WEven if weekend breakfasts are often sumptuous and boozy meals: Bloody Marys! Mimosa ! Weekdays call for more utilitarian dishes. You want a breakfast that’s quick, portable, and satisfying enough to keep your belly full and your mind sharp until lunchtime.
One option is to combine whole grains, nuts and fruit, plus a little yogurt, suggests Dr. Walter Willett, chair of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Berries in particular are a great fruit for breakfast (or anytime), says Willett. Filled with healthy fiber and polyphenols, plenty of research suggests blueberries, blackberries, and their tart cousins are protective. against cardiovascular diseases and some forms of cancer, even nonintestinal types like breast cancer.
Likewise, whole grains are consistently associated with better heart health and lower rates of diabetes and obesity, says Willett. But it’s not as simple as buying wholemeal bread from your supermarket.
“Most of the grains and breads we eat are heavily processed, which is not what you want,” says Dr. David Ludwig, Willett’s colleague at Harvard and author of Still hungry?– a book that shatters many of the harmful, hunger-fueling misconceptions we have about diet and weight loss.
If you’re the morning toast type, look for breads that contain “sprouted” or “stone-ground” grains, and that list some type of whole grain as the first ingredient on their packaging, says Ludwig. “You want something where you can see bits of the core, and it has a dense, chewy consistency,” he says. “Basically the opposite of Wonder Bread.”
In addition to your bread and berries, a healthy fat or protein will help you last until lunchtime without snacking. Greek yogurt offers a big hit of both. Just go for the whole variety, advises Ludwig. “The evidence is substantial in support of full-fat versus low-fat dairy to control excessive weight gain and reduce your risk of diabetes,” he says.
Removing the fat from your yogurt or other dairy products can make them lower in calories. But it also makes them much less filling, he explains. “So you end up eating a lot more than you would if you had eaten whole foods, or you get hungry again very quickly. » Additionally, because dairy products tend to taste lean and unappealing when stripped of their fat, manufacturers typically add unhealthy sugars to fat-free varieties to make them more palatable.
If you’re looking for options that combine non-dairy fats and protein, nuts are a great solution, say Ludwig and Willett. Most nuts and seeds are healthy, but nuts in particular are health champions. Smoked salmon is also a healthy and filling choice for your mornings, says Ludwig.
Another traditional breakfast hero: “Eggs!” says Dr. Robert Lustig, director of the Weight Assessment for Adolescent and Child Health (WATCH) program at the University of California, San Francisco.
“They’re delicious, and the amino acids in eggs bind to intestinal opioid receptors, which reduces hunger and increases satiety,” says Lustig. Eggs are also excellent sources of iron, folic acid and many other healthy nutrients. And no, the yellows have nothing to fear. “The cholesterol in eggs was and always will be unimportant,” adds Lustig, echoing government health authorities who say recently noted that cholesterol should not be a nutrient of particular concern.
As for drink options, wash down your breakfast with coffee or green tea. Coffee used to get a bad rap, mainly because people who drank it tended to smoke, drink alcohol, and engage in other unhealthy behaviors that skewed the data. However, taken in isolation, coffee has been associated with lower rates of heart disease And improved gut health. drink it may even reduce your risk for brain diseases like dementia. Many of these same benefits…and a few others-are also associated with tea consumption.
Just avoid sugar and other unhealthy additives, says Dr. Eliseo Guallar, professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Guallar studied the benefits of caffeinated coffee for the heart. He says “moderate” coffee consumption – three or four cups – seems healthy.
