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There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

nytimes.com

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Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#131

Post by magicbeanss »

iopq wrote: post #118
curun1r wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it wasn't. It was our first foray into nutritionalism [1], which is the belief that foods can be deconstructed, analyzed, and reconstructed and still be healthy. This has proven wrong over and over again. No matter how much we discover about what our foods contain, it's been consistent over the past 150 or so years that when we process food, it removes healthy stuff that doesn't get reintroduced when…

Except for people who eat Soylent, they're so far alive and healthy.

I've never been so sad as when I read the New Yorker profile[1] of the creator of Soylent. Most people understand that food can be extremely healthful, and is a crucial part of culture and social bonding.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-food

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#132

Post by markbnj »

_0w8t wrote: post #123
markbnj wrote: post #50

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.

What is wrong with 12-13 hours without food? During the month of Ramadan Muslims do not eat or even drink for about that time and medical studies found no harm in general in doing that.

Nothing at all is wrong with it. I was simply conjecturing that perhaps some people who don't wake up hungry are eating within that period. I can see where any sort of regular daily fasting could span a similar period of time.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#133

Post by magicbeanss »

beamatronic wrote: post #128

Breakfast became "magical" to me when I started eating high-protein breakfasts - basically eggs and bacon or sausage instead of cereal. The years I ate cereal for breakfast, I was battling to stay awake until lunch time. I felt so sleepy in class. Years later I moved to San Francisco and started eating eggs almost every day in SoMa cafes. I could not believe the difference. I was wide awake and had so much more energ…

I recently re-introduced chicken into my diet after 12 years after being a vegetarian. I started eating chicken breast for breakfast instead of the usual toast and peanut butter, and the difference in my energy level is astounding. I'm no longer carb-foggy, my digestion is much better, and I don't have to eat again until well into the afternoon or evening.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#134

Post by brianpan »

PaulHoule wrote: post #67
coldtea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Actually he gives very reasoned arguments and comments on meta-studies showing that he is right -- not that breakfast is bad, but in that it doesn't make any difference, and if it does nobody has clearly shown it. (a) . In a paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013, researchers reviewed the literature on the e…

If anybody is telling you to eat when you are not hungry, check to see if they are selling something.

Oh, god, my mom is in on it too?!

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#135

Post by TillE »

jaggederest wrote: post #126
markbnj wrote: post #50

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.

I usually fast for 16 hours a day, and I don't wake up hungry at all. Usually I only start to get hungry around the ~14-15 hour mark. Hunger is something that can be trained, not simply a static phenomenon. There's a reason you get hungry when you smell something delicious. If you eat every day shortly after waking up, I'd certainly expect to be hungry at that time.

Yeah, when I was doing keto for weight loss for a few months, I just naturally ate one big meal in the evening, and usually a snack of almonds a few hours before. And that's it.

I was never particularly hungry during my accidental 16-ish hour "fast". In fact, I usually had to force myself to eat a bit extra just to bring my daily calorie count up to something reasonable.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#136

Post by SixSigma »

jonknee wrote: post #46
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…

Hunger and nutritional need are not the same.

Just like drinking when thirsty is drinking too late.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#137

Post by dhimes »

skrause wrote: post #124
coldtea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right." Actually he gives very reasoned arguments and comments on meta-studies showing that he is right -- not that breakfast is bad, but in that it doesn't make any difference, and if it does nobody has clearly shown it. (a) . In a paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013, researchers reviewed the literature on the e…

I can personally confirm that I used to have a strong correlation between skipping breakfast and obesity. Back when I used to eat a big pizza at 11 pm followed by some beer I could never eat the next morning because I was still full, so I skipped breakfast and didn't eat until lunchtime. However, the skipped breakfast was not the cause of my overweight, but simply the result of eating far too much in the evening. So…

My eating a big pizza and beer for breakfast also correlated with obesity, so there's that.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#138

Post by gutnor »

will_brown wrote: post #109
gutnor wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is fairly amusing. Or not. The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to letting you skip a meal (that's what we are talking about when saying breakfast, not 5 corn flakes with a sip of milk). A lot of people take their tea/coffee without sugar and the calorie content of a table spoon of milk is negligible.

>The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to letting you skip a meal I don't know what you mean by saying caffeine doesn't let someone skip a meal, no one is asking permission. Most can skip a meal with or without caffeine, but the caffeine would only help curb hunger pains in those few hours before lunch. I am not suggesting caffeine has some magical properties (though we all know it does).…

2% of 16oz of milk is a bit less than 10 ml of milk and that would only be 6 Calories even for the full-fat whole milk in sale here in Europe.

Not sure how they manage to squeeze that amount of calories in their coffee but that is indeed some serious calories intake. People around me that take a breakfast take both a coffee and a breakfast. I wonder how much calories that would amount to at Starbuck, but I guess that would set me up for the whole day.

edit: Just looked at the website. Indeed 120 calories for their 16oz Americano. The 2% you mentioned is 2% fat milk, i.e. skimmed here. Another reason not to go to Starbuck I guess.

Re: There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast

#139

Post by dhimes »

raverbashing wrote: post #121
PaulHoule wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anybody is telling you to eat when you are not hungry, check to see if they are selling something.

This is the kind of thing that sounds right but makes absolutely no sense at all Exactly because the sense of hunger is not correlated with the exact need to eat is that we have obesity. Eating only when hungry sounds like a good idea but then you get (usually fat) people complaining they are hungry all the time. An average adult will spend around 12h (and probably more) physiologically fine without food, until its g…

First you must distinguish between hunger and appetite. Hunger is usually accompanied by a "growling" stomach. Appetite is simply the desire for food.
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