They told us to breakfast like a king, lunch like a commoner and dine like a pauper. They told us breakfast was the most important meal of the day; that we had to have a good breakfast for good health and even for weight loss. Now they're saying they were wrong about all that… breakfast apparently isn’t all that its cracked up to be. So what are we to make of this conflicting research?
It’s the egg story all over again! First, something is great (or awful) and then it’s all vice versa. So, for the longest time, they said that breakfast was very important for those who wanted to lose weight; that skipping breakfast could actually result in weight gain. They told us, with utmost certainty that if we miss breakfast the body will go into starvation mode and hoard fat. So to maintain a healthy weight, breakfast is a must! It apparently speeds up the metabolism and gives us sustained energy to work and to get through the day. It also reduces cravings later in the day so that we don’t do any impulse eating and so we don’t overeat at other meals.
They also told us that eating breakfast would keep us mentally alert and improve the memory and concentration levels. Researchers also told us, based on one study, that not eating breakfast was seen to increase risk of coronary disease by 27%. Another study said that kids who did not eat breakfast showed poorer academic performance at school that kids who did. In fact one report from Japan even made the outrageous claim, that kids who ate ice cream first thing after waking up, were (temporarily) smarter. Another similar study suggested a slice of chocolate cake should form a part of breakfast because this helped reduce sweet cravings later in the day.
After years of telling us to eat a bumper breakfast to lose weight, they're now telling us that eating breakfast will not make us lose weight; nor will skipping breakfast make us gain weight. Apparently, if we have a heavy breakfast, the only thing we will have is more calories than others who've had a lighter breakfast! So, now the researchers are telling us that having a bumper breakfast could actually make us put on instead of lose weight. People have been studying how our ancestors stayed lean and how people who still live hunter-gatherer lifestyles are also similarly lean naturally. It turns out that not having the habit of eating a big meal in the morning could be the reason for this leanness. Researchers are also saying that the whole ‘eat at fixed time’ rule is also not a good one to follow.
Our ancestors were lean because of their lifestyles. Hunter-gatherer communities did not spend time staring immobile into their handheld gadgets or on their backside in front of a flickering screen. They spent time hunting and gathering; what they hunted and gathered they ate. In other words, they foraged and they grazed. They had small amounts to eat whenever they could find it. Most importantly they had very physically active lives. They worked hard to get what they ate. Since hunter-gatherer communities typically ate a lot of things raw; i.e. without cooking, they took a lot of time chewing and digesting what they ate. They weren’t used to eating large calorie-dense meals and it also restricted the amount that they ate.
So if the latest research tells us that having breakfast isn’t important one way or another, I tend to think they are right. So will I give up breakfast? Not likely. I enjoy my eggs and toast and upma and cheese parantha altogether too much. Besides, we are all such different individuals with our own peculiar constitutions; how can research carried out on a few individuals apply equally to all of us?
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