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
One of the ways I lost 20 kgs was changing the way I view breakfast. I read “fit for life” & started working in co-ordination with my body’s cycles. In the morning yr body is trying to expel waste leftover from the food it’s just finished assimilating overnight, if you stuff yrself full of slow digesting foods for breaky, you slow that process down, or stop it altogether, and all that waste stays put. After my lemon water in the morning, I only consume fruit or veg in liquid form, not by juicing, but by blending them. Because F & v are super quick at digesting it does not hinder the body’s processes. It is still filling, and you can eat as much f & v as you like up till midday. I then enjoy a bountiful lunch full of good fats, nuts, eggs, more veg, etc when my body is ready for intake. And I feel energetic, clean & alert all day!
I understand that soaking removes anti-nutrients but why is it that you don’t rinse the oats after soaking? How are the anti-nutrients removed if left in the same soaking liquid?
More scary for you: Most of the flour mills boast about how their methods for milling the wheat, corn, or soy into flour is better than the others. By better, they mean that the methods used for milling/grinding, manage, or don’t, to keep the temperatures below a certain degrees so as to not destroy the nutrient values. This is why most flour has to be re fortified or enriched.
They contend that temps around 119F will eradicate most of the nutrients – they go on to rat out other companies whose methods bring the temps as high as 160 degress F. One company, the littleton grist mill boasts that they use a stone ground method – keeping the temps at a cool 90 degrees.
Here’s the bugger – What do we use flour for? For frying and baking etc – and the temps we use are 3x higher than the milling temps. bread is baked in an oven at 350 F – for an hour.
Yes, all of your wholesome, seven grain organic bread is as dead as a doornail – with the exception of some toxic peptide trace remnants left – little spores that are truly impervious – like anthrax – google how hard it is to kill anthrax spores.
Put a slice of bread on a shelf and leave it there – the water will evaporate, and from that point on there will be zero decay dynamics – no odor, discoloration, the shape will remain – for many years – there will be no biologic dynamics that would normally occur with any real organic entity, a potato, a banana, a dead mouse etc.
It will not even mold. Mold is a topical dynamic anyway – you can have mold on bathroom tiles – so long as there is warmth and moisture.
BTW if you click on Sarah’s tab at the top of her site, about flours and grains (under the ‘resources’ tab) you will see a mill company speaking to low temps to prevent nutrient damage. Look where it says “to your health Sprouted flour” — Oliver
Oliver, I am finding your posts intriguing… Am I correct to assume you eat a 100% raw diet? Aside from your occasional BLT, of course.
I wish i ate a raw food diet Hillery (not really). Alas, I love the burger way too much. Is there a better smell than bacon? Answer: No Some may say coffee or roasted garlic.
What i do do though is each day, every day, I make sure i nutrate myself ( made up word there). Each day i make sure i have some type of nut (raw walnuts and brazil nuts are great sources of protein and good fat). I also have a bevy of fruits that i eat through out the day.
One day I counted (added up) how many days in a row i ate pasta – 11,673 days. That’s 30 years in a row ( I might have missed 4 or 5 days). I used to put tofu in my pasta for protein ( I had known for some time then that pasta had zero nutrients ( the flour thing), so tofu was it. Then I learned that soy is processed with high heat to kill off toxic elements – so too went the good stuff. (actually some toxic elements remained)
Now, i just put fresh raw broccoli on top of my hot pasta and sauce, mix it in, and the residual heat warms it up enough to where it doesn’t feel like cold veggies.
People don’t realise that all plants have protein in them – Broccoli has as much protein per gram as does chicken – but chicken is cooked…
I suppose I would love to get to a point where all i ate was a few boring raw things all day, and water – would I be better off? My social life would suck! Unless I hung out with all raw foodists – that would be boring.
And besides, at the end of the day…………Ice cream = happiness
What the heck!? Oliver, If that’s your average diet then keep reading this blog because you need it. Really, take it as that “other view” you mentioned earlier. Fresh RAW brocoli on PASTA! I about had a seizure when I read that! Then too, what’s this about plants having as much protein as chicken? I guess that could be true–you seem to know so much about proteins after all. But that’s really not what you’re after when eating meat, you’re after the EIGHT “ESSENTIAL” proteins which are NOT found in plants! Zero! Zilch!
NOTTA! I’ll stop there. Take a hint.
P.S Those nuts soaked?
Luke, calm down. don’t get a heart attack becuase of something someone wrote on a blog.
Luke those 8 essential proteins you speak of are part of the protein myth. I only indulge the protein conversation for lay folk – but what we are really working on is showing you that “protein” doesn’t work in the way 99.9999 percent of the world thinks.
first of all it is not the protein we seek anyhoo, it is all about the amino acids. There was an experiment done in 57 ish by a scientist named Miller. Google Miller/Urey experiment. He created an environment in a lab in which he was able to create amino acids in a jar – just by mimicking the gases that existed during early earth ( stay with me).
I recently spoke with the guy who inherited his legacy and we discussed the whole myth that people think they get proteins from their foods in the first place. There are plenty of websites that speak to the protein myth ( about 300,000 google results – most of them ads for whey etc…)
What chemistry knows, and you can google this as well is that proteins for humans are only inside the human body. Now that is a giant leap of faith – or simply understanding bio- chemistry. But if you go to a science forum and ask how are proteins made – you will soon learn that they are only creatred by DNA/RNA dynamics – period. We can design protein in a lab – by grouping peptides (short strands of amino acids), but we can’t then put them into the body to do what the proteins made by the body does. Unless it is a specific treatment type procedure where the entity is directly applied to a region – and hopefully it takes – like skin grafting
You can’t eat a protein, keratin say, and it will go to the skin or hair and join up with the other keratin proteins – as soon as your protein is chewed the acids break it down anyway – supposedly…
You can’t take a protein that repairs muscles and makes you stronger, eat it and then it will join in and say “hey let me help you other proteins with that heavy lifting or repairing or what ever.” This is part of the protein myth.
Protein can only be made in the body by amino acids put forth in specific sequences for specific functions. the amino acids are assembled by atoms – nitrogen, hydrogen carbon etc put together by the body and natures doing.
This may all seem heady – and you will not be the first to call me a complete lunatic – if you want to contact us for more info – you can do that.
I contradict myself most time when i talk about eating proteins from peanuts, because this other stuff is way to heady – and absolutly unbeleiveable. I don’t contradict myself or the facts when i talk about protein damage however.
You are right though to speak to thet fact that there are different types of proteins from different sources – it is always intersting to see only one reading for protein on a loaf of bread when they have 7 or so diferent protein sources, from wheat, soy, nuts and seeds etc all in the same loaf, including eggs in the flour.
If Louis Pasture wants us to believe that he has discovered a way to kill bacteria in our milk, than like meat we should question what happens to the other nutrients in this process, some which have a similar makeup to bacteria (or not as hardy and resistant to heat as some bacteria). We must know that milk, when exposed to the elements is affected.
We are the only species that saves our milk. We are the only species that drinks milk from other species. We are the only species that exposes our milk to light and oxygen. Milk gets oxidized as well, and so does orange juice and apple juice — better to eat apples and oranges over their respective juices. Even when we use blenders, we should make a point to drink the contents right quick before oxidation takes over.
Yes, milk was designed to come straight from the breast to the mouth of the infant. But we as a species forgot that. I understand that some women are not able to produce milk. What we also forgot is that we don’t need milk beyond our infant years. Like with all mammalian species, breasts are starter kits. They provide the initial amounts of fats and proteins and other nutrients and antibodies that we need to get going. Beyond infancy, we no longer need milk. You don’t see a teenage lion or tiger or bear going back to mom asking for a drink. No, with the exception of kangaroos (teenage roos have suckled still), once they are off the teat, it is water forever more.
We humans continue to drink milk in spite of all the signs telling many of us that it is not doing our bodies any good. That’s one of those dots we don’t connect — and marketing won’t let us. If we want vitamin D — have some uncooked mushrooms — or have a walk in the sun. Ten to fifteen minutes of good sunshine three times weekly is adequate to help your body’s synthesize its requirement of vitamin D. Sit in the park under the sun and read a book.
If you want calcium or iron or anything that the milk label lists (which is questionable) then have some greens or some fruit – and a glass of water.
Oliver
Please Oliver, troll elsewhere…..
I have the right to post as I wish. How is my thoughts better or worse than someone praising bacon?This blog is for many mind sets. There are people who like to hear something beyond the convention – in that they may perhaps further seek their version of the truth.
If you don’t like Oliver, then when you susan, see his name, just ignore him. Just as it isn’t all about me, sarah’s blog isn’t all about susan.
Ugh, I’m SO SICK of hearing the argument that humans are the only species that drink milk beyond infancy. So what? We should do as all animals do? Should I go out and hunt my prey right now and then just dig into it with my teeth? Or how about the next time I vomit……maybe I should just lick it up the way dogs do. Because really, we should model our eating habits and behavior after animals. Give it a rest.
Chris – i get that you’re sick of it. I also get that many don’t want to part with cigarettes or candy. Their are people clutching their french fries saying “please, make it no be true…”.
We are just like the other species when it comes to what are bodies are made of (nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfer etc etc) , and we need to put what those atoms create (nutrient molecules) into our bodies just like each and every species – including the mighty oak tree ( which is also made up of those things i listed).
we are different just like the ant is different from the bear – but the idea of nutrating is the same throughout the planet.
Each species has different “behavioral” (spell check) qualities – but there are some things that are universal. Just because “we can” doesn’t mean we should.
We could learn a lot from the other species; we mimic and learn so much from them from flying, to building homes, to damming rivers etc – We even got the honeycomb packaging idea from the bees (pure architecture). If we just payed attention to how they eat – we would be better off. Maybe not as much fun – but way more healthier.
At the end of the day – to each his/her own. love thy milk baby!
Of course we share much with the animal kingdom but I don’t think animals go round enjoying art or beauty, so you see whatever science says, it has its limits.
There are some humans who don’t enjoy art and beauty.
Very nice, except for the part that advises non-fat dairy. But still effective. Thanks.
I love a big farm breakfast! I liked th A+ out of bacon. I wish I could find bacon as lean as their photo. I ate more than my share of Trix as a child and living in Battle Creek when my kids were small they got more than their share of cold cereal. I can barely stand to eat ANY cold cereal. Love my home made yogurt, oatmeal, Kashi pilaf and Larabars, thank you very much!
My challenge is that I don’t really get much hunger until about 9am. But, I get up around 6:30 so I drink a big glass of whole raw milk and then eat a late breakfast about 10am. That works best for me.
The picture on the top of the page makes me miss Germany and Switzerland all the more. Now THERE are some countries who know how to eat breakfast! Cheeses, meats, rye bread, yogurt, fruit spreads, milk, butter, it goes on and on. Yummy!!
Non fat dairy is WRONG.
I agree with Lindsey and others about the recommended breakfast foods! Whole grains paired with non-fat dairy usually translates into extruded cold cereal with non-fat milk, like my mother eats every day. Cue the blood sugar swings, sugar- and coffee-cravings, and abdominal VAT accumulation. She gets irritated whenever I mention this.