Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. What you take in the morning can affect your entire day’s performance. If you take starchy and fatty food, you’ll feel bloated and uncomfortable for the most part of the day. If you take a low-calorie breakfast, you won’t have enough energy and stamina to be productive until your next meal.
But how well do you know your breakfast foods? In this article, I’ll give you a clear insight into several healthy breakfast options for you.
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits especially those rich in vitamin C keep you off optimistic diseases and infections while vegetables give your body the necessary mineral supplements.
For example
Citric fruits such as oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and tangerines are commonly known for vitamin C. However, they have more nutritional value including sugars and dietary fiber, calcium, magnesium, potassium, thiamin, and folate. As a breakfast ingredient, citrus fruits have zero cholesterol, sodium, and fat.
Green leafy vegetables such as kale, spinach, arugula, and Broccoli are rich in antioxidants, minerals, folate, carotenoid, fiber, and vitamins. However, the secret to extracting all these nutrients is adding a little oil in your vegetables. Your body needs a little fat to digest and absorb the fat-soluble vitamins and carotenoid. Therefore, you either cook with a little olive oil or dress the raw vegetable salad with low-fat salad dressing.
Another excellent way to ensure that you enjoy your daily dose of fruits and vegetables is by taking smoothies and fresh fruit juice in the morning. However, keep out sugar and artificial sweeteners and instead, sweeten the vegetable juices with honey.
Lean Protein
Breakfast rich in protein will keep you fuller for longer because protein takes longer to be digested. Healthy and nutritious options include legumes, eggs, nuts, and lean meat.
Whole Grains
Grains, on the other hand, are rich in calories. Preparing them whole increases your fiber content, which aids in digestion among other advantages. Nutritious whole grains include whole-grain cereals, oatmeal, Brown rice, and whole-wheat muffins, bagels, and bread.
Other Breakfast Additions
Low-Fat Dairy
Milk, cheese, and yogurts (plain or low-sugar options) are an excellent breakfast addition. Yogurt introduces the good bacteria, while dairy gives you calcium to keep your bones healthy and strong.
Bone broth
If you have been suffering from backache, fatigue, poor hair and nail health, and weak dental structure, try adding bone broth to your breakfast options. Bone broth is rich in calcium and most importantly collagen. The latter is responsible for luscious hair growth and strong bone structure.
Ensure that the bones (especially bones from animal legs and hooves) boil for ten hours before consuming the resultant liquid. A slow cooker makes the process effortless. Start boiling the bones in the evening before you go to sleep. You will wake up to a hot mug of bone broth.
Why is a Healthy Breakfast so Important
Whether you’re on a diet or too busy for the kitchen, never compromise on your breakfast options. Have you ever heard of atherosclerosis disease? Research has proven that skipping breakfast puts you at a risk of suffering non-coronary and generalized atherosclerosis.
Secondly, breakfast initiates your metabolism. As a result, your body burns more calories during the day. And the logic is simple: Starving body cells work harder to preserve the fat that is already stored in your body. However, nourished cells work happily to burn more calories into energy. That is why you feel more energetic when you take a meal in the morning (no matter how small) than when you don’t.
Last but not least, breakfast stabilizes your blood sugar and insulin levels. These two work hand in hand. Insulin helps to distribute glucose to your body cells. In the absence of glucose (which happens when you skip breakfast), insulin might spike to extremely high levels.
To counter this effect, your brain cells trigger the release of hunger hormones. That is why if you skip breakfast you find yourself eating bigger portions compared to days that you don’t. And if you don’t satisfy your hunger hormones, what results are more complicated problems including diabetes.
In Conclusion
Eating breakfast is one of the best decisions you’ll ever make for your health. However, the idea of a glass of fruit juice or coffee and a donut will lead you to metabolic havoc. But that doesn’t mean your breakfast will always be boring. Have a look at these breakfast recipe ideas and try them today.
Image credit: Photo via Flickr by Sake Puppets