Big Breakfast holds the key to a new, healthier you!

Date Published: 14-Nov-2012

The darkest demons of childhood days still centre around the force feeding of cod liver oil on a spoon before being sent out into the wide world with a taste of poison on your tongue.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we should be grateful that this was the greatest injustice done to us during our formative years but just because we didn’t suffer lasting damage of an unfathomable scale doesn’t make this right.

The arrival of actual capsules was up there with the unveiling of the iPad in terms of an event that changed people’s lives for the better. Suddenly, if you swallowed fast enough and rinsed with cold water, you could enjoy an energy boost without the awful aftertaste.

Raw eggs also had their day, beaten to a pulp with a fork in a glass of milk and downed in one because, while this was good for your insides, you would never accidently sip it in the mistaken before it was a can of Coke.

Porridge was the other staple part of the Irish breakfast, at a time when cereals stretched no further than Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies. Weetabix, when it arrived, was cutting edge stuff – and as for those sugary things smothered with honey or chocolate, they weren’t even figments of someone’s imagination.

Ready Brek was a more palatable version of porridge, rather like cider was always easier to stomach than Smithwick’s – but back then, you didn’t need a separate shelf in the cupboard for cereals. A spot for the porridge would more than suffice.

The one common denominator, then and now, was that we were always told breakfast was the most important meal of the day – and yet again we have new research which underlines claims that a good breakfast could hold the key to healthiness.

Not that we appear to be heeding this advice, because apparently up to two-thirds of us skip the first meal of the day, when it fact we should be eating like kings and taking it easier later.

A research team from Imperial College London presented its findings at the Neuroscience 2012 Conference recently, having scanned the brains of 21 healthy people as they showed them a variety of foods including chocolate, pizza and salad.

They compared how attractive the foods were to people, as well as how much they ate for lunch after the scan on two days, one on which breakfast was missed and one on which they ate a large breakfast (750 calories).

The researchers found that missing breakfast increased the appeal of high-calorie foods (as measured by increased orbital frontal cortex activity on the brain scan) and that people ate about 250 calories more at lunch. The researchers said this shows breakfast takes the edge off our appetite so we don't crave high-calorie foods.

And while the same could be said of any meal at any time of the day – as in, after we eat, we’re never as hungry – breakfast is, as young mother was killed telling you, the most important meal of the day.

The beauty of this study is that it has found some evidence in favour of a big fry first thing in the morning –on the basis that eating fats primes the metabolism to be more efficient for the rest of the day.

Where this falls down slight, however, is that the study was carried out on mice – although in fairness it found that the mice who ate a good breakfast were less likely to get chubby. So it’s even the most important meal of the day for a rat.

Better news still is that chocolate cake is recommended by researchers from Tel Aviv University who found that a 600-calorie breakfast with proteins and carbohydrates, including a sweet treat, controlled cravings for sugary things for the rest of the day and kick started the body's metabolism.

Their study looked at 193 obese people over 32 weeks and found those who ate sweet things at breakfast lost an average of 40lb more than those who didn't – so that’s the diet I’m going on.

As with all surveys, you take what you want from them – so I’m clinging to the claim that a big fry, followed by chocolate cake, will not alone ensure I’m not hungry for the rest of the morning at least, and I will lose weight in the process.

So goodbye to your All-Bran and your wood shavings with dried fruit and raisins – it’s a welcome return to the world of the big breakfast role.

Because, deep down, you know what’s good for you.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.