“You gotta have your breakfast! It’s the most important!”, my grandmother would say, waggling her finger at me with one hand while hustling me out of bed with the other-

Decades later, on the rare mornings I eat more than a banana, I congratulate myself on a job well done- Then, of course, by midday I’m falling asleep in my chair and cursing that most important meal for dragging me down- For certain lifestyles, I’m sure that AM meal does live up to that claim of importance; a farmer, cowboy, stowaway, serf, rat-catcher, etc- But for more typical 2020s profession, such as a stay-at-home social media content creator? I think a raisin or two and a cup of mushroom coffee would be more than fine-

Don’t sentimentally romanticize past breakfasts from your fuzzy memory bank- If you sat around the kitchen table with your family, likely the father was grumbling behind a newspaper, your sibling was spilling milk on you (or you were spilling milk on them), and your mother was scolding you to hurry up because the bus was coming around the corner- There was no family bonding going on- Health-wise, what good would a few sips of Tang and 3 bites of Cheerios do for a growing body? I’d argue 15 more minutes of sleep and a Flintstones vitamin on the bus would have been better-

Have any of you with kids in public school seen what they have to offer for the “most important meal of the day”? My 2nd grader assured me she was in no need of any AM nourishment at home because she was “all good” with what they offered in the cafeteria- So, I joined her at the school breakfast one morning- I sat down at a table with my apple from home, said good morning to the couple kids there drinking their cartons of chocolate milk, and waited on my daughter to make her way through the breakfast line- She soon came back proudly with her tray containing a shrink wrapped glazed cinnamon roll and her own two cartons of chocolate milk- I got up to go see for myself what she was missing out on, and the only other offerings were some thawed out pancakes, greyish sausage links, individual plastic bowls of Froot Loops, and some untouched bruised bananas up by the checkout lady- Maybe it’s just the state I live in, but if this was the “most important meal of the day”, then these kids were doomed! I’ll venture to say that the whole concept of placing a more significant importance on ANY meal versus another is illogical, but I’m no dietitian- As long as you get in X amount of nutrients a day, whether it be spread out over 20 micro meals or all in one fell swoop, I think you’re probably alright- I know I have tried every one of these scenarios, and I wish I had taken notes- It seems like the recommendations change every few years, just like the ole “lay the baby flat on its back, no, always on its stomach, no, prop it up on the side with the pillow, no, get that pillow out of there!”

Anyway, breakfast? Meh!