Day 2-37 -- What do you like for breakfast?

A conversation yesterday centred on breakfast foods.  When we usually picture breakfast it is often a 'hot' meal of eggs and pork products or hot grains such as oatmeal or cream of wheat.  Other common meals include cold ready-to-eat cereals with milk and a glass of juice. The latter is a more recent arrival with their advent at the end of the 19th century.  However, these choices may appear a bit ethnocentric as there are many traditional breakfast meals found amongst different cultures.

In the conversation yesterday, I'd mentioned that I'd never encountered baked beans as a breakfast food until moving to eastern Canada. This is common here and in Newfoundland. To me, this would be a wonderful breakfast meal with toast or biscuits. One other meal that appeals to me is the traditional hummus and pita common in middle eastern cultures.  The serving size for the hummus is large compared to the snack-sized portion we usually eat here -- 3/4 cup (175 mL) vs.2 Tbsp. (30 mL). As a public health nutritionist I recall a fantastic poster (from a dairy producers organization) that promoted breakfast consumption in children and youth.  It showed a series of pictures of meals with many non-traditional breakfasts -- homemade pizza, leftover spaghetti or macaroni and cheese, smoothies, yoghurt shakes, or fruit salad with muffins, and a variety of colourful sandwiches. It received great interest from the kids and I expect they took some unusual ideas home with them.  It reminded me of when I was a kid and we were away at a family wedding. We went out for breakfast and I wanted a toasted tomato sandwich and my mom was certain this wasn't what I should eat. My uncle met us and he ordered a toasted tomato sandwich <smile>. I ate that for breakfast for years.

A friend shared a wonderful new song today that I'll share here. The lyrics are wonderful, but it may help to read them as they are being sung <smile>. This is definitely something that could be used with youth to promote breakfast consumption. Enjoy!

What makes the breakfast? -- Mike Phirman