I'd like to sing an ode to the most overrated meal experience in the world: breakfast.I virtually never eat breakfast. A nice brunch on the weekend - once a month, maybe - but that's it. And guess what? I don't drag through the morning. I don't run out of gas by 11:30. My body seems to work just fine. It's time to put an end to this pitifully defended morning gorging!
WHY BREAKFAST IS TOTALLY USELESS
For those of you who have a substantial mid-morning meal and then eat a full lunch, I have some bad news for you: you're over-eating. You simply don't need all that food. And don't "yeah, but" me unless you are engaging in some serious physical labor before noon. If you're a manning the tractor on your farm at the break of dawn or lifting heavy machinery at the construction lot at 7:00 am, fine. I'll admit you might need an early protein boost. But if you're wedging your fat ass into a desk chair all morning, you can pass on the lard/carb smorgasbord.
Of course, some of you will still bowl me over with your breakfast indignation. "What about morning glucose energy?" "It raises your metabolism!" "It's helps you concentrate!" This is all a bunch of steaming horseshit. Read on.
WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LISTEN TO THE NUTRITIONIST
Let's face it - nutritionists are totally full of shit. They take the latest data on a subject (the human body and how it metabolizes food) that's constantly changing and evolving and attempt to forecast what will happen. This is exactly what weathermen do. Do we take everything they say as gospel? I think not! So why extend blind trust to nutritionists, who probably have a more difficult job? We have as much to learn about the human body and its possibilities as we do the weather.
It follows, then, that nutritionists need to spend more time addressing their findings as theories rather than facts. They seem to feel that the discovery of one aspect of food consumption and its effects on a particular study group creates dietary gospel. It's something that applies to ALL people and metabolisms. Scientists, who are far more mindful of how they label their work, still occasionally call something as widely accepted as evolution a 'theory'. If evolution is still a theory, then so is the low-carb diet.
Nutritionists also seem to steer people away from the more obvious problems in our diets: processed foods. Processed foods wreak havoc with your body and are responsible for most modern dietary problems. Natural foods - including carbs, fats, salts and proteins - are GOOD for you in anything that can be reasonably defended as an adequate portion. Most dietary-conscious people can talk your ear off about the perceived dangers of too many natural carbs, but think nothing of taking home a frozen diet meal. When processed food comes in a low-fat or low-carb package, people seem to conveniently forget that it's STILL processed. Even if nutritionists are partially correct about a particular natural food, they need to stress that that food is still a better option than frozen pizza.
THE FUCKING INUIT
To fully display that mistake of applying diet "rules" to human metabolism, look no further than the Inuit of northern Canada. That's right: the fucking Inuit.
The Inuit diet consisted (and continues to consist) almost entirely of protein and fat. In fact, roughly 75 percent of their daily energy intake comes from fat! Living in a polar environment, they consume no vegetables and grains of any kind. Anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with Inuit for a year and adapted their diet - and suffered no noticeable adverse health effects.
In contrast, the Mediterranean diet - which had nutritionists creaming their pantalones for years - is full of vegetables and grains and low in fat. So who's right? The human body and its metabolism is never black and white - so take your low-carb diet plan and food pyramid and flush them down the toilet.
THE FUCKING ITALIANS
We gorge on bacon, eggs and sausages for breakfast based on the English breakfast, which is a traditionally substantial meal. Yet the norm in Europe is to have a coffee-related drink with pastry and jams. Italy and France both feature such a breakfast, and it is by far the smallest and least important meal of the day. Even in England, the large breakfast is now mostly reserved for the weekend - akin to having a large brunch on Sunday here in America.
I love it: we spent years ridiculing English food and praising Italy's, yet thought nothing of adopting the traditional English breakfast in its entirety and ignoring the Italians' version. Does that make any sense?
Humans (and other mammals) have been evolving for millions and millions of years. Our bodies can recognize and adjust to virtually every food the natural world throws our way. It is impossible to simplify the human diet based on study groups and random samplings. When we eat and what we eat (as long as its natural) are nowhere near as important as we make them out to be.
So fuck breakfast.
