Are some traditional breakfasts healthy enough to take in a daily basis?

If you are overweight and often felt lethargic this breakfast health advice may help you!

By NZChefSi

There are two obviously, emotionally disturbed teenage siblings crouching under my roof this summer, they would sleep at 3 am and love to get up at 3 pm naturally, upon calling them for breakfast at 1 pm - that was after I returned from work from 20 minutes’ drive away suburb of Auckland which started since early morning, they would be so reluctant to get up, the first thing they did was poking their nose with the half-opened eyes to see what I was cooking. If it was the boring “breakfast” they would return to the bedroom again and told me, “Wait a minute!” And that wait a minute would be another two hours sleep until they got up with finally eyes fully opened.

Honestly, as a trained chef I have been using them as my Guinea pigs to learn what teenagers actually like to eat, especially in this case, the two teenagers have been fed with all the best foods since babies. Traditional western style big breakfast doesn’t attract them anymore, I don’t like to cook it for them as among the foods found in the big breakfast, ask yourself, how many of them are not preserved or convenient foods? Bacon, sausage, meat patty, muffins, baked beans, hash browns, ketchup and even orange juice. So, how many items in the big breakfast that you eat in a cafe are really freshly prepared less than 3 days ago? Most of the time you could only find that the egg is the only freshly prepared food and follow by additional one or two items are freshly prepared and this varied from cafe to cafe in Auckland.

Imagine an older person sitting in a café eating his or her pan cake in the morning with the sweet maple syrup on top, some people eats the same breakfast food likes the routine Lord’s prayer without getting sick of it. I remember I had an older lady friend, I saw she added a big tablespoon of white sugar into her coffee every morning, I kindly reminded her to reduce her white sugar intake due to her age, she rebuked to me that she was very healthy, she even added an extra sugar into her coffee, I knew she hated me to “mother” her around.  Over the months, I saw more wrinkles appeared on her pretty face, a year later, she got diabetes.

If you don’t know about diet, eating less is always healthier than eating more starch, sugar and chemical additives “infested” breakfast. So, what is the best, the healthiest and the most appetizing breakfast?

Breakfast Drink:

1. First thing in the morning, give half a glass of warm water mixed 3 drops of lemon for children. Give 1 glass of warm water with 5 drops of lemon for an adult.

2. Children under 18 years old, they should not drink any tea and coffee. Store frozen mixed berries in your freezer. Rinse your frozen berries (or simply use fresh mixed berries during summertime), add water labelled up with the berries, then use a stick blender blend them until pureed. This will help to wake up kids prepared them to go to school, they surely will prefer this than the milk. They just need a half glass of this ultimate berries juice.

3. For adults, you can have a cup of coffee or tea, you only can have a teaspoon added raw sugar or honey in it. You only do this once a day.

Breakfast Starch:

Try not to eat too much starch during the meal, it will help to reduce your weight abruptly. As a modern mode of life is so different from the traditional mode of life, the changing of intake of starch must be changed to suit modern days lifestyle.

1. Your choice of healthy starch is important, try not to eat too much starch during breakfast. Try not to eat the white bread. Especially there are many children or older people who begin to develop a digestive problem with gluten.

2. You can have a piece of toasted sourdough bread, 2 tablespoons of oatmeal or a piece of gluten-free bread (e.g. Indian dosa). The amount of starch you eat should not more than a ping pong ball size (before the leaven), it is around 4 tablespoons of cooked rice (serve children’s portion to 2 tablespoons cooked rice if you serve it as breakfast).

Protein:

1. The main protein in the morning universally is almost the eggs and the milk, there are controversies went on, but let you tell you this sad Disney animal story before you decide what kind of milk or eggs you should take. There was a cow after her baby was born, she was so happy, the baby kissed her and she kissed the baby, the baby drank its mother’s milk filled with love, but very soon on the morning their master took away the new born calf, actually he brutal threw it into a pile of injured new born calves in front of its mother. And the master thought that this way the calf wouldn’t consume too much milk from its mom, so he could sell more milk to his customers. Do you think this cow milk’s constituent is the same anymore? When you are in grief, there would be different kinds of hormones flowing in the milk with no love but just the stress hormone and anti-stress hormone. Do you think cow won’t grief for its baby being taken away or never able to see its baby again in its lifetime?  And if you keep locking your hens inside the cage, and you eat its eggs daily, now you know why kids are super patience when they crouch in front the computer screen who acted dormant with no different than those caged hens!

2. Try to integrate a small piece of braised or stewed meat to replace bacon, meat patty or sausage, unless your sausage or patty is freshly made without any chemical additives.

3. Beans are the excellent protein substitute; however, you have to make sure you have cooked the beans well to prevent food poisoning (https://www.thoughtco.com/food-poisoning-from-beans-3975994). The most famous breakfast dish using sprouting peas is the Burmese Pe Pyot (http://www.tastymemories.net/2012/04/pe-pyot-boiled-peas.html), the cooked sprouted peas is usually sauté with onion and turmeric powder then serve together with a starch component like rice or naan.

4. Due to bake bean is full of sugar, you can always prepare it yourself without adding any sugar.

Vegetable:

1. The most popular vegetable used for western breakfast is spinach sauté with garlic and nutmeg.

2. There is another highly antioxidant vegetable that many people are not aware of its benefit of Amaranth. Popped Amaranth seeds are a good choice to add to your muesli when you just want a fast and simple breakfast.

3. Asian loves to use breakfast with cucumber and tomato, it is advised to get rid of the cucumber and tomato seeds and skin, where lectins concentrated. According to a study conducted by Dr Steven Gundry, a heart surgeon and cardiologist from California, a link has been found between memory loss and proteins called lectins in foods such as cucumbers, tomatoes, whole grains, soy, peppers, sprouted grains and some dairy products. However, the lectin can be denatured during the process of cooking, fermenting or pickling.

Recipe for Savory Oat Meal

Ingredients:

2 tablespoon Quicker oat

1 cup of stock

50g minced meat

1 tsp of minced onion

1 tsp Grape seed oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tbsp pine nut

3 dates, chopped (Or fresh grapes)

3 walnuts

1 tsp basil seeds

1 tbsp Popped Amaranth seeds

½ Avocado, sliced (garnishing)

5g Cilantro, chopped (garnishing)

5g Parsley, chopped (garnishing)

Seasoning, grey salt, Kikkoman and black pepper powder

Method:

1. Sauté the onion with oil, add minced meat.

2. Add stock, wait until it boils, add oat, nuts and seeds.

3. Check seasoning.

4. Garnish with avocado on top and sprinkle with cilantro and parsley.

Recipes for Jumbo Pan Omelet and Flat Bread

This large-size pan omelet is sufficient to feed a whole family of four or five in the morning. It is so easy to prepare.

Flat Bread Ingredients (Yield 4):

0.5 cup Warmed water

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp yogurt

2 tsp Black sesame oil or olive oil

5g Chopped chives or scallion

1/2 tsp grey salt

1.5 cup Hard flour

Method:

1. Mix water with yogurt and oil.

2. Sieve the flour, mix in sugar and salt. Dig a well, add 1.

3. Slower incorporate flour with the liquid.

4. Knead the dough until it won’t stick your hand.

5. Cover the dough and leave it in a warm place for 2 hours then store in the fridge for a day or two.

6. Before grilling, mix the dough the with chopped herbs. You can roll the dough with pasta machine into flat rectangular sheet or you can tapper it into round shape naan.

7. Add a big of oil to a griddle, wait until it is smoking, grill the flat bread until it pops on both sides.

Pan Omelet Utensil and Ingredients :

A large size cast iron pan

6 Eggs, whisked, add salt and ½ tsp of vinegar

1 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Grape seed oil

1 cup Chopped fresh tomato (get rid of seeds and skin)

1 cup Mixed colour capsicum (or baby spinach), Macedonian

4 Mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp Pine nuts

2 tbsp Chopped walnut (or cooked peas like lentils, garden peas or chickpeas)

1/2 onion, julienne

1 clove Garlic, minced

1 Chorizo, sliced

100g Minced meat of your choice

10g Mixed herbs of cilantro, basil and parsley, chopped

2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated

8 Mozzarella cheese balls or 4 tbsp cream cheese

Seasoning, grey salt

Method:

1. Sauté the onion and garlic with butter and oil, then add the chorizo, then minced meat.

2. Add the vegetable and nuts, check the seasoning and then finally add the whisked eggs.

3. Place the pan into the preheated oven of 180 degree Celsius.

4. When the egg is almost curdled, sprinkle the Parmesan cheese on top and place the Mozzarella cheese balls on. Place into the oven again until the eggs is fully curdled and the Parmesan is melted.

5. Sprinkle some more Parmesan sparingly and also the herbs.

6. Eat together with the flat bread.