Alrighty, I’m gonna pull a fast one on you and veer violently from Lewis Carroll to Billy S:
“To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.”
So. That little phrase regrettably passes for FICTION in this household. But at least this morning — which started last April — was a tea-licious one. Love me some double-strong Earl Grey. And some Paleomeal shake — click on HealthySmoothies in the top menu bar of the link.
Time to Eat — Or Is It?
Everyone knows you’re supposed to munch in the mañana, but some people still aren’t going to eat breakfast. Not eating would turn me mighty cranky, but if you’ve given breakfast a fair shake — say, for three weeks, which is the typical amount of time it takes to establish a habit — and it still doesn’t work for you, sally forth and prosper without it.
Listen to your body and see what feels right, but note that it’s usually best to eat something within about an hour of awakening. My body clock goes ding-ding-ding! exactly an hour after I get up, but if you don’t get very hungry in the morning, try starting with some kind of shake, something that’s more liquidy than foody. Like the above-mentioned Paleomeal shake. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
The point is to tell your hunter-gatherer body that it’s not starving, and that it doesn’t need to binge later in the day. Regulate your eating clock and you’ll likely find your energy levels, pistons and even your weight all regulating.
Feeding your brain:
Your brain likes carbs in the morning, as it’s been fasting all night, hence the whole-grain popovers up top. (Please note that I’ll be sending my email subscribers some foolproof, quick and easy recipes next week.)
The brain also likes protein, to keep the clarity sharp, and good fats to stay satiated. That being said, here’s a list of 16 good breakfast possibilities, ranging from lightest to the more substantial.
Left:homemade whole-wheat bread. Right: homemade low-sugar-yet-yummy banana bread.
1) A protein shake. My friend Annika Rockwell — a highly intelligent nutritionist — sells the BEST protein shake mix I’ve ever had: it’s called PaleoMeal. And it’s the only protein shake mix I’ve ever seen that’s made with pristine, organic, grassfed whey (the liquid that strains off of yogurt). It’s delicious and super-good for you and will really power you through your morning, and it’s also the perfect thing for travelers.
PaleoMeal is indispensable when I’m in a hurry or on the road. Find it here at RockwellNutrition.com, along with Annika’s other fine products and supplements. Just click on Healthy Smoothies in the top menu bar.
(And yes, I get a small cut if you buy any of her products after going there from this web site, but I wouldn’t be recommending them unless I’d personally tried them, carefully researched them and found big benefits from them. The money will help me keep me wee blog alive. End of commercial.)
2) Fruit and cheese. Pick a seasonal fruit: strawberries and cottage cheese. An apple and some Manchego. A banana and yogurt cheese. Or, pick a dried fruit, such as prunes. Just don’t eat too many: being concentrated, they pack a lot of sugar. And a punch a few hours later. ; )
3) Yogurt – either plain, with seasonal fruit (especially berries), a touch of wild honey and/or some nuts.
4) Strained yogurt, olive oil and salt on whole-grain toast.
Catalan-type Toast. Pre-swoon. Glorious tomatoes from the Bee Heaven Farm stand at the Pinecrest farmers market. Tomato lovers in South Florida can also get beautiful heirlooms right now at www.teenaspride.com.
5) A knob of cheese with Catalan-style toast: rub it with garlic and the pulp of a fresh tomato and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle on a bit of salt. Move to Barcelona because you are SO in love with this wondrous, brilliant concoction.
Swooning.
6) Toast with grass-fed butter or olive oil and either a hard-boiled egg, some nuts, yogurt or cheese.
7) Toast with peanut butter, almond butter of cashew butter. Alta, who is a gorgeous and frequent reader and who has a fine food blog focusing on gluten-free, says she eats this topped with banana slices. Great choice. I do the same, although I switched to strawberries the other day, as they were too pretty for me to pass them up at the farmer’s market. (Yes! Strawberries in January. Another great reason to move to Florida. And they go splendidly with almond or cashew butter.)
Fresh strawberries from Bee Heaven Farm. Almond butter. Good tea. Ahhhhh...
A handful of almonds and some Tropical Toast: use cold-pressed, extra virgin coconut oil instead of butter, and top with a bit of cinnamon and a bit o’honey. As JJ on the Jeffersons used to say, DY-NO-MITE!!!
9) I’m not a huge cereal fan, but low-sugar, high-fiber varieties are a good (on the good-better-best scale) choice with yogurt. Homemade granola works here. Sprouted grain cereal — again, a “good” rather than “best” choice, and also a rather spendy one — also works. Yogurt tends to be more filling than milk, and because of the fermentation process, is usually more digestible and is crammed full of excellent probiotic bacteria.
The makings of homemade Autumn Apple granola
10) Hot cereal, a.k.a. “porridge” topped with grass-fed cream and cinnamon, or with some kind of nut butter and, if you have a sweet tooth, wild honey or jam.
Want a quick way to cook your oatmeal or millet or rice that’ll render you breakfast in seconds during the week? Subscribers get a recipe in their email today.
Rice Pudding. Subscribers get a recipe for quick-n-easy whole-grain breakfasts today.
11) Eggs cooked in tomato sauce. Heat the tomato sauce in a skillet. Crack an egg over it. You’re basically poaching it here. When it’s nearly done, add the salt and a bit of olive oil. Eat with whole-grain toast and/or cheese.
Tomato eggs. Subscribers get foolproof hard-and-soft-boiled egg recipes next week.
12) Boiled eggs, or oeufs à la coque — which are those soft-boiled eggs with toast “soldiers” that you dip into the yolk.
Foolproof egg recipes in Monday’s subscriber email.
14) Scrambled eggs with garlic chives, a bit of grassfed cream and black pepper, served with whole-grain toast.
15) Toast and/or eggs with bacon. Sources for high-quality bacon (and an easy-peasy way to cure your own. In the fridge!) coming up in subscriber emails.
16) Pancakes with some kind of protein. I have a fantastic whole-grain pancake recipe that will not make you groggy. At least, it doesn’t make me groggy. I make it on a Sunday, freeze the extras, and then just pop them in the toaster when I’m ready for them. Deeeeeeelish. Recipe to come.
And finally, for those who have forgotten their beloved Lewis Carroll:
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Have a fabulous weekend!
~Holly
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Eggs in tomato sauce – now THAT’s swoon-worthy! Yum. Thanks for the shout-out!
I am also not a cereal fan, but I do like strawberry and banana shakes when I first get up to help me get motivated.
Nice. I have been sifting BS for a while and this is one of the first things I’ve found that takes the same sort of approach I do. I want to be more healthy, move away from all the shlock psuedo-food, and largely have, but it gets a bit challenging when you have all this stuff to sort out. I found that gram for gram sprouts are less healthy then lettuce, which frankly isn’t a super-food. Also as far as the enzyme thing, the conclusion I reached was that enzyme density was less an indication of how alive something is and more an indication of how fast it will breakdown/rot.