By Derek Henry, Holistic Health Coach for Healing the Body
One of the first issues with people’s diets is that they don’t partake in the most important meal of the day – a healthy breakfast. The second issue is that when they do, it provides little to nothing to help power them through the first part of the day. Lets examine common breakfast “foods” and how we can turn them intohealthy breakfast foods.
Coffee
This has to be one of the most common things people reach for first thing every morning. After fasting for 8 or more hours and waking up with an acidic contracted body, people decide to chug down an acidic, dehydrating, and adrenal stimulating beverage. The shock to your system is equivalent to attaching cables to your nipples and your car battery.
However, there is a well proven alternative that looks very different to your body and negates that shock therapy, while providing essential nutrients and balancing to your body. It smells like coffee and tastes like coffee but the health component gives you real sustained energy (unlike coffee) without the negative side effects.
Check out this transition product here so you can enjoy coffee as part of a healthy breakfast.
Cereal
Consider Cheerios as an example. They taste much less sweet than most cereals, and most people think they are just downright good for you. However, they have corn starch and sugar listed as the second and third ingredients. Combined, these 2 ingredients are a damaging sugar spike in the works, and this is one of the “healthier” cereals on most grocery shelves.
I tried to look up Fruit Loops, and interestingly enough their website has absolutely no information on the product, and is aimed at fun games for the kids to buy (but not without their parents permission, according to the fine print…which I’m sure they will have the attention to read and obey).
Bottom line is that most cereals are not much better than sugar filled pop tarts, but there are some good brands that can help you get in a healthy breakfast that avoids the blood sugar rush.
Milk
A staple with many a breakfast, its is often found in your cereal or in a glass next to your toast. Either way, milk has been the darling of the food industry for a while, but its tiara is about to lose its shine.
Conventional milk consumption has a myriad of issues related to digestibility, not limited to the fact it is pasteurized (dead), is meant for baby cows and not humans, and is infused with hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals. It is often at the base of many people’s health problems (including allergies) and they don’t even know it.
Alternatives to conventional milk are widely available. First, you could choose raw and organic if you choose to stay with milk for some reason. However, I would suggest an unsweetened coconut milk, hemp, or almond milk as alternatives for a healthy breakfast.
Toast
Nothing beats a slice of whole wheat toasty goodness to start off a healthy breakfast, right?
First of all, most do not consume whole grains and choose white bread which can have the same effect as processed sugar. Secondly, most breads have a slew of ingredients to make it cheaper to make, and help preserve it longer on the shelves. All this results in a toxic mess for your intestinal system to try and absorb (unsuccessfully I might add).
Don’t believe me? Read more about it here.
Ideally, your bread should contain between 4 and 10 whole food ingredients (not isolated vitamins and minerals), and the less yeast the better.
Again, a search for the well known Wonder bread shows a disturbing site that will not reveal ingredients (nutrition label only – which is misleading and useless), and tout the calcium benefits of their bread over everything else. These are the actions of a company who has something to hide.
The good brands reveal their ingredients, like this one.
Juice
A glass of juice can range from another sugar laced concoction, to better brands that use natural fruit juices to sweeten.
Juice isn’t bad in of itself, its what they add to juices (sugar mainly) in the store thats the issue. To avoid this, buy brands that don’t add additional sugar, or grab your own juicer and make it fresh on the spot (and get all the delicate enzymes and phyto-nutrients as well). That’s the surest way to enjoy a health breakfast beverage.
This is what a much healthier juice looks like.
Eggs
Eggs are a complete food and can be very nutritious – if the chicken laying them is being treated properly.
Consider that when consuming animal products, that the nutrition and treatment that they receive, we will receive as well. So if you have a stressed out chicken in a small cage being fed cheap grain and injected with hormones and antibiotics, you get a piece of that action too.
Find a local chicken farmer you can trust, that has free range chickens that are organically fed, and aren’t injected with the above. Then you can rest knowing eggs are part of a healthy breakfast.
Bacon
There is nothing good about pork bacon. Sorry, thats the deal. It will never be part of a healthy breakfast. There is not enough space in this blog to convey the toxic mess that is pork, so let me draw you a picture of the typical scenario.
Pigs are fed grains and slop, eat their own fecal matter, and often live in a very toxic environment that facilitates parasites and other little goodies. Then they typically get injected with hormones and antibiotics as well. You get to eat that disgusting combination when you consume bacon.
Make no mistake, bacon has more issues than an episode of Hoarders, and twice the junk. If you must do a “bacon”, try something less toxic like turkey bacon for a more healthy breakfast.
Oh, and one more point on ‘cleaner’ bacon (organic, grass fed, etc)…pig actually is undigestible by the human physiology. In other words, they were NEVER meant to be eaten by humans. Undigested food always releases toxins into your system.
What do I eat?
These are just some of the alternatives for a healthy breakfast. But you may be wondering, what do I eat?
I start off most mornings with a 16oz glass of organic lemon water (mineralized or spring water with a squeezed half of lemon) or coconut kefir, followed by a delicious superfood smoothie of mixed berries, hemp milk, coconut oil, avocado, chia seeds, superfood powder, vegan protein powder, and some fresh kale.
Of course, I switch it up all the time with for example this awesome smoothie recipe. If I am still hungry, I'll make some cinnamon quinoaor have some eggs with sauerkraut.
This takes up about 15 minutes of my time, and powers me through the morning and ensures that I get more complex nutrition than 99% of people do in a week. That’s the way to start a day!!
So don’t feel overwhelmed, and start your transition with a healthy breakfast and start with some of these recipes. Your energy and health will remind you why you did.
*Image of “smoothie breakfast“ via Shutterstock
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