You’ve wiped the night’s sleep from your eyes, performed your morning grooming ritual and are ready to begin your day. First up: What’s for breakfast? Should you have a hot breakfast? Or a cold one?
Although the verdict is still out as to whether breakfast is the most important meal of the day, there is plenty of evidence that it is important.
However, that is not the only “controversy” around breakfast. The other is this: Is a hot breakfast is better for you than a cold breakfast or is it the other way around?
February is National Hot Breakfast Month, which was established to — obviously — encourage people to eat a nice hot breakfast rather than a quick cold one. However, you probably don’t have a lot of time to eat a warm meal first thing every day (unless you include coffee or a stop at your fast food restaurant on the way to work, neither of which are all that nutritious.)
Therefore, I did a little research to discover what the benefits were of a hot breakfast vs a cold breakfast. Here is what I found.
- Why Is Breakfast Important?
- What To Eat for Breakfast
- Healthy Cold Breakfast Ideass
- Healthy Hot Breakfast Ideas
- When Temperature Does Count
- Conclusion
― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
Why Is Breakfast Important?
Eating breakfast provides a variety of benefits to get your day started right:
- Jump starts your metabolism
- Provides energy for the day
- Improves memory and concentration
- Lowers levels of LDL cholesterol (the bad kind)
- Lowers your chances of getting diabetes and heart disease
- Lowers your chances of being overweight
Some of these benefits are directly due to eating breakfast in the morning. Others may only be connected, either because eating breakfast causes healthy behaviors or healthy people tend to eat breakfast.
Research, the results which were published in the July 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, compared children who ate cereal for breakfast, to those who skipped and those who ate something else. They found that breakfast skippers were more likely to be obese, most likely because they tended to get more of their energy from “added sugars”, ending up with fewer nutrients, and less fiber and protein.
Now that we know that breakfast is important, it is time to address what to have for breakfast.
What To Eat for Breakfast
Depending on who you talking to and what their particular agenda, nutritional view or dietary soapbox is, you’ll hear just as many experts tell you that cold breakfasts are best as those who will tell you hot breakfasts are best. However, with a little more digging, I found that the temperature of your breakfast is less important than the content.
Healthy breakfast eaters are just as likely to have eggs for breakfast as cereal or a protein smoothie. What is important for breakfast is the protein, carbohydrate and fat ratio. You also want to keep the sugar content low.
Healthy Cold Breakfast Ideas
If you want a quick meal, like before work or school, a cold or room-temperature breakfast is often your best bet. Here are some ideas:
- Yogurt or cottage cheese with fresh fruit
- A high-fiber, low sugar cereal
- A protein shake
Healthy Hot Breakfast Ideas
You can still have a warm meal if pressed for time — I like to prepare overnight oatmeal and warm it in the microwave just before eating — but most healthy hot breakfasts take more time than most of us have time for. That said, when you can find the time for a warm, prepared breakfast, here are some healthy options:
- Eggs
- Oatmeal
- Breakfast burrito
When Temperature Does Count
For some, a warm breakfast is best. Cold food can be more difficult to digest because your body needs to warm it up to body temperature before the digestion process can function properly. Therefore, those with digestive issues may find eating a hot breakfast easier on their digestive system.
That said, if your digestive system can take it and you are looking to drop a few pounds, cold food might help. Your body burns a few extra calories warming up that food, so there are fewer calories to turn into fat!
Conclusion
Is a hot breakfast preferable to a cold one? Not definitively. What is more important is that you have breakfast and that it provides you with the nutrients and energy you need to get your day started.
Take Charge of Your Health!
Changing your eating habits can be tough. But it doesn’t have to be if you take a little time to think it out and create a plan.
This Healthy Eating Worksheet will walk you through the process of creating a healthy eating plan. All you need to do is print it out, set aside some time to complete it, and then fill it out. Then you can create your plan, knowing that you have addressed potential obstacles and came up with some creative ways to handle them.
