Do you start your day with little more than a few sips of coffee, or a sugar-laden cereal bar? It’s time to shake up your wake up …
When it comes to the importance of eating breakfast, the clue is in the name: your body has effectively fasted overnight, so come sunrise is in need of something nutritious and filling to break the fast and refuel for the day ahead. In fact, breakfast should be eaten within two hours after you wake up, and should contain around 20 to 35 per cent of your daily calories. Yet, especially on these dark, chilly winter mornings, it can be hard to resist hitting the snooze button, resulting in a rushed morning with barely any time to brush your hair let alone rustle up something tasty and healthy.
Although most of us are aware of the importance of a good morning meal, the stats tell a different story – one in ten people never eat breakfast, and a quarter skip it once a week. If you’re one of them, your brain and body will be missing out on vital energy and essential vitamins, and you’ll be more likely to indulge in high-sugar, high-fat snacks (not to mention a lot of caffeine) later in the day.
Whether you’re a fastidious breakfast eater or are one of the aforementioned breakfast-skippers, we can all do something to up our breakfast game, be it simply getting up a little earlier, or abandoning sugary cereals in favour of something more balanced. Throughout Breakfast Week we’ll be shaking up our wake up by trying out breakfast recipes from some of our favourite chefs.
If you’re going to be joining us on our week-long mission to mix up our morning meal, you will find plenty of recipes here on the blog and on the Breakfast Week website.
In the meantime, here are ten facts you might not know about the most important meal of the day:
Ten facts you never knew about breakfast
1. The full English originated in roughly 1840, but the original version of the nation’s favourite brekkie may have looked a little different to the one we enjoy today – apparently folk used to start the day with such delights as pheasant legs and collared tongue. I think I’ll stick with the usual bacon, sausages and beans, thanks.
2. Unsurprisingly, the nation’s favourite breakfast is a cooked breakfast, followed by porridge, breakfast cereal and then toast. There’s even an English Breakfast Society.
3. The cooked breakfast fell out of fashion during World War II due to the scarcity of bacon and eggs. It was back on form after the war, but, much as it is today, was mainly saved as a treat for the weekend.
4. The average person sits down to breakfast at 7.31am during the week and 8.28am at the weekend.
5. The human body uses up a massive 440 calories during eight hours sleep, which is one of the reasons why eating a good breakfast is so important.
6. People who regularly eat breakfast have been shown to eat 12 per cent healthier throughout the rest of the day.
7. The celebrity that people in the UK would most like to have breakfast with is Holly Willoughby. Personally, I’d rather Ryan Gosling, but each to their own.
8. Filming the famous opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was apparently a bit of a chore for its star Audrey Hepburn as she wasn’t a fan of Danish pastries.
9. The world’s first breakfast cereal was created in 1863 and needed soaking overnight to be chewable.
10. Kellogg’s Cornflakes were the first breakfast cereal on the moon, taken there by the Apollo 11 astronauts in 1969 for their breakfast.
