People love to debate the timing of dinner, but no meal drums up divergent opinions quite like breakfast. The popular thinking pushed by cereal companies calls breakfast âthe most important meal of the day.â And yet, millions of people skip it entirely, and subside off coffee until lunch. Should we be eating breakfast at all? If so, what should we be eating? And what, from a health perspective, is the best time to eat breakfast?
Nutrition experts generally agree that you shouldnât be scarfing down food as soon as you wake upâwait a couple of hours, at least, until mid-morning. There are a few reasons for this. One is that it extends your overnight fasting window and âgives your gut a little bit more of a rest,â says Rupy Aujla, a doctor who produces podcasts and cookbooks as The Doctorâs Kitchen. Time-restricted eatingâwaiting at least 12 hours between the last food you eat one day and the first food you eat the nextâmakes the body burn fat rather than carbs and is associated with weight loss and general good metabolic health. When you first wake up, says Aujla, you should be much more focused on rehydrating with water, because âyour kidneyâs been working overtimeâ during the night. He puts a bit of salt in his water for that purpose, and doesnât eat any proper food until around 9 or 10 am.
Many people simply arenât hungry first thing in the morning. This, says Adam Collins, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey, is because your body âhas already started to export glucose out into the blood in readiness for you to wake up. Youâve already got some energy in the system.â
The problem with traditional, carb-heavy breakfast foods, like cereal, toast and pastries, is that they give you âa lovely glucose spike that fuels your cells, and then you have a corresponding crash,â says Aujla. âYouâre hungry [again] by mid-morning, and need coffee and other stimulants to keep yourself focused and up and running until lunchtime.â Instead, he recommends a meal high in protein and fiberâpartly because we often generally skimp on protein, which we need for âlongevity,â and partly because protein and fiber keep us energetic and satiated through the morning.
Aujla has a few go-to breakfasts along these lines. During the week, he relies on overnight oats that go easy on the actual oats. âI have two tablespoons of oats, two tablespoons of milled flax seed, one tablespoon of chia and one tablespoon of hemp seeds,â he says. âThen Iâll add grated apple, some pumpkin seeds, a bit of protein powder, and then water or coconut milk or whatever. Youâre matching those oats, that are quite carbohydrate rich, with [things that are] fiber and protein rich.â When he has more preparation time, he has scrambled eggs or tofu on properly seeded bread (ânot like a supermarket bread thatâs actually quite carb richâ), or shakshuka with lentils and avocado.