5 Great Breakfast Foods

4 minutes

Last update: 02 July, 2015

Tired of eating the same old breakfast every day? Try out these new ideas!

Whole wheat cereal

Nothing says “fast and simple breakfast food” like cereal does. There are so many options out there, but not all of them are actually healthy. In fact, very few of them are actually healthy!! If you have high cholesterol, blood pressure or diabetes, you’ll want to make sure you know exactly what goes into your morning cereal box.

Here are some guidelines you can follow to make sure your cereal improves your health:

Try going for a cereal that has less than 200 calories per serving size. Measure out one cupful of cereal. It’s so easy to overdo it, and piling on the calories at breakfast may lead to weight gain.
Make sure your cereal is always whole. Whole, whole, whole. What does that mean? It essentially means unprocessed – and let’s face it, that usually means brown! Refined grains have been stripped of their goodness, and fibre, so go for cereals that contain whole wheat, brown rice, corn, and oats. The fibre in whole grains are amazing for clearing out the arteries and making sure you are nice and regular.
Low salt. Make sure your cereal has less than 22omg per serving. Natural mixes you can find in health food shops often have less salt in them. We all know salt isn’t good for us, especially when it’s refined. If your cereal contains no salt, great! Just add a little of your own, so you can measure it, but the salt you use shouldn’t ever be table salt. Throw that stuff out, it’s very toxic. Buy some sea salt, or Himalayan pink salt. It has real minerals in it that won’t do you harm.
Cereal shouldn’t have any sugar in it. No sugar at all. Top your cereal with fruits and a little unsweetened yogurt, and choose a sweetener like agave syrup or stevia, especially if you’re diabetic.
Warm up your breakfast. Apparently, this helps to calm a voracious appetite. What a nice little tip.

Fruit

Fruit can be eaten on its own or blended with a variety of other healthy things to get you going in the morning. Try eating melons on their own. Water melon can be very filling and nourishing if you like it. It’s also great for the kidneys. If not, bananas can work well.

To make a fruit and yogurt smoothie, blend a cupful of plain Greek yogurt with the same amount of frozen or fresh fruit. Banana, berries of all kinds and mangoes work beautifully. Add half a cupful of water, coconut water or other juice to the blender and blend until smooth.

Quinoa fruit salad is healthy and delicious and brightens up any morning. Mix a scoop of cooked or popped quinoa to a cup full of your favourite fruits sliced up. Top it with honey, a little yogurt and a small amount of a natural, food-based supplement like spirulina and enjoy your creation.

Dried fruit

Dried fruit is great to put on your cereal. You can either re-hydrate it by soaking it in filtered water overnight, or chop it straight onto your regular breakfast. It’s full of antioxidants. Go for dried cranberries, raisins, apples, apricots (unsulphured apricots are best), a few dates or any others you like.

Dried fruit is also super portable. Make your own mix, adding in some nuts and seeds you like. Pop it in a little box or bag and run.

Ever tried polenta? Try this hot breakfast recipe with a dried fruit compote. It serves four people.

Ingredients:

2 and a half cupfuls of fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of finely minced lemon zest
a quarter of a cupful of honey
3 quarters of a cupful of chopped walnuts or other nut of choice
15 prunes, pitted
10 dried, unsulphured apricots, cut into pieces
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cupful of polenta
4 cupful of water, slightly salted.

Instructions:

Put the orange and lemon juice, zest, cinnamon and honey into a saucepan and stir them together, then heat it until it’s gently simmering. Add the prunes and apricots, then turn the heat down as low as it will go. Simmer for ten minutes, and start cooking the polenta meanwhile. Bring the 4 cupfuls of water to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan, then slowly add the polenta. Stir constantly, then reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cook it for 15 minutes, making sure there are no lumps by constantly stirring. If it starts to get too thick, add some water. It should be soft!

Take the fruit out of the sauce with a slotted spoon and pop them into a small bowl, then reduce the sauce to about half the quantity. Finally, put the fruit, the sauce and the walnuts on top of the polenta in 4 bowls. Serve.