Contrary to what you may think, the saying “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” does not have a popular origin. Your grandparents did not say that, nor did their ancestors. In fact, it has quite a different origin: it is one of the earliest examples of marketing and it was invented by James Caleb Jackson and John Harvey Kellogg, and if the surname “Kellogg” rings a bell, know that it is not homonymy: we are talking exactly about that Kellogg which, with the simple letter “K” identifies the most famous breakfast cereals.
At the turn of the last century, these two entrepreneurs had to sell their cereal and had the insight to convince their customers that it was perfect for breakfast and that that meal was the most important meal of the day. And they succeeded so well that they became one of the most important food industries in the world and that the motto they coined became popular knowledge, so widespread and well-known that no one wondered anymore who supported it. It had to be true, and there was no need to verify it.
A modern invention
In fact, breakfast is a meal that did not exist historically. There was-when there was something to put on the table-lunch and dinner but breakfast was not. And if it didn’t exist it was only because it still had to be invented, right?
Instead, we are all different from each other, and for some it is important to start the day by eating something and for others it is indifferent or even doing so can come to give an unpleasant sense of heaviness.
Why is it important to some and not to others? The reason is glucose tolerance or rather timing, which is individual. But what is glucose tolerance? It is, simply put, our body’s ability to manage sugar intake. Some are more tolerant to their administration in the morning and others in the evening. It is not strange to think that these remarks about breakfast are mainly about glucose: in fact, when talking about cereal we are referring to one of the foods with the highest glycemic index.
That’s right: the breakfast that has been touted as healthy and wholesome for decades is one of those with the highest glycemic index. And if you don’t know what it is know, without getting into difficult clinical discussions, that the higher it is the sooner you will get hungry and the sooner you will have to replenish with more food, in a vicious cycle that can be avoided instead.
But what if I’m hungry in the morning?
The simplest answer is: eat! The point of this article is not to argue that breakfast is harmful but to raise awareness that cereal-based breakfast (which is, admittedly, more common in the US than in Italy) is not particularly healthy. Exactly, if we want to take a local example, as the classic Italian breakfast, that is, the cornetto (with filling or without) and cappuccino, is not. And I’m not saying they’re both not great: I’m saying they’re not the best for either diet or exercise for both of them have a high glycemic index, so you get hungry right afterwards, etc. etc.
I am confused: should I eat or not?
I see you, now you are wondering what to do: to eat or not to eat? To clarify a bit, let’s take a step back: in the beginning, it was said, there is the invention of breakfast. For so many decades no one questioned it until some independent research (not funded by food companies) asked whether it was so wrong not to eat in the morning. Compounding the popularity that so-called “intermitting fasting” (i.e., “intermittent fasting”) has been having recently and the benefits it provides for many, some have also questioned another assumption about breakfast that seemed granitic. The one according to which if you don’t “stock up” in the morning then your physique will require much more food during the day, however, having less time to dispose of it. So: eat a lot in the morning and dispose of it in the hours of the day, rather than eating nothing and then giving it up at lunch (or worse: in the evening!) and risking never disposing of it again.
This is why some people have had the insight to refer to glucose tolerance: if you have a low threshold in the morning and you add a nice hyperglycemic breakfast to it, what do you think will happen? Exactly: you are loading a wagon that is already full.
Try us
As often in life, trying to change habits can do a lot of good. The same applies to food ones, although in this case we are not talking about what you eat but when you eat it. That’s why you can do it more peacefully than if you disrupted your usual diet.
How to know whether it makes sense to try? If your weight has been constant for many years now there is a good chance that you are already eating well. If, on the other hand, this varies, especially tending toward more than less, then you may want to try skipping breakfast, in the meantime identifying with a nutritionist your glucose tolerance and when it is highest in the day. You may find that eating certain foods at certain times is not the best thing for your physique, all the while finding the best food balance for you.
(Via Elemental+ – Photo by Nyana Stoica on Unsplash)