to a jelly filled donut.   Chocolate cake is close enough to coffee cake.   Are you following me here? It was an easy transition from there to having ice cream  for breakfast, animal crackers for lunch and cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for dinner.  Not the most well balanced of diets, but delicious :)

It isn't that my mother didn't love us kids, because she did.  She loved us to bits and pieces.  But food just wasn't her thing.  She wasn't interested in cooking it, shopping for it, serving it or eating it.  So it was hard for her to understand anyone else's interest in it.  She made sure that food was available to us if we wanted it as long as she wasn't actively involved in it's creation.  

So that pattern was set for years.  Eventually I was old enough and smart enough to realize that regardless of the strange food attitudes that I grew up with, I was old enough to make better choices for myself.  And I did.  (with the exception of my passion for M&M's which will remain with me until the day I die)

I eat so much more healthfully now. Soups and salads are a regular part of my daily bread and oddly enough, very little bread actually is (despite how much I love it).  Baked potatoes and veggie pastas, stews and roasts and every once in a long while, a really good burger.  When the boys were babies I made their baby food.  Nothing store bought for my kidlets, no sirree!

I made my own bread, grew our fruits and vegetables and made made sure that every meal was healthy and well balanced.  They had great appetites' and rarely pushed away anything I brought to the table, including vegetables.

And now the kids are gone, it's just Tim and I and I have come to learn that I am not a fan of breakfast at all.  While I am up and about, fully functional and  energetic very early in the morning, my tummy is still sound asleep.  My appetite doesn't start to wake up until closer to noon.  So I guess I'm more of a brunch girl.  Oh yes, I can eat a good brunch.  Omelets and fruit salads and waffles, Oh My!

Brunch doesn't really fit in to a normal regular ordinary daily workweek though.  So I often skip breakfast entirely and instead thoroughly enjoy an exceptional lunch.  When I do eat breakfast it's something on the smaller side.  Something more like:

All things that I can eat on the run.   Yogurt I can leave here at my desk with a spoon and take a little spoonful as I walk past it, Belvita crackers (one of my favourite thing) I can actually stuff in my  pockets and munch as I go.  Cereal I usually eat dry, so again, it's munchfood, grazing food, snackfood really.  I have been known to have leftover biscuits or cornbread for breakfast which, while perhaps not the usual, it's not horrifying.  Oh I also like those little cottage cheese cups?  Have you seen those in the grocery store?  They are adorable.

And then there is my most favourite breakfast in the world:

Leftover pizza, cold, right out of the fridge, oh yeah.  And don't even try to convince me that it's not a healthy breakfast.  There 's veggies and cheese and crust.  Protein, vitamins and carbs.  No different than an omelette with toast.  I'm not certain what there is about cold leftover pizza that I love so much, but I do, I do, I do!

Whenever we get take out pizza, I always ordered a medium specifically so that I have breakfast to look forward to for at least a few more days.  

So I guess the question is, was the original topic sentence true?  Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?  I think maybe it depends on what you have for breakfast.