I am a charts, graphs and diagrams kind of gal.
I love the visual representation of data which is one reason why I was so attracted to Economics as my college major. Â Those of you who have taken Economics know what I’m talking about here – charts, graphs and diagrams galore!
Because of my personal predilection for pictorial data, I really am enjoying this new trend toward colorful Infographics.
The latest infographic that really grabbed my attention was this one below that summarized all this neat information about the most important meal of the day – breakfast.
Check out this really cool infographic and share in the comments section which factoid or factoids jumped out most at you.
My personal fave is that 50% of people give more thought to their outfit for the day than their breakfast. Â No wonder we have such a health crisis in this country!
Another keeper is that folks who skip breakfast have more carb cravings later in the day. Â Beware that 3pm Snickers attack if you didn’t take the time for a decent breakfast my friends!
Want your kids to do well in school? Â Ensuring they don’t go out the door without a decent breakfast is one of the most practical things you can do every day. Â Students who eat breakfast have better grades and are more likely to get that diploma!
Hint: The Standard American Breakfast of a bowl of cold breakfast cereal topped with skim milk and a glass of store OJ is not your best choice.  For some healthy ideas based on how Traditional Cultures started their day, check out this listing of breakfast recipes.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Skim dairy…no way! Butter and eggs for me!
Heavy on the whole grains and light on the fat? Love the concept– not so thrilled about the details.
It would be interesting to see an infographic that showed what people usually eat (and think is good for them) vs what a more nutritious ‘traditional’ breakfast would look like.
For optimum breakfast benefits eat non-fat dairy (the last visual)?! Are you sure this should be promoted?
I was just thinking the same thing. This is all so helpful and then WHAM with the non-fat stuff again. I like to eat full-fat yogurt for breakfast, with homemade peanut butter that I have added coconut oil to. If there are grains involved, then on goes the butter. And wow, I feel great and not hungry until lunch time. Then its time for more fats. Life is good.
Nobody skips breakfast in my house. Kids often have eggs or cheese, sometimes a little raw milk ice cream. Today we kept it simple with whole wheat sourdough, Kerrygold butter, and organic blueberries. I like to make soaked English muffins, smoothies with yogurt, sausage and biscuits, and more. All homemade.
I’ll admit that many of the statistics didn’t stand out to me and the graphics didn’t always follow the percentages (but I’m not claiming to have understood my econ class). What really struck me and bothered me was the very end – the recommendation to eat grains and low fat dairy for breakfast. Protein and high quality full fat for me! I just finished two eggs cooked in coconut oil, maple pork sausage (from my grassfed beef provider), decaf iced coffee with full fat raw milk! Could have only been better if I’d had some cilantro to put in the eggs or fresh berries!
Katie – there is no protein in your cooked egg or pork sausage. I was hoping sarah would join me in this effort to show her audience that.
Your raw milk is right on – there is your real good fat and your real unadulterated protein.
please do explain Oliver is it because I cooked it?
In the spirit of keeping it simple: an egg protein will start to denature (change it’s molecular shape, it’s function) at about 117 degrees F. To scramble an egg, the temp must be around 145 F – at this point the protein is not denatured, but degraded ( a change not in molecular shape but structure). Most frying pans will give off a temp that is near 200 degrees F or more. If we touched the top of a skillet, the skin and much more (including the protein from the skin and hair on the skin) will be damaged forever.
Many think the protien is now more bioavailable, but a damaged molecule is no longer “available” to do anything.
I am gussing the reason you drink raw milk is perhaps because you may know or feel that pasturizing ( a heat process) damages nutrients – this is true.
Oliver, your posts are interesting but scary. You are saying that the only way to consume protein is to eat it raw? And yet, humans have been cooking eggs, beef, fowl, fish, etc. for about as long as we’ve BEEN human. And thriving on it. There’s plenty of evidence for this in fire pits excavated by archaeologists across the globe. Societies have to be very primitive to eat only raw food. Can you explain this?
Melinda – you sound like me some years back: “OMG I can’t eat burgers and omelettes? Or fries! Not my fries”…
M – I still love bacon and eggs and bacon cheesburgers etc. I think soy bacon is the stupidest thing ever invented.
However, from a chemists perspective, a molecular point of view, which is all that vitamins, and proteins are, molecules, the science does not speak in favor of my burger being “nutritious”.
I don’t know if you are religious or not so when man first came to be might be different. I place mans first being a biped at around 7 million years ago. Depending on who you ask on where you Wiki it, these numbers vary.
This is also true as to when man first harnessed fire for cooking – some studies say 7 to 12 thousand years, some say 20 thou, some say though we used fire for warmth and defense, we only figured out the cooking thing around maybe 25 thousand years ago.
My math says then that because there is no record of us cooking any meals that date back even a million years, then we have been eating raw food only, and water, for 7 million years. When we first evolved from a tad pole ( if one is so inclined) we certainly were only eating raw stuffs – like the way every species did then and the way they all still do it.
If raw is bad for you, no species would be able to survive those critical first few days or years or centuries. We not only survived those first few years, but we thrived. we survived on raw and we thrived on raw for seven million years.
This cooking thing is so relatively new, and now we are falling behind the other species in terms of who is suffering from the most diseases – we humans are far away in the lead in the disease dept. Cooked food deprives us of the vital nutrients we used to get. You can still enjoy a burgerm just see that you get some raw goodies in you once in a while – which most of us do – salads, fruits, veggies, nuts seeds etc – some people drink raw eggs. Some eat raw fish. There is a restaurant in my town that serves up beef sashemi ( raw japanes beef strips – so delicious) – I still prefer my BLT though 🙂
Yes I want to hear this too!
The only way to destroy the protein in an egg is to cook with high heat in open air over a long time (who does that?)
Actually cooking eggs like we normally do whether it be boiling for a couple of minutes or lightly frying an egg will not change its nutritive value. In fact, it will actually improve it. Cooking it this way inactivates most of the avidin which is found in the white of the egg. Avidin binds with biotin and makes it unavailable, but cooking it destroys most of the avidin and allows biotin to be released.
kathy, with all due respect (and I mean that), from a chemistry lab perspective/reality a protein is long since damaged at your cooking temps.
The due respect thing is here. Most of what everyone reads about protein comes from the internet or nutritionists books or magazines – and the dialogue is all the same – bio available this or that.
In the lab, in the chem lab – all of that supposed food science stuff is laughed at by chemists – those chemists who aren’t hired by food companies of course (egg, cereal and beef industries).
If you read a non nutritionist book, a book on pure proteins, like Carl Branden’s “Introduction to protein structure” – you too would come away laughing, saying what were we thinking. reading those actual chemist books on protein you will see how uber fragile protein is and that even light and oxygen can and will impact even before being exposed to heat.
These lab chemists, they’re not trying to sell anything. It is that need to sell that has food marketing side with non science references – those mostly provided by nutritionists who have no real chem lab training.
The most important meal of the day is anything that has nutrients in them. “Breakfast” is marketing hype, just like having three square meals a day. The only meals with nutrients are those like fruits and vegetables. Cereals have no nutrients (because the nuterients were baked out). Pancakes or any flour based product has zero nutrients.
Fruits and nuts and seeds and veggies and water are the best meal anytime all of the time. If you want, there is Beef Sashemi or fish Sashemi that will provide any carnal urges yet provide unadulterated nutrients.
The picture of the “spread” looks like a typical (Austria – Switzerland) European breakfast…
I can’t tell you what I learned about diet and health by visiting and living as they do-
I thought the same thing.
All through Europe that is mostly what breakfast looks like. The differences would / could be the region. In other words, Northern Europe would have more fish at breakfast than say Switzerland. But, overall it looks the same and………..delicious!
I was never a breakfast person. I drank coffee for breakfast loaded with brand name creamer. I often had an upset stomach in the morning because of it. But my mind thought, coffee first to wake up, then food, Except after drinking 8 oz of coffee PLUS creamer, I was full, so no actual food until later.
Since learning about real food, I have magically fallen in love with eating real food for breakfast! I rarely drink coffee, and if I do, it’s well after breakfast and no more brand name creamer. I add in coconut oil and spices (I do not like it black). My children are also benefiting from this because I want them to eat just as well and to know how breakfast is extremely important. In fact I was just talking to my 7yr old about it as she is finishing up the last of her breakfast (pastured egg).
That’s crazy that some people can’t even remember what they had for breakfast. I am always planning what to have for breakfast the night before and look forward to eating it the next day.