The aim of eating is to nourish our body and unfortunately very little in the supermarket cereal aisle is nourishing. There is pretty much nothing that comes out of a cereal box that I would eat or give my kids for breakfast. It might be quick and easy to open a box, but it provides very little in the way of nourishment.
The trick to making a good breakfast, one that nourishes the body and sustains us until morning tea or lunchtime is to follow two simple rules:
- Ensure each breakfast includes either some fruit or vegetables
- Anchor your breakfast with some protein. Anchoring your breakfast with protein means it will breakdown slowly to blood sugar, giving us nice, steady energy to start the day. Protein could be in the form of a handful of nuts and seeds, an egg or some plain, natural yoghurt!
A good thing to remember with breakfast is that you can think outside the square. Breakfast does not have to be a bowl of cereal topped with banana and milk, only breakfast cereal companies would have you think that! If you have a fussy child that only wants Vegemite on toast for breakfast (which doesn’t follow either of our healthy breakfast rules!), try some of the suggestions below.
Suggestions
- Baked beans on wholemeal toast accompanied with some fruit chopped up in a bowl, or as an adult you might prefer some baby spinach on top!
- Bircher muesli – oats, ground nuts & seeds, milk or water, plain natural yoghurt all mixed in a bowl and left in the fridge overnight and then topped with fresh fruit in the morning and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
- Left overs – it doesn’t have to be a traditional breakfast food, it just needs to be nourishing.
- Eggs on wholemeal toast topped with some baby spinach or with a bowl of chopped fruit
- Frittata – a yummy breakfast with eggs and vegetables
- Buckwheat Pancakes, topped with some berries and some plain, natural yoghurt
- Smoothies – a power-packed way to start your day limited only by your imagination! Great smoothie ingredients include: a combination of some or all of the following ground up nuts, seeds, plain yoghurt, banana, berries, mango, ginger, oranges, chia seeds…. Blend and ENJOY!
