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There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

nytimes.com

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Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#41

Post by Jtsummers »

hawleyal wrote: post #27
cmurf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes from the "words have meaning" point of view, breakfast is unavoidable.

There are other points of view?

There are more and less literal understandings of words. Breakfast, as commonly understood, is meant as the first meal of the day, and specifically the morning meal.

Referring to your first meal, at 8pm without having slept away the day, as "breakfast" is outside most people's understanding of the word, though it is, strictly speaking, correct.

It's like the various meanings and uses of the word "decimate". The literal and historical meaning is to remove 1 out of 10 of a group, such as in combat against enemy forces or as punishment of some group or something. Today, it means removing a large percentage. "The army was decimated" today means that a large percentage (subjective) was killed or wounded.

Subjective meaning: Some might say 10% is large, others might mean 80%. And it depends on the initial size. 10% of 100 is only 10, that doesn't seem large. But 10% of 1,000,000 is 10,000, that's substantial though the percentage itself may appear small.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#42

Post by jerf »

hawleyal wrote: post #27
cmurf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes from the "words have meaning" point of view, breakfast is unavoidable.

There are other points of view?

Taking your question seriously, yes. Two major schools of thought are "prescriptive" vs. "descriptive". This terms are usually applied to the noun "grammar" but it works for vocabulary, too. See: http://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling-101-online/tutorials/...

Descriptively, breakfast is clearly an early-morning meal eaten within an hour or two of the end of sleep. There is also, at least in America where I can speak for it, a set of associated "breakfast foods", making it reasonable to "have breakfast for dinner" and most people know what you mean. (i.e., even my 5-year-old knew precisely what that meant when I first said it, so one should carefully consider one's internet-pedant options before claiming that makes no sense :) ) Prescriptively one could make a case for "the meal that breaks your fast", though I daresay it would be a rather weak case. The term "fast" is almost dead in modern American English, though it may be making a comeback via things like Intermittent Fasting: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guid... (Which, for the purposes of this post, I'm merely pointing out a word usage. Though I do it myself now, I'm not defending or advocating it here.)

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#43

Post by tirant »

swah wrote: post #24
gravypod wrote: post #7

Isn't the first meal that you eat in the day your "breakfast?" Because wouldn't that be the time you "break" your "fast".

Only in English ;) In PT-BR, our term translates to "morning coffee", and in PT-PT translates as "little lunch" (from french, petit déjeuner). (Actually we also have a translation for breakfast - desjejum - but its not commonly used.)

Spanish also has a similar term as desjejum and breakfast: "desayuno"

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#44

Post by stephengillie »

gravypod wrote: post #7

Isn't the first meal that you eat in the day your "breakfast?" Because wouldn't that be the time you "break" your "fast".

Similarly, working swing shift and your "lunch" break is during a day-worker's dinnertime. Some of us call the meal "linner".

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#45

Post by mikeash »

IIlllIllIIIIlII wrote: post #11
mmastrac wrote: post #5

This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Studies that support his conclusion, while flawed, are probably right. Studies that oppose it are obviously tainted by various problems. The fact that research shows that breakfast is actually beneficial for children is hand-waved away because 'reasons'. This is honestly just a low-quality, cherry-picked opinion piece by someone who really…

.

"X is good for you" is not typically a universal statement, but a probabilistic one. It doesn't have to be good for every single person in every single circumstance in order to be correct. It merely needs to be better for most people.

For example, not being overweight is good for you. The existence of people who survive famine because they started out obese doesn't disprove that.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#46

Post by jonknee »

mmastrac wrote: post #5

This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Studies that support his conclusion, while flawed, are probably right. Studies that oppose it are obviously tainted by various problems. The fact that research shows that breakfast is actually beneficial for children is hand-waved away because 'reasons'. This is honestly just a low-quality, cherry-picked opinion piece by someone who really…

Well there is no shortage of people who like breakfast (or are in charge of selling people breakfast) and hand wave about it being "the most important meal of the day". The truth is probably people have different metabolisms and if you are hungry in the morning you should eat and if you are not you shouldn't.

And that's almost exactly what this post suggests:

> The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you’re hungry, eat it. But don’t feel bad if you’d rather skip it, and don’t listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#47

Post by mikeash »

cmurf wrote: post #8
gravypod wrote: post #7

Isn't the first meal that you eat in the day your "breakfast?" Because wouldn't that be the time you "break" your "fast".

Yes from the "words have meaning" point of view, breakfast is unavoidable.

That's not true, starting at any time you can avoid breakfast for the rest of your life.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#48

Post by mtw »

Eating requires a lot of energy. Eating too much in the evening will for example impact negatively your sleep.

Therefore, it is better to have a good breakfast and lunch so you can skip dinner or have very light dinner (lean protein, veggies).

If you skip breakfast, you will have to eat dinner/late dinner. Goodbye good night sleep.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#49

Post by de_Selby »

IIlllIllIIIIlII wrote: post #11
mmastrac wrote: post #5

This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Studies that support his conclusion, while flawed, are probably right. Studies that oppose it are obviously tainted by various problems. The fact that research shows that breakfast is actually beneficial for children is hand-waved away because 'reasons'. This is honestly just a low-quality, cherry-picked opinion piece by someone who really…

.

I contend that lunch and dinner are also good for you.

Can you apply the same logic there?

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#50

Post by markbnj »

I'd be interested to know whether the author eats in the evening. I don't think he mentioned one way or another. I don't eat anything after a light dinner and I usually wake up very hungry. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, but if someone typically sleeps 6 to 8 hours starting at, say, Midnight, and the last meal prior to retiring was at 7 PM, that is 12-13 hours without food.
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