The Breakfast Myth

I belong to another form which is very strict in that medical advice should never be given via internet forums, I think that's a great idea so what follows is just my personal opinion. I have no experience of diabetes so I'm not going to even mention it, apart from to say that any diabetic should know not to change their routine/diet without proper medical advice.

I do think that the belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day has no basis in science, and was marketing by vested interests which has taken hold and now become accepted fact. I can see parallels with the fat Vs sugar argument: both the breakfast and low-fat arguments seem to be based on poor (or non-existant?) research yet they are widely believed simply due to effective marketing.

Trying to debunk long-held beliefs is hard and expensive work but I think we're starting to see the beginings of this in some of the articles that are now being published: scientists need to raise awareness of the questions and create enough publicity around them to attract funding to carry out proper research. I don't think anyone is saying that we have all the answers right now, rather they are asking us to question accepted facts and start asking for proof of such claims.

Personally, I very rarely have breakfast during the week unless I'm actually hungry. Several years ago when I was losing weight by logging all my food I experimented: for a few weeks I didn't have breakfast, other weeks I did. My results were that it made no difference to my rate of weight loss at all. I don't have any particular medical needs so I just do whatever feels the best for me at the time.
 
I do think that the belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day has no basis in science, and was marketing by vested interests which has taken hold and now become accepted fact. I can see parallels with the fat Vs sugar argument: both the breakfast and low-fat arguments seem to be based on poor (or non-existant?) research yet they are widely believed simply due to effective marketing.

Trying to debunk long-held beliefs is hard and expensive work but I think we're starting to see the beginings of this in some of the articles that are now being published: scientists need to raise awareness of the questions and create enough publicity around them to attract funding to carry out proper research. I don't think anyone is saying that we have all the answers right now, rather they are asking us to question accepted facts and start asking for proof of such claims.

Very well put. We are beginning to see more questioning of not only long held beliefs but new 'healthy' diets. Last night's Horizon programme questioning 'clean eating' being a case in point.
 
Very well put. We are beginning to see the questioning taking place. Last night's Horizon programme questioning the wisdom of 'clean eating' being a case in point.
I'll have to see if I can find that on iplayer - sounds interesting.

This article makes interesting reading about the nutrition industry and how it has influenced government and medical advice. Its a bit long, but it makes some good points about how nutrition industry has behaved in the past to suppress viewpoints and data which don't support the received wisdom “In physics,” he told me, “You look for the anomalous result. Then you have something to explain. In nutrition, the game is to confirm what you and your predecessors have always believed.”, the impact of personality (ie. marketing) and how the internet is changing things by breaking down academic hierarchies.

I'm also happy to see that it reached one of the same conclusions as me: that we should question such beliefs/advice and not just take them as gospel just because it always been that way.
 
Last edited:
I'll have to see if I can find that on iplayer - sounds interesting.

This article makes interesting reading about the nutrition industry and how it has influenced government and medical advice. Its a bit long, but it makes some good points about how nutrition industry has behaved in the past to suppress viewpoints and data which don't support the received wisdom “In physics,” he told me, “You look for the anomalous result. Then you have something to explain. In nutrition, the game is to confirm what you and your predecessors have always believed.”, the impact of personality (ie. marketing) and how the internet is changing things by breaking down academic hierarchies.

I'm also happy to see that it reached one of the same conclusions as me: that we should question such beliefs/advice and not just take them as gospel just because it always been that way.

There is another thread about this somewhere here. @epicuric who hasn't been seen for a while was most interested in this topic and did quite a lot of research. I'll try to find the thread...
 
I forget what animal or it may be most wild game but I have always heard you shouldn't eat it in months that don't have an R in them. I do believe they give off a bad odor or taste during mating season.
 
I forget what animal or it may be most wild game but I have always heard you shouldn't eat it in months that don't have an R in them. I do believe they give off a bad odor or taste during mating season.
I thought that was oysters. But that is a myth really.
 
I thought that was oysters. But that is a myth really.
Well now my little brother shouldn't eat oysters in any month. He turns a pretty shade of green.
I had heard an animal but I think the oyster myth came from improperly prepared oysters on the half shell in the summer months.
 
I forget what animal or it may be most wild game but I have always heard you shouldn't eat it in months that don't have an R in them. I do believe they give off a bad odor or taste during mating season.
We never used to eat pork in months that didn't have an R in them, i.e. summer months, because pork in the 1950s used to be of lesser quality than now and used to be a cause of worms and other intestinal problems. A lot of people didn't have fridges in those days.
 
When I was working I never used to have breakfast because, if I did, I used to get travel sick no matter how short the journey. I would have something to eat at about 10 o'clock followed by lunch at about 12.30. I didn't have breakfast on non-work days either and occasionally would be found out cold on the floor, after which times I would be put on a high glucose diet. About 20 years ago they found I was borderline diabetic so sugar/high glucose went out of the window too, along with salt. However, once I retired, everything changed. I've always had a sleep problem and find it easier to stay up nights and sleep in the mornings, so "breakfast" for me, although still the first meal of the day, is usually the meal I have before I go to bed :laugh:. Breakfast, for me, is usually muesli (Pimhill organic - no added sugar) or porridge made with water, plus a small quantity of whole milk and yoghurt, and a couple of slices of wholemeal toast with lashings of butter. I also have one or two eggs a day and may have these 2 or 3 hours before all of that lot (complication with one of my medications - no wholemeal stuff for 2 hours before or after I've taken the tablets :(). I also sneak in some chocolate - 100% organic either eaten or as a drink, so no sugar or salt and no milk. Occasionally, however, I ditch that lot completely and have egg and bacon with bread followed by yoghurt instead, but it is only occasionally. Lunch is then about 1.30 - usually a cheese salad, and dinner about 6 pm with the occasional snack in between. Since then my blood sugar levels have stabilised and I am no longer borderline diabetic although of course I still have to be careful what I eat. All that in spite of my intolerances and allergies and interactions with the medications I take for various problems. So, I would say that having breakfast has generally been good for me.
 
I suppose we are all different. As I have said previously I have to eat something, today was a mug of tea and a croissant, that will do me until lunch. A couple of years ago we had an early start to get to the airport for our holiday, we were up and out before the hotel served breakfast so we ate the complimentary biscuits in the room just to get some fuel onboard.
 
they don't seem to have the same health issues.
No - they have different ones
We are an ape descendent - we are not vegetarian we are not carnivorous - we were designed to what we could when we could and food took time to gather. Eating a large meal requires energy to digest it and that slows us down - risky to the early apeman who might end up on the wrong end of the food chain. Now that we can hoover up the produce of the world to satisfy our craving for fad diets we can, we think, ignore such simple logic. Unless we have a need for a large calorific intake it will simply sit around and turn to fat - the apeman 'browsed' as he wandered and if he hunted [and was successful] it would be an evening feast. By morning he would have digested his meal. A hundred or even fifty years ago we no longer gathered our food and we were no longer in danger of being eaten but we all tended to work longer and in more physical jobs [while engaged in which it was difficult to 'gather'] - we needed the calories in the morning to burn over the day. Things have changed but as usual it seems that the 'scientists' have only just realized this.
 
Back
Top Bottom