The Breakfast Myth, Part 1: How Did Breakfast Become Snacks And Dessert?

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” How many times have we heard that?

And has anyone else noticed that what passes for “breakfast food” is the nutritional equivalent of Halloween candy? How did we get bamboozled into starting our day with snacks and dessert?

You can’t live like a predator if you start your day eating like prey.

“Predators gorge and fast: prey grazes.

Rephrased for modern humans: predators eat meals, prey grazes on snacks.”

(From "Eat Like A Predator", my popular guide to paleo diet and life.)

“Breakfast” Is Most Likely A Neolithic Invention

Technically “breakfast” is your first meal of the day, whenever that is…but here I’ll use it in the popular sense of “a morning meal, eaten soon after waking”.

Our Paleolithic evolutionary context didn’t include artificial lighting—let alone late-night restaurants like Denny’s and Taco Bell. Humans can’t see well enough to hunt or forage in the dark, and even preparing food is relatively difficult (try cooking entirely by firelight sometime).

Furthermore, our Paleolithic evolutionary context doesn’t include chicken coops, granaries, dairy herds, or root cellars.

Therefore, it’s a reasonable assumption that our ancestors ate most of their food in the afternoon or evening. Game had to be found, hunted, killed, butchered, and usually cooked. Tubers and vegetables had to be found, dug, gathered, and prepared. So any “breakfast” eaten by hunter-gatherers would most likely have been leftovers from the night before—if they were lucky enough to have any.

For example, here’s a delicious Hadza “breakfast” of burnt monkey parts (skip to 1:35, or 0:45 for a demonstration of fire making):

It seems very likely that “breakfast” is a Neolithic invention—the creation of sedentary agriculturalists. No one knows the exact timing and size of meals in different agricultural societies throughout history, and I don’t put much stock in what passes for historical accounts…but it’s clear that we’re not going to reliably have food to eat soon after awakening unless we’ve got domesticated animals, or a storehouse of previously harvested and prepared grains or tubers. (Consider also the effort and cost of starting a cooking fire every morning, in addition to every evening.)

In support of this theory, I note that all of the traditional “breakfast” foods are from domesticated animals and traditional food crops. Eggs from chickens; bacon, sausage, and ham from pigs; milk from cows; oatmeal and toast and grits and porridge and hash browns. Red meat is infrequently eaten, and it’s considered unorthodox (or decadent) to eat hunted game like duck or venison for breakfast.

The Modern “Breakfast”: An Invention Of The Rich

As opposed to the leisurely life of hunter-gatherers, which usually involves dramatically less work than ours (the complete essay, the book, further discussion), farming is labor-intensive, and it usually starts at dawn with the rooster—so it’s not surprising that people would want to fuel up before beginning a long day of hard work. Historically, farmers seem to have eaten whatever food they had available: usually some sort of gruel, porridge, bread, grits, or previously cooked tuber…perhaps with meat if they were rich enough to keep animals, which most weren’t.

Keep in mind that most farmers throughout history were essentially slaves to their landowner, usually the king (cf. “serf”), if they weren’t explicitly enslaved. See the nomenclature in the Domesday Book: only the king could own property, and everyone else simply held it “of the King”.

(Much like all modern systems of government, in which “ownership” is merely the privilege of paying the government below-market rent in the form of property tax. But I digress.)

It gets worse. Early agricultural civilizations, all the way through Mycenean Greece, were, without exception, palace economies—systems in which everything anyone produced belonged to the god-king, and was taken from them and redistributed by the god-king’s representatives through the palace. Palace economies make North Korea look like a block party. (Further reading.)

In summary, the modern Western conception of the gentleman farmer and his family—owning their own land, keeping chickens, pigs, and a few cattle in addition to growing crops, living comfortably—has little precedent in history.

The modern American breakfast of bacon or sausage, eggs, toast, and hash browns is basically a variant of the full English breakfast—a creation of the British upper classes in the 1800s, which spread as lower strata of society became prosperous enough to afford it.

“To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.” -William Maugham

Recap: “Breakfast” Isn’t What You Think It Is

Hunter-gatherers most likely ate breakfast infrequently, if at all. When they did, it was leftovers.

Farmers ate whatever they had, because they were performing hard physical labor all day.

The upper classes ate meat and eggs because they could, and modern Westerners eat it because we’re all rich by historical standards.

Science > Re-Enactment…But We Must Start Somewhere

It’s important to note that our eating habits shouldn’t be dictated by an attempt to re-enact the Paleolithic (an impossible task): they should be dictated by our biochemistry and controlled, randomized trials. However, since we all have to eat something while waiting for the trials to finish, and we must choose some point of departure for constructing our theories, I choose our multi-million year evolutionary history as hunters and foragers—not a few thousand years of agriculture, or less than one hundred years of industrial products like ‘vegetable oil’.

My conclusion: since the Paleolithic is our evolutionary context, humans are most likely well adapted to not eating breakfast at all. Are you really all that hungry when you wake up—or are you eating because you think you’re supposed to?

Is Breakfast Really The Most Important Meal?

Like many homilies and pieces of pseudo-medical advice, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” isn’t based on any evidence: it’s spoken by Gregor Samsa’s father in Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”.

“Drink eight glasses of water every day” is another piece of scientific-sounding advice with no basis in fact…but that’s another article for another time.

The Full English, or its American variants, are indeed a creation of the rich—but they at least have the benefit of being nutritionally complete and mostly made of real food. Skip the toast, cook your eggs and hash browns in butter or coconut oil, and you won’t be hungry again for a long time, maybe even dinner. Same with a 3-egg omelet and other American diner fare, like steak and eggs.

But that’s not what people eat anymore. Few of us have time to fix such elaborate fare in the morning—and if we did, we simply aren’t hungry enough to eat it so soon after awakening.

What do we eat now, for breakfast?

Dessert and snacks.

Let’s look at today’s typical breakfast foods:

Pancakes with syrup, donuts, cinnamon rolls, “breakfast danishes”: Those aren’t foods, they’re desserts.
Bagel, toast, muffin, English muffin: giant balls of “carbs”, i.e. chewy, crunchy sugar. Did you know that bread—even “heart-healthy” whole-wheat bread—has the same glycemic index as Skittles?
Cold cereal: like bread, it hits your bloodstream even faster than white sugar. Yes, even Grape-Nuts and all those “healthy”, “high-fiber” cereals that taste like ground-up twigs…adding white sugar to your cereal actually drops the GI!
Orange juice, all fruit juices: liquid fructose. Basically a soda with some vitamin C. Have you ever seen how many oranges it takes to make a glass of orange juice?
Oatmeal: a bit of incomplete protein and lots of ‘carbs’ (sugar). Do you eat plain oatmeal? Really?
And we make them with skim milk and fat-free cream cheese, just to make sure they spike our blood sugar even more quickly and leave us hungrier than ever.

Notice something missing from all of these?

How about complete protein? And essential animal fats? The nutrients we absolutely require to grow, repair, and maintain our body and brain?
What do you call nutritionally incomplete food? A snack.

Is there any science behind the push for breakfast? Are we just “doing it wrong”? How did we get bamboozled into starting our day like prey? And what can we do about it?

For answers to these questions and more, continue to Part II of “The Breakfast Myth”.

Live in freedom, live in beauty.

Do you have opinions? Do you know people with opinions? Yes, you do. Leave a comment, use the buttons below to share this article, and get ready for Part 2!

Sean

May 25, 2011 at 1:02 am

Don’t forgot about protein powder waffles and syrup as a healthy, filling breakfast. If that’s not real food, what is?

balabushka

May 25, 2011 at 1:40 am

I have either
– curd with fresh fruit or
– three hard boiled eggs
for breakfast… but yes… it would not be necessary. I try skipping it tomorrow.

Asclepius

May 25, 2011 at 4:42 am

I haven’t ‘done breakfast’ for some years. It is quite liberating and an entirely comfortable experience once you break both the habit of breakfast and once you progress past a sugar-laden/carb-heavy diet.

I seldom eat before midday whereupon I ‘break my fast’ (often) with a traditional English fry up (I try to get grain free sausages and black pudding with minimal grain content).

Instead of complex carbs I prefer my bodyfat to provide a ‘slow release of energy’.

As a general rule we should be suspicious of any food that goes well with chocolate and/or sugar. Every school kid in the UK knows how to make Rice Krispie buns and ‘oaty’ chocolate flapjacks are a feature of our cafes. Even simple bread marrys well with chocolate spread!

The cereal manufacturers are exploiting this with their cereal bars and heavily sweetened cereals (Chocolate Weetabix and Honey Nut Cornflakes are prime examples).

Emily

May 25, 2011 at 5:26 am

Hah – I ate protein powder waffles in my BFL days! Good times. Actually this morning I was a bit peckish and had a banana and tea on my way out the door (usually skip breakfast on Wednesdays). We’ll see how I feel at 10am…

Nax

May 25, 2011 at 5:31 am

As a former sugar/carb-aholic breakfast was the hardest to change, but I beat those sugars into submission with bacon and eggs and now have been analyzing whether or not I am actually hungry or just am used to having food in the morning. It seems to be that my body is used to it, not needs it. Time for skipping of “breakfast”.

Theresa

May 25, 2011 at 6:20 am

Love the article. I just recently went to a professional conference where breakfast was provided for us on the second day… nothing but bagels (with fat free cream cheese!), danishes, muffins, fruit, and fruit juice. I understand that since it was a free breakfast that it’s not gonna be the most extravagant offering in the world, but jeez… it was mostly dessert!

Jan

May 25, 2011 at 6:57 am

I can’t eat anything until I’ve been up for awhile; I’ve been that way almost all my life. Today I was up at 5:30 a.m. and didn’t eat until 9 a.m. – I simply was not hungry.

And when I did eat it was a single Scotch egg. ‘Cause nothin’ says “breakfast” like a hard-boiled egg encased in spicy pork sausage and rolled in almond flour. Good stuff, Maynard.

Bill DeWitt

May 25, 2011 at 7:20 am

I had homemade granola for breakfast for 30+ years, one of the hardest addictions I had to overcome. Now I do beef, bacon and eggs and I can take it or leave it most days. Even when I get hungry, it’s not usually that driving, gnawing hunger I used to wake up to every morning. It’s just an increased appetite, and almost feels pleasurable in itself.

Peggy The Primal Par

May 25, 2011 at 7:41 am

I wake up around five most days, my family not until 8. I wait for them before making breakfast. My hungry mornings are peaceful and productive – my favorite time of day. Of course, it didn’t used to be this way. Before I discovered the Paleo diet I was an impatient witch in the mornings!

Your post comes at a perfect time. I’m just about to post about IF and CR in children. Breakfast is, of course, every parent’s greatest concern.

Lee

May 25, 2011 at 7:54 am

oh dear – Friday I’ll celebrate my first 100 days on Paleo, however most of those days have had the “feast” at breakfast! – today’s was ground bison with bone broth, spinach, carrots, onion and garlic – I’ll be eating again tonight – have I got it backwards? According to this – oh well – my program is a “program of progress, not perfection”! Learn something new every day!

Katie @ Wellness Mam

May 25, 2011 at 8:20 am

I’ve noticed more and more than as my diet has transitioned, I’m not as hungry in the mornings anymore. On the other hand, I love eggs, so I’ll often eat breakfast, but hardly ever eat again until dinner, if then. Since breaking from the dessert like breakfast foods (great way of putting it, by the way!) I’ve found that even veggie smoothies without protein, or fruit by itself for breakfast makes me tired soon after.

That being said, my kids (ages 4, 2.5 and 1) do get hungry in the morning, and as active as they all are, a few eggs and some veggies each morning is the usual. The few times they’ve had cereal or some other “food” at a relative’s house though… bad attitudes all day and tired and whiny a couple hours later!

gallier2

May 25, 2011 at 9:45 am

That might be also a reason for the French paradox. All people here I knew enough to know what breakfast they had, usually had only coffee and a cigarette for breakfast. If ever they were hungry, they indulged at best with 1 croissant, never more.
I mostly always had breakfast and I never smoke, the result I’m the overweight one ;-(

May 25, 2011 at 9:50 am

As for the African breakfast, I can also attest that on Comoros it is only leftovers from the evening. People only prepare food for the evening (on occasions it can happen that people eat at noon, but it happens only on festive days like wedding). They always prepare more than necessary so that there’s always enough if someone unexpected visits, the leftovers are then eaten up in the morning.

Bill Strahan

May 25, 2011 at 11:34 am

Reminds me of that pivotal moment several years ago when I was working to convince my wife that the kids were better off without breakfast if it wasn’t something we cooked, like bacon and eggs. If we were short on time the usual breakfast was pop-tarts.

One morning my wife came in to find them all eating Snickers bars. She was appalled. I said it was breakfast, and then pointed out the nutrition information compared to a pop-tart. Identical calories, but the Snickers was higher in protein.

Now it’s a protein/fat breakfast or none at all.

Fmgd

May 25, 2011 at 12:00 pm

I think I’ve never really had the habit of having breakfast.

Well, actually, up to the point I got a bit more self-suficient I’d have a cup of chocolate milk in the morning just about every day, but as soon as people stopped serving me it it became less and less common.

Now for several years I’ve had breakfast only very sparingly in special ocasions, even though my diet was pretty normal, only with a lot of eggs. I also know quite some people who will only occasionally eat when they wake up, most on completely usual diets.

Today I’ve been up for about five hours, my last meal was over seventeen hours ago and only now, reading about food, I’m even starting to think about eating. Even then it’s still not quite hunger, and won’t be for several more hours if I don’t eat either. I did gorge yesterday 😀

Anyway, I think breakfast is much more of an habit and most people (depending on how they ate before and what kind of activity they had and will have, of course) wouldn’t have a problem skipping it if they never got used to have breakfast in the first place.

Oh, and congratualations on your site. I found it a few weeks ago, after rendering some tallow (it’s actually not hard to get grass fed cow fat for free around here) for the first time and getting in a discussion with some relatives. Had no idea about the whole Paleo thing, even though I had a similar, yet less complete, reasoning. I’ve read all of the articles since then and you do have some great material here, so thank you 🙂

Andrea Reina

May 25, 2011 at 1:20 pm

Lee,

You’re not doing anything wrong by a long shot — you’re eating real, nourishing food that’ll last you 8-10 hours. There are physiological benefits to short-term fasts (16hrs daily is quite popular), however you’re not hurting yourself so don’t sweat it.

Kat Eden

May 25, 2011 at 2:37 pm

I found this absolutely fascinating … being of the primal-minded approach myself I always eat meat and maybe a few nuts for breaky (sometimes I eat eggs; usually red meat), and the truth is that everything I’ve learned teaches me not to wait to break the fast if I want to build lean muscle and burn fat. I teach my clients this way as well. That being said, I’ve experimented with intermittent fasting before and I do ‘get’ the science behind that.

I developed a personal theory on IF, which I just find logical, and I’d be interested to know what you think. My theory is that if someone is under a LOT of modern-day stress (lack of sleep, working too much, not enough down-time, stressful life/relationships in general, not to mention issues of toxicity due to previous lifestyle/environment etc) then something like IF just becomes an added stress that can be the final straw and stimulate a major SNS response.

What do you think? Should we play around with ‘truly’ paleo-style eating only when we have everything else relatively on track, or would you say we actually support our body by eating more truly according to nature? My concern is the concept of lack of food stimulating a stress response in an already stressed body …?

Thanks for the article; I’m looking forward to part 2!

Josh

May 25, 2011 at 2:40 pm

Bill DeWitt: Check out JS’s article on the effect of Ghrelin: http://www.gnolls.org/79/i-am-a-ghrelin-addict/

This could explain your “enjoyable hunger” as you put it 🙂

As for the intermittant fasting over breakfast (how ironic) I’m giving it a go and to be honest, it seems to be working. I think I asked myself honestly if I was hungry for the first time ever when I woke up this morning. The answer being a resounding no.

Walter

May 25, 2011 at 6:34 pm

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day – the most important to skip. If I’m hungry I eat and most days that doesn’t happen until around noon and eggs at noon is fine with me.

May 26, 2011 at 9:04 am

I typically exercise early, and eat after that. I find that breakfast is my most calorie rich meal and my later meals are small. That being said I my breakfast is extremely low in carbohydrates, its just basically eggs and natural chicken based sausage. Maybe a little bit of fruit.

I agree though, it might be worth skipping breakfast or moving it later in the day on an off day. I’ve done this on weekends, been awake for hours before the first meal. I’ll try that at some point and see how it goes. I just find it important to get some food in me post workout.

Melly Sue

May 26, 2011 at 11:38 am

I am always very hungry in the mornings, so I’m a big fan of eating breakfast. Of course, what I eat provides real nutrition–a far cry from the refined carbohydrate examples that you’ve given.

Mike

May 26, 2011 at 12:45 pm

I usually eat a breakfast of mostly scrambled eggs and chicken – around 500 calories with tons of protein. I cook a few days in advance so I don’t have to worry about it in the morning. I avoid any desire for dessert-like breakfasts, and it leaves me full a good portion of the day, sometimes straight through lunch.

I wouldn’t knock breakfast completely. Eating a good breakfast in the morning (i.e., made with real food. and meat.) reduces food cravings overall throughout the day and gives you more energy in the morning. Most important meal of the day? Maybe not. But it has it’s uses.

Anyway, great post. Really enjoyed it.

Timothy

May 26, 2011 at 4:50 pm

Outstanding post as always.

I blame the breakfast phenomenon on inadequate dinner.

A good whole food protein like animal meat and eggs will keep on releasing amino acids for 10 hours, often more. Combined with a reasonable amount of fat, there’s plenty of fuel for the body to do whatever it needs to do all day long (or certainly at least until early afternoon), as long as its ability to burn fat has not been compromised with a high-carb diet.

And there lies the rub. A body accustomed to carbs will be out of fuel upon waking and craving candy most severely. And if dinner’s protein was incomplete or insufficient, proteolysis will be in full swing as well, producing a craving for protein (which is often mistaken as a need for yet more candy).

The evolutionary argument is most compelling. Getting a proper meal takes some doing and simply wasn’t available to our ancestors when they rolled out of their beds (nests?). So it makes sense for our bodies to be in catabolic mode on waking. That happy jolt of morning cortisol puts us on our way to planning, hunting, and preparing the day’s food, a process which would typically take at least a few hours.

I notice that even when I fast for an entire day, I am never hungry when I wake up, however hungry I might have been the previous evening. Midday, of course, is another matter entirely.

J. Stanton

May 26, 2011 at 7:17 pm

Sean:

I understand why they did it: if you read the original study, they wanted to test regular breakfast foods vs. a higher-protein version of the same thing. But “protein waffles”…what's next, protein candy?

Oh, wait…that's called an “energy bar”.

balabushka:

Make sure you have that same meal available for later in the day, once you do get hungry. You don't want to be stuck eating out of a vending machine. Let us know what happens!

Asclepius:

That sounds right. Pretty much anything carb-heavy goes well with sugar, as “carbs” are just sugars stuck together. The only exception I can think of is potatoes…everything else (including rice) is fair game for dessert.

It's funny how people think of oatmeal-raisin cookies as “dessert” — but will happily eat six cookies' worth of sugared oatmeal with raisins for breakfast.

Emily:

Caffeine is an appetite suppressant, as are most stimulants…but it tends to wear off around the same time as sugar/”carbs”. I'm convinced this is the modern “double whammy” that leads to mid-morning snacking. Let me know what you think!

Nax:

Habits are powerful and difficult to break. Fortunately bacon is about the tastiest thing ever. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for you to genuinely get hungry: make sure you have some real food available for when hunger finally strikes.

Theresa:

Hotels and motels are just as bad as office breakfasts. When you see the words “continental breakfast”, you know you're not going to find anything to eat. Danishes, bagels, cold cereal, orange and apple “juice”, and the big thing for motels now is a waffle maker.

Jan:

I agree: I can't face real food for at least a few hours after I roll out of bed. Sometimes I know I'm going to have a very, very strenuous day ahead, and I have to force myself to eat.

Bill:

“Granola” is such a fake health food: oats stuck together by sugar and seed oils? No wonder so many people can't stop eating it: like I mention here, the “health food” label short-circuits our rational mind that would otherwise be looking at the ingredients.

Congratulations on beating your addiction! Isn't it great to not have to shovel carbs into your mouth every three hours?

(More later…splitting the reply because I've got so many!)

May 26, 2011 at 8:39 pm

Peggy:

It's so liberating to break our carbohydrate addiction, isn't it? I used to be on the same “must eat every 3 hours or I get snippy” plan.

I look forward to reading your thoughts on the issue for children, as I don't know enough about the subject to make any recommendations.

Lee:

You're not doing it wrong, and I'm not making any blanket recommendations just yet: this post is intended to get people thinking about and discussing alternatives to the traditional “breakfast snack”.

My followup post will go into these issues (and more) in greater detail.

Katie:

Your plan is another popular one: big, slightly late complete meal for breakfast, and nothing else until dinner. And isn't it strange how eating cereal or other sugary desserts for breakfast just makes us hungry?

gallier2:

Caffeine and nicotine are both appetite suppressants. And as we (re)discover healthy eating, we're finding that the French “paradox” isn't a paradox at all.

Thanks for the information on the Comoros Islanders!

That's a great anecdote! Sadly, it's very true: Snickers is more nutritionally complete than most breakfast “foods”. Like I said to Asclepius, people will happily eat the equivalent of six oatmeal cookies for breakfast in the form of oatmeal slurry.

Fmgd:

I agree with you that eating in the morning is often a habit, not a response to hunger. We're bombarded continually with advertisements for breakfast foods and admonished that it's the most important meal of the day. If it's so important, shouldn't we be eating food, not snacks?

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you find my articles useful. Like you, I backed into paleo eating over a long period of dietary research — and though I've been cooking with tallow for years, I only recently went fully paleo.

Andrea:

You're quite correct: I'll get into that subject in the next article.

(to be continued)

May 26, 2011 at 9:33 pm

Kat:

If “intermittent fasting” is stressful for your clients, or for anyone, then they shouldn't do it.

I do it because it's not stressful for me at all — I have no desire to eat early in the morning, and I enjoy the mental clarity. And I doubt that anyone who isn't already fat-adapted by eating high-fat paleo will find it quite so easy…

…but it's simple to try. Many people find that they're not really hungry when they wake up: they're just in the habit of eating.

I see no reason for any of us to eat when we're not hungry. It's like the advice to “drink 8 glasses of water a day”: just drink water when you're thirsty and you'll be fine. Same with breakfast: if you're not hungry, bring some real food to work and eat it later. Whether “later” is 10 AM or lunchtime doesn't matter: either way it's several more hours that you're burning fat for energy.

To me, “fasting” is something you do on purpose. Not eating because you're not hungry isn't a fast. I'm not “intermittent fasting”, I'm eating when I'm hungry. If I eat a big dinner, that's often not until noon or later.

Josh:

Fasting absolutely sharpens us mentally, and ease of fasting is a major benefit of paleo eating.

I'm glad your experiment worked: keep us posted on your progress!

Walter:

Eggs and bacon are great any time of day! I'll occasionally cook bacon for dinner. Why? Because I can.

I agree with eating post-workout…fasted cardio is good, but if you're doing strength work you should be giving your body something to repair and grow itself with.

Melly Sue:

As I said above, there seem to be two popular eating patterns: skip breakfast, or eat a big, late breakfast meal of real food and little or nothing until dinner. I'll talk about this in the next post.

Mike:

What I said to Melly, above. And the good thing about cooking in advance is you can bring it to work if you're not hungry in the morning.

Thanks for the encouragement! Do stick around: there's plenty more to cover.

Timothy:

That's a solid point about digestion time: a fat and protein-rich meal won't even make it out of your stomach for several hours, let alone be completely digested and bioavailable. And I agree with you that junk food cravings are often nutritional cravings short-circuited by the availability of hyperpalatable snack foods.

Great post! Please stick around. And I appreciate the positive feedback.

Finally I'm caught up! The next article will be much better for your questions and ideas, and I thank all of you for your thoughtful replies.

Emma

May 27, 2011 at 2:22 am

A few years ago, my mother starting dating and then living with a man who had been single for a while and had never felt hungry in the morning so always skipped breakfast and eaten whatever and whenever he felt like. He was lean when they met, then she started nagging him into ‘healthy’ behaviours such as eating “the most important meal of the day” and “low-fat” foods such as margerine and skim milk.
When I saw them recently, I noticed that he is getting a significant spare tyre around the middle. I dread to think what she’s doing to his health, he was doing fine when he was a completely instinctive eater!

May 27, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Emma:

That's terrible. Like I said to Kat, why should we force ourselves to eat when we're not hungry? It makes no sense…and I've found over and over again that eating cereal, danishes, or fruit juice in the morning just makes me hungry when it wears off.

It sounds like that's what's happening to your mother's SO.

The worst thing is she'll probably push him to go on some sort of “diet” now that'll make it even harder to get the weight off. Sigh.

Tomasz

May 29, 2011 at 2:29 am

Ori Holfmakler, the writer of “Warriors diet” book claims that in ancient times it was slaves who were fed breakfasts, while warriors ate most of their calories at night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBrwRiSjd3I

May 29, 2011 at 10:05 pm

J.S.

Indeed, it is difficult for anyone to make recommendations on fasting children as there isn’t a whole lot of reference material on the subject. I had to pull from many angles to get a grasp on the subject. The article is published now if you’d like to check it out.
http://theprimalparent.com/2011/05/27/intermittent-fasting-safe-children/

Franco

May 30, 2011 at 10:49 pm

Nice!

@Kat,
fasting is much less stressful then snacking through the whole day while beeing nailed to the office chair for sure. I always wonder what garbage my staff (especially the female ones) eat at ~every hour for 8 hours: cookies, chocolate, candy, etc. (and of course the delusive “healthy” apple here and there), and all this in addition to a cheap business lunch at noon and god knows what they had already for breakfast at home! Don’t you think that is the very definition of stress to your digestive tract?
Btw, grazing “prey” is also ill more often.

@Peggy,
I think “formal” IF for children is not neccessary and may be even counter-productive. As long as they eat real food, they can and should eat 3 or even 4/5 times per day, basically how often they(!) want.

As a child(in the 70ies/beginning 80ies in Germany) I was eating 4-5 times per day food(!) and was lean.
As a teenager/young adult I was working as a carpenter, eating 3 times per day and was lean.
Now, many years later and with a more management related job (surely no physical labour) I eat 1, at most 2 times per day and are lean. 🙂

@Tomasz,
that actually makes sense. I think it’s even reflected in my short personal nutrition history above. When I was a slave…ahem! I mean carpenter, I needed(!) 3 meals per day and sometimes it was still difficult to pack in enough calories not to starve.

Guy

May 31, 2011 at 10:32 am

Hey,
I really enjoyed reading through your site, but I must ask something.
Whether I try to tell my friends breakfast isn’t all that important, they keep saying it’s the most important meal of the day.. it’s the thing that fuels you up for the rest of the day.. etc.

Now, I can give only 2 answers for this:
1. The paleolithic answer, “We weren’t made to eat breakfast”
2. The other answer, which explains why eating sugar in the morning is problematic because it will conclude in a sharp decline regarding energy levels about 2 hours after eating the “most important meal of the day”.

Is there anything else I can explain to people? except showing them this site?
And what about bodybuilders etc.., they always claim their muscle tissue will dissolve if they won’t eat breakfast. But that isn’t true, as far as i know muscle tissue isn’t used for energy unless you are fasting for over 24-48 hours. Unless I’m mistaking.

I would like to have this things clarified.

Thanks!

May 31, 2011 at 2:53 pm

Franco,

Intermittent fasting isn’t just about staying lean, especially not for kids. Kids aren’t ever going to gain weight if they’re active and don’t severely overeat grains and sugar. Even unhealthy kids don’t have to gain weight.

I address the issue because as parents we can relax about meal times and frequency. We don’t have to worry about stuffing foods down their throats at each hour. This is a real concern for a lot of parents. They worry that if their kids don’t eat dinner that something is wrong with them. Yes, kids will often eat a whole lot and at other times they won’t want food at all. That’s ok and perfectly normal and even beneficial in some ways!

May 31, 2011 at 5:35 pm

Guy,

I would think that as far as breakfast fueling you for the rest of the day, that’s rather arbitrary. I use to doubt any advice that seems too arbitrary when it comes to complex things.

But think about it, what does hunger mean? That you should start looking for fuel (or maybe are lacking nutrients I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter here). Now, if you’re not hungry, it means you’re still stocked up. If you then get hungry a few hours later and eat, there you’ll have your fuel.

It simply makes no sense to believe that a healthy human should be eating when he’s not hungry. We’d be the dumbest animals alive.

May 31, 2011 at 9:02 pm

Peggy,

looks like we agree! That’s why I wrote “formal IF” and “eat how often they want”. That’s basically what my childhood was about. There still was an emphasis on emptying your plate not to waste food on the family meals. After WWII-generation mindset of my parents I guess.
I didn’t push it with my son. (not that it was needed – he got my genes for eating large portions).

May 31, 2011 at 9:04 pm

with regards to BB check leangains.com
It should answer all of your questions.

June 1, 2011 at 9:26 am

Thanks for your answers!
I must ask though.
Let’s say I’m training, and I’m not hungry all that often.
And even when I am hungry, I can’t eat all that much, and I get full pretty fast.
So.. how can I make gains in muscle if I won’t eat when I’m not hungry, it’s a little problematic.

Wati

June 1, 2011 at 5:46 pm

I usually eat breakfast, but taking it easy and wait till I feel hungry, not when I get straight out of bed and think I SHOUD eat breakfast right away.

But the breaskfast we eat here in Asia is different, at least traditionally. Here in Tokyo where I live, it’s usually rice, grilled fish, veggies and miso soup. I love it and it keeps me going that I usually don’t need lunch because I am not hungry. In Singapore where my family is, eating fried rice with meat and veggies is normal. Granted it’s more carb, but rice is a staple for us. I am relieve that Paul Jaminet endorses rice as a safe starch.

Sadly, people are buying into the commercialisation/marketing of eating “healthy” Western breakfast, so breakfast now is bread with margarine or cereal with skimmed milk. Supermarket shelves are increasingly loaded with sweetened cereal and breakfast bars. If you eat out for breakfast, it’s Starbucks coffee with scone or donut, or McDonalds brekkie with the whole family.

June 1, 2011 at 9:11 pm

in your situation I would cut out all bulky carbs (potatoes, wheat/grain-products anyway). Rice (not paleo but a safe starch) isn’t as filling and easy to digest.
For proteins and fat: beef, liver and eggs, go light on the veggies (a green salad isn’t very filling). Use pastured butter freely.
If this doesn’t help, add a big quality whey protein shake.
And if you train with the right (read: high) intensity and pay attention to recovery as well (read: NOT everyday) your appetite should increase automatically.

kem

June 1, 2011 at 11:36 pm

I generally put down a three egg (our hens) feta and vegetable omlette, bacon or sausage, a fried tomato (in dripping from one of my cattle) and a concurrently fried leftover potato after an early gym workout or before a bicyle ride… or a day of work on the farm.

Funny, if it turns out to be a surprise, once a fortnight intermitent fast instead, I don’t notice. Lunch and tea are generally big meals anyway. Gotta keep my 65 kgs intact.

And that expensive breakfast cereal… I used to eat it for pudding before I wised up to cream, nuts and strawberries… and Scotch.

June 2, 2011 at 2:12 am

Thanks, I appreciate the advice.
Yet there’s another issue. I get stomach aches from certain foods, or big dishes, (Maybe it’s IBS, if you know the term).. so It’s a little problematic to eat a lot in general.. you’ve got any advice regarding the issue? on how to eat a lot of food, yet without getting stomach aches?
Should I just listen to my body and as I keep working out on a regular basis (I was at the time, but I stopped for a few months) my appetite will gradually increase?

Sorry if I ask too many questions.. that’s just quite crucial for me.. since food has always been an issue.

June 2, 2011 at 4:16 pm

Tomasz:

Fascinating! He seems to advocate no breakfast, some grazing on light, raw foods throughout the day, and a huge meal for a late dinner. This seems compatible with an evolutionary history of hunting and gathering: eating as you forage during the day, raw, and socking down a big cooked meal in the evening. I'll have to spend more time with Hofmekler's stuff.

Thanks! I think the takeaway is “don't force them to fast…but don't force them to eat when they're not hungry, either”. I suspect both school and the rigid working schedules of parents contribute to this: your child might not be hungry, but you've got to go to work and he's got to go to school…and lunch is at exactly 12:20…this isn't good for anyone, but especially not for children, who don't have coffee breaks or the ability to get up and eat a snack at school.

“It simply makes no sense to believe that a healthy human should be eating when he's not hungry. We'd be the dumbest animals alive.”

Yes. Our problem is generally that our urge to eat is short-circuited by junk food that doesn't satisfy the nutritional needs that led us to become hungry in the first place.

Wati:

In other words, the traditional Asian “breakfast” is a nutritionally complete meal. Right?

I definitely got that feeling traveling in Japan: it was rare to see a restaurant that was even open for breakfast, and I didn't see much in the way of “breakfast foods” except in convenience stores. Even the place that sold those sweet bean paste-filled buns didn't open until at least 10 AM.

Kem:

Sounds delicious! I also tend to fuel up somewhat if I know I've got a hard day ahead…though I've been doing well lately just by eating a lot the night before. And I agree that a splash of Scotch (or whisky of any kind) generally goes well with fruit and cream.

Guy:

Franco beat me to it: leangains.com will tell you everything you want to know on that subject.

And he gave pretty good advice in #40. I'd add refined coconut oil to the list. Other dense calorie sources are full-fat Greek yogurt (should be ~80% calories from fat) and half-and-half.

Basically for maximum weight gain you want to ignore the advice “don't drink your food” and start making smoothies with half and half/heavy cream. It isn't paleo…but if you can't gain weight by eating shakes of strawberry whey protein mixed into half and half, I don't know what to tell you.

Although if you're getting stomach aches your problem may be food intolerance…stay attentive to whether it gets worse with certain foods.

Franco:

That's good advice.

Wow! I've got a lot of great ideas for Part 2 now. Thanks, everyone.

June 2, 2011 at 11:59 pm

JS,

How could I forget coconut oil! But why “refined”? I would say go virgin! (just for the oil – not in general)

I think the problem with greek yoghurt (which I love!) in Guy’s situation is that it’s very filling!
On most days my “breakfast”(~7pm) is a shake made of 1 banana, 4 egg yolks, ~75g of Mascarpone (if you like fatty milk products You must try it! It goes especilaly well with berries too), 30g hydro-whey and some full fat fresh milk.
I personnaly can eat a full paleo meal 30-40 minutes later but it might satiate somebody else for hours I guess.

June 3, 2011 at 6:39 am

Thanks for the advice.
I tend to have problems with milk products.. but honestly I’m really not sure I truly have problems with them.. since sometimes even eggs could give me stomach aches. and occasionally milk doesn’t do anything to my stomach lol.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the helpful advice, I’ll make sure to try and use it XD.

Paul Halliday

June 4, 2011 at 4:56 am

Not to be crude, but through the week I have a dingo’s breakfast … a scratch, a piss and a look around. Then I get dressed for work and don’t eat until lunchtime.

At the weekends I often have a good “breakfast” but at lunchtime. I’m northern English and like my breakfasts like this: https://picasaweb.google.com/pjgh93/Cuisine#5588412137596235202 … the dish does include a few “cheats” from Paleo diet, but that’s because they’re part of the traditional English breakfast.

An inspiring article. I also follow the mantra, “why eat if you’re not hungry” and typically, that’s why I skip breakfast.

June 4, 2011 at 4:15 pm

I use refined because it's completely neutral in taste: unlike virgin, it doesn't make everything you cook with it taste like coconuts.

If you like the coconut taste, I think the virgin stuff has some compounds in it that might be beneficial…but then I usually just use coconut milk.

Paul:

Ha! I usually have the dingo's breakfast, too. What's the black round stuff in that full English?

When camping, it frustrates me that everyone else apparently has to fire up the campstoves and make oatmeal and coffee before they're willing to do anything. Between all the water-fetching and farting around, it usually takes an hour.

Today I was actually hungry within a couple hours of waking up, which surprised me…but then again, I ate only one meal a day for most of a week, so perhaps I'm on a rebound. And I ate prime rib for “breakfast”.

Sofie

June 4, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Guy, it’s possible to be intolerant of eggwhites. You could try avoiding them.

June 5, 2011 at 3:21 am

JS: The black rounds are Black Pudding. It is pig blood and fat moulded into thick sausages which are then boiled as part of the process. When you buy them, they’re black and firm – cut into slices and crispen up the outsides by frying in a little butter.

Like meat, it can be served more on the rare side with little more than a minute or so on each side in a frying pan, or left for more like 5 minutes for well done.

There are variants of “blood sausage” the world over, but ours in northern England is a known delicacy. I suppose the only pitfall is that oatmeal is used to thicken up and firm up the consistency. I’m happy with these little cheats – they’re infrequent and in proportion with my diet, generally. That said, I’m not a confirmed Paleo eater.

You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding

June 5, 2011 at 1:02 pm

I would have assumed so Sofie, yet it’s inconsistent and can happen occasionally with almost any type of food possible, so I guess it’s not the case. I’m pretty sure I know what’s it all about.. but it still requires another visit to the doctor.

Anyway, Thanks, everything should be considered, I’m just pretty sure it’s not the case.

June 8, 2011 at 6:13 am

@ Paul… Oh God, I love black pudding! I recently found one here in Aus that is just pork blood, jowls and spices, no grains! It’s so delicious!

@ Peggy… I think that it’s a good lesson not to freak out about your children’s eating times/frequency. My daughter is very lean and I used to worry about her not eating anough. Over the years I’ve realised that she’d a very instinctive eater. She may go a week eating like a bird and then, it’s like she can’t get enough food and she’s always in the fridge munching on HB eggs, pork rinds with liver pate, fruit, greek yoghurt, chicken thighs… and this is as well as normal meals.
I grew up with very unhealthy eating habits and ended up overweight as a result, so I decided to just let her be. Based on her amazing body composition and muscle tone, she obviously knows better than I do!

June 9, 2011 at 3:20 pm

@Emma: Do it like this: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0VJlWx19kdc/TXu1_dgIwQI/AAAAAAAAJnU/ShoMdqoPlBA/s800/DSCF4925.JPG

Fry your black pudding to the way you like it (completely opposite to the way I like meat, I like black pudding cooked well), squirt a little sauce on top (Heinz, HP or Worcestershire Sauce) drop some lard/tallow fried mushrooms on top.

OMG! Heaven 🙂

June 10, 2011 at 3:30 am

Glad to see black pudding getting due appreciation here. You have to watch for some added grains in some recipies, but it’s health benefits far outweigh.

Here is a picture of my weekly fry-up (featuring a lot of black pudding) which I call ‘The Doctor’. Reckon you’ll appreciate it (http://naturalmessiah.blogspot.com/2010/04/doctor.html).