We need to call American breakfast what it often is: dessert | Hacker News Reader

We need to call American breakfast what it often is: dessert

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166 pointshippich219 comments

I've always hated American breakfast. My family often traveled when I was a child, which meant many Mcdonald's and Ihop breakfasts. The insane greasiness, saltiness, and sweetness of it all made me sick. To this day, I still can't eat any sort of typical breakfast food without feeling nauseous (which I suppose could be due in part to the conditioning of eating and then hopping back into a hot, smelly car for a 12 hour ride)

Breakfast for me has always been a sandwich with veggies or other typical lunch food, just a smaller portion. The whole "breakfast all day" campaigns more and more restaurants push kind of bothers me since there's no "lunch all day" movement anywhere. If you want a good sandwich or spaghetti at 9 AM in the US, good luck.

I'm living in Japan now, and the typical breakfast offered at hotels here is some meat, veggies, rice, and bread. Far more balanced and I don't feel like shit all day.

Oh friend, I am not American but we share similar childhood memories. I have traveled much in America and McDonald's/IHOPs/Denny's were a staple breakfast!

When I was in Japan, I would often eat breakfast in a hurry by getting some groceries from 7-11. Such a breafast would usually consist of a smal pack of fried rice, with a pastry or two, and some juice or milk, for about 500Y if I remember correctly. Everything tasted good, but I cannot say it was "healthier" than what I'd have in America. But again, that was a 7-11 5 minute breakfast...

I grew up in central Europe and we traditionally ate open-faced sandwiches of artisan bread or bread rolls. You'd top it with some margarine or cream cheese, salami and cold-cuts, thin-sliced cucumbers or radishes, or serve fresh bell peppers on the side. In the US, Subway's deli sandwiches come close, albeit I've found them much heavier, in both the amount of bread, and the sheer quantity of meat.

I too wish that more fast food restaurants served lunch alongside breakfast, instead of exclusively breakfast in the mornings.

I wish there were places in the States that made those little sandwiches. Was in Berlin recently, and every corner bakery makes them. Delicious, and super cheap.

> I wish there were places in the States that made those little sandwiches.

Your home? I've found that they can make whatever I want...

EDIT: This wasn't a cuckold joke- just a remark that you can to a large degree command your diet

Haha, I doubt you're giving me horns

Of course when you make it yourself you can do whatever you like (although you lose the economies of scale).

Trying to get something on the go in this area pretty much means you're reduced to Dunkin Donuts, Mickey D's, or whatever paltry offerings the gas station Quik-e-mart carries, though.

> Haha, I doubt you're giving me horns

Sorry- a bit sauced. I wasn't!

Non-native speaker here. Why could this be understood as a cuckold joke? (My dictionary says this about cuckold: "The husband of an adulteress, often regarded as an object of derision.")

Because "Your home? I've found that they can make whatever I want..." suggests that _qhtn is in the habit of getting breakfast at douche's home (and can get "anything I want"!), and that douche doesn't know this.

You can get Bánh mì in many places in the US which sound similar.

Interesting; that does look like a certain type of sandwich popular in the EU. Where does the name come from?

I'd personally be looking for something like this;

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5vJPM91yqH4/UYzAqHKG0GI/AAAAAAAACM...

and that's not that easy to find abroad. Bad cheese or bad bread but usually both unfortunately.

It's Vietnamese.

For what you pictured, just buy some nice cheese and bread and make them and stuff them in a ziploc bag or tupperware.

That bread looks a bit too soft to satisfy a true Central European.

Schnitzelbrötchen is also good.

Yes, it's Dutch bread, which is much softer than German bread.

Bagel shops? You will have to choose a shop that cooks the bagels with the desired density. The bagel shop I go to will put whatever combination of eggs, bacon, cold cuts, cream cheese, vegetables, and avocado I ask for.

Bagels are very far removed from the sort of thing you would get in a typical bakery or sandwich shop here. So much that I could eat a granary sandwich from my local bakery any time, no matter what I ate before, while I can eat a bagel if i'm very hungry and everything else is closed. I tried as my wife loves them but they are not related IMHO besides that they are considered 'bread'.

Maybe something like this? Opened not long ago in Manhattan: Duran Sandwiches 62 Madison Ave Flatiron New York, NY 10016 (212) 576-1000

http://www.yelp.com/biz/duran-sandwiches-new-york?utm_source...

This reminds me of Paris. I'd drink at the local bar until the sun was rising, and have a croque-monsieur before walking back to the apartment for a brief sleep.

Now THAT sounds like the life!

Traditionally, you top it with butter, not margarine.

Turkish and German breakfasts are pretty awesome. (See http://theheureka.com/how-to-be-german-part-1 for an outsiders comment on German breakfast.)

French breakfast is: typically a black coffee and a cigarette. (Add a croissant, if you want to pig out.)

Viennese breakfast: 1 bread with butter, 1 egg, 1 orange juice + 1 coffee.

Breakfast of champions.

> I too wish that more fast food restaurants served lunch alongside breakfast,

Most fast food restaurants serve their normal lunch/dinner menu all day, with restricted breakfast hours. Some also have breakfast all day, but this is notable. (Some don't even have a breakfast menu at all.)

The restaurants that have all day breakfast but not all-day lunch/dinner menus tend to be (usually, chain) sit-down restaurants, not fast food (or even fast-casual) restaurants.

McDonald's does not serve lunch before 11 or 10:30. The rationale used to be that eggs and burgers need different temps on their grill, but now that they serve all-day breakfast I'm not sure what they do. Regardless, mornings are still breakfast-only.

Burger King does actually serve lunch at all hours.

Wendy's doesn't open until 10, and doesn't have a breakfast menu.

Taco Bell does has a separate breakfast menu. Most of their stores now open at 7, and they start serving lunch items at 9. They stop serving breakfast between 9 and 10.

I don't think most Americans would consider McDonalds or IHOP typical breakfast food. I've lived in the US for 10+ years and only been to IHOP and Denny's 3 or 4 times combined, and only go to McDonalds for breakfast when I absolutely can't take the time to eat at home.

Eh, mildly disagree.

While they might not consider that they need to go to McDonalds or IHOP, ask what people think of for breakfast and for sure they'll say "cereal, pancakes, waffles, donuts, muffins, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, sweetened oatmeal, etc.", which certainly are all central to the McDonalds/iHop menu. While it's not exclusive to the sweets the article discusses, there are a lot of sweet things involved, and for quite a few, drowning the product in syrup or honey or sugar is pretty common, if the product itself isn't already. Heck, most people I know add sugar to the already sweetened instant oatmeal they prepare.

It was a bit different when I moved abroad and breakfast instead was just as others in the topic are describing it - an open-face sandwich with a small bit of butter, vegetables, and meat of some accord, usually with a coffee and maybe some cheese. I first was shown it by my partner, who I thought was just too tired in the morning to bother with anything else, but soon learned it's what she grew up with.

Just to be clear, there is a difference between the commercial, industrialized restaurant breakfast offerings vs. what people traditionally eat in their homes.

I grew up in the rural south, and our traditional breakfast fell into seasonal categories. In the colder months, we'd eat 2 eggs, a small helping of buttered grits, and bacon.

Warmer months or autumn depended on what was available, but often times we'd eat fresh shrimp or "trash fish" (stuff we'd caught like spot, croaker, trout, flounder) fried up with grits.

The grits were always only buttered, never sweetened. Never pancakes or any starchy, sugary items. Older folks knew these things were energy killers, and ironically the families I knew that ate tons of starches were the ones whose parents had bought into the whole "fat kills you, eggs are bad" mantra pushed by the government. I find it extremely ironic that these families were eating less healthy than the "redneck" families they assumed were killing themselves.

No older American who grew up doing farm work thinks the IHOP breakfast is remotely healthy.

To some degree yes, but truthfully, I don't think the "IHOP Breakfast" for lack of a better term is unique to non-farmers. My grandparents were farmers, their neighbors are farmers, their parents were farmers, and they grew up on short-stacks, sausage, oatmeal, the works.

I never suggested that the IHOP breakfast is the only breakfast Americans eat, but I do posit if you grab a person on the street and ask them what is "breakfast food", you'll hear the IHOP breakfast in some way

IHOP and McDonald's is not a typical every day American breakfast. Talk about exaggerating cliches about Americans.

Cereal is the #1 breakfast food in the US, served at home.

Cereal, bacon, pancakes, waffles, french toast, eggs, toast, yogurt, sausage - most of those are more likely on a typical day for American adults than going to IHOP or McDonald's. Teenagers would include poptarts and the equivalent (which are obviously candy). The US is a massive consumer of eggs, bacon and sausage for breakfast, the article pretends that hardly exists.

> Cereal is the #1 breakfast food in the US, served at home.

And if you look at the added sugar content of most cereals, I'm sure the main point of the article still stands.

Cereal is garbage. My former job was working with retail sales data for numerous clients, including the household names that run the two largest cereal companies in the nation, and I can assure you of this:

They are having HUGE year over year declines in cereal sales. People increasingly know it's shit, and the sales numbers show it.

I had to Google "poptarts", which combined with pancakes and waffles I'd say supports the article fairly well.

Yoghurt and cereal are actually mentioned in the article, for the average type bought being not much better than anything else.

Eggs, bacon, and sausage are fine - but still not a great choice for every day.

I've 1 egg (80 calories) and 1 sausage (85 calories) for breakfast, every day.

The issue with eggs as an everyday breakfast is cholesterol, not everything in your diet is about measuring calories. A single egg provides 60% of the recommended daily intake which means you have to be extra careful with the rest of your diet if you don't want to increase your risks of heart disease. Sausage can also have a decent amount of cholesterol, although not as high as eggs.

By introducing both of these as your daily breakfast, you also limit the choices of food you can have for lunch and dinner. Sauces like mayonnaise have eggs, you probably shouldn't eat the occasional omelette, which is a tasty, occasional way of enjoying eggs (I particularly love them with ceps or asparagus), chinese fried rice, baked goods, tortilla, desserts like crepes, the list goes on. None of these are foods that should be eaten on a daily basis, but even less so if you introduced foods high in cholesterol right into your breakfast.

Assuming that eggs are actually bad for you and do contribute to heart disease (they seem to go back and forth on this every second Tuesday...), I'd still take the heart disease over the diabetes from the sugar-blasted breakfast foods.

As if anyone has ever shown diabetes is caused solely by sugary foods. You might be getting a package deal there.

It doesn't have to be either. Common breakfasts in france include eating 1 yogurt, or 1 croissant, or 1 toast with butter. Some people do eat 1 toast with jam, which might fit into your "sugar blasted" category.

In general, we're pretty light on breakfast and we don't have high diabete prevalence compared to countries like the US or even Germany.

I don't think 1 toast with jam comes anywhere near sugar blasted. Comparing to the (plastic) stuff I see people (not exclusively in the US either as children in Spain and the UK seem to do it as well) eat.

All the latest studies seem to show that dietary cholesterol actually has little to no effect on the cholesterol in your blood.

All those studies are as shady as the studies that used to promote cigarettes as healthy. There is enough evidence out there to the contrary, including recent studies : http://www.atherosclerosis-journal.com/article/S0021-9150(12...

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/25/6/589.abstract

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199112123252405#t=a...

The current rehabilitation of cholesterol is about politics : http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-08-24-Ho... http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/102/2/235.extract

http://time.com/4225819/eggs-nutrition-egg-yolk/ ( 2016 )

The studies saying eggs were bad for were funded by the cereal industry...

Even if this is true, that doesn't mean they should be blindly disregarded.

No but they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Dietary cholesterol has been thoroughly debunked as a cause of heart disease. Starchy,sugary diets and the elevated triglyceride levels they lead to are much stronger in their link, resulting in a very accurate indicator of heart-disease risk, the HDL/Triglyceride ratio.

Eggs are loaded with HDL in addition to LDL, so they actually boost the top number. However, drinking soda or eating sugary pancakes in the same day will radically increase the bottom number.

I became keenly interested in the science on cholesterol and diet ten years ago, because my father, who has been a vegan since the mid 90's, had his first heart attack. He's subsequently had more. He consumes zero animal products, and we have no heart disease in our family history.

Edit:

Your food politics doc you linked to is just AWFUL. It makes a point about industry funding of cholesterol research since the 1990's, but ignores the immense funding and lobbying by the agricultural commodities producers (General Mills, for example) to push the original lipid hypothesis science that spurred "eggs kill you" thinking in the 1970s. I love how they use this basic correlation (increased funding and cholesterol being vindicated) to conclude causation. That's the flawed thinking that led to the bullshit nutritional standards we have today.

If I had to restrict my diet that much, I'd rather die early.

As tallanvor notes, cholesterol-egg connection is pretty weak. Upwards of 80% of your cholesterol is manufactured by your body. Since Timothy Ferris boosted the slow-carb diet, there's been a huge increase in the sample set for 'regularly eating eggs for breakfast' - with no negatives (that I've seen reported, at least). Plus there's the question of whether cholesterol is really a good indicator for heart disease - last I read on this stuff (Ben Goldacre's work) I got the impression there's some correlation, but no causation. And not in a weaselly kind of way, but in a we shouldn't be so focussed on cholesterol figures way.

Personal data point - 3 eggs almost every breakfast, with some sliced meat or avocado - for about 6 years, with no adverse affects. And with no concern about 'extra' eggs in lunches and dinners (fritata, chachouka, tortilla, quiche, etc).

Anecdotally, I eat two eggs with hot sauce and toast for breakfast every morning. Lipid panel just came back fine. When I switched from cereal I stopped feeling like crap all morning. (And I wasn't eating sugary cereal to start with -- mostly plain yogurt, oatmeal, and a few raisins. Dessert cereals like granola are a whole other level of misery afterwards.)

Yogurt for breakfast is great. Just buy plain yogurt and put your own fruit in if you want fruit. I recommend banana slices and microwaved frozen berries, and maybe some chopped nuts. Or if you want it sweetened, stir in a teaspoon or two of jam (that will still be only a fraction of the sugar content of a pre-packaged “fruit on the bottom” yoghurt).

"microwaved frozen berries" - gawd, this gives me shivers. I hope the rest of the world never catches up with this American invention.

What invention? Freezing berries so they can be stored? Newsflash - the whole world does this.

No, the normal world eats fresh berries. Freezing them is cruel enough, but then microwaving that seems like the worst thing you can possibly do to a berry. I'm just curious, what precisely do you think you're eating after that? Cause it's sure not berries.

But then again, may be that's natural in a nation that has only ever tasted plastic tomatoes.

Agreed. But they are available fresh in the grocery store in the US. I don't buy them at all. Because the 'fresh' ones available around here are beautiful perfectly-formed bitter, green-tasting junk. Suitable for interior decorating but certainly not for eating. I grew up with berries growing wild in our windbreak. They were marvelous. Astonishingly tasty. Nothing in the store even resembles that.

Obviously fresh berries are much better and I'd never eat them by themselves, but in yogurt they're reasonable. They taste better than out-of-season "fresh" berries shipped thousands of miles, and the disastrously poor texture isn't too noticeable when they're mixed with other things.

Huh? Have you ever eaten a cherry pie? Apple sauce? Pineapple on a pizza? Strawberry jam on some toast? Quince paste? Canned peaches? Dried mango slices? Shredded coconut? Any other kind of food made from processed or preserved fruit? Ever drunk fruit juice, or a smoothie? (I have never before heard of someone who only eats fresh fruit and refuses any other form.)

It’s really no different here. We’re talking about, basically, heated fruit sauce mixed into yogurt as a fast and easy breakfast. This isn’t a gourmet restaurant offering.

Frozen berries are a technological improvement on jam/preserves which dramatically reduces the amount of sugar you need for long-term storage, but requires some energy use for refrigeration. If you plan to heat them, mash them up, and stir them into yogurt, they’re pretty much interchangeable with fresh berries, but are cheaper, keep for months, and can be eaten in any season.

Or is it the microwave you are opposed to? If you prefer, feel free to heat the berries in a saucepan or bake them or whatever. I find a microwave to be a lot faster and more convenient for pretty much identical results, but suit yourself..

What's wrong with eggs, bacon and sausage?

(As long as you get some veggies in over the rest of your day, have as much grease and salt as you want.)

I'm just going to quote myself, but add some emphasis.

> Eggs, bacon, and sausage are fine - but still not a great choice for every day.

You can eat it every day, no problem. Just also add some veggies for the other meals.

And also drastically reduce the calorie count and fat content.

Of course you "can" - just not _healthily_ without significant break from norms for other meals.

What wrong with fat? There's plenty of people (eg traditional eskimo diet, all the modern keto-fans) eating lots of fat and doing quite well out of it.

I personally think there is a lot wrong with most eggs, bacon and sausages but let's not go into that.

Does it give you energy in the morning though? I notice that if I eat that I don't really feel all too energetic while if I eat high fiber and light (as in no fat or carbs) I usually don't even feel like lunch. Might be personal; people I know have that as well but that's anecdotal so i'm asking :) I don't know too many people who would eat eggs, bacon and sausage for breakfast often or at all.

Why not go into it? It's exactly the question you're responding to. I'm not trying to flame you, I'd like to understand what the drawbacks of such a diet are.

Because my reasons are not health but animal suffering and that is offtopic...

As a carnivore, I would still urge you to speak your mind.

You may not necessarily convince me to give up meat, but if you are gentle in your approach, you may convince me to be careful about the way my various food-animals are treated.

I personally eat only meat from which I know where it comes from. Which means I do not eat a lot of meat or eggs or milk, but when I (we) do, it will be from animals who had a good life. Like my chickens and my neighbors goats and sheep. Even if that is not feasible for you, most of us on HN do not need to eat animals who were packed in tight trucks, fed crap and otherwise tortured until they die in massive amounts. If you pay more and pay attention you will not only have better quality (I can taste the difference anyway), but also you can look your pets in the eye instead of being a hypocrit. I really do not miss meat and will eat it if I incidentally find it and I have chickens for eggs myself. They have names and they will live to be very old in my garden. I never try to convert anyway: I believe that most people have this when they watch a video of a meat factory but just turn their heads. Sad but I am sure I cannot change it besides give nice alternatives. Which are there for a bit more money and some care.

Ethical concerns about a meat-centered diet aside, I can tell you this: A bacon and eggs breakfast (with no carbs) is for many, many people a very energetic breakfast. It's actually very popular in the MMA and Crossfit communities.

My personal experience with it is lots of energy and a long-lasting satiety that allows me to easily skip lunch.

From my brief experience in America, they manage to put sugar into this as well.

Many people(including my brother and sister) spread butter on their already frosted, jelly stuffed pastry. In fact there is a song about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlsFgDjyePc

Burger King has lunch/dinner all day!

When I was travelling in the US I thought it was great. Eat one normal portion at 8 or 9 in the morning, walk around all day and only get hungry at 6pm or later.

yes if you cave a busy day and wont be able to fit a proper lunch in the Full English is the way to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huSP7PtctC4

Hah, the difference is, in middle America they are washing that breakfast down with a Coke or a coffee with 10 sugars, then a big fast food burger at noon, then snacks, then a big dinner.

I think this is a very cartoonish and incorrect statement.

I live in Arkansas, and nobody I know eats like that. Nobody I grew up with in rural Virginia eats like that either. Unusually ignorant and poor people in rural America will eat that way, but there are plenty of those in the inner cities as well.

While of course there are higher rates of obesity in "middle America", the portrayal you paint reeks of elitist snobbery.

I'm from Texas, I witnessed this all the time growing up, as well as working in a professional office for a software company.

Did I say everyone does it? No, but it is common enough. Are people improving? Yes, many, but still most are stuck with horrible habits.

In the 90s, my school teachers almost always had a can of Coke or fast food fountain soda cup for breakfast. Yes, Coke.

If I end up in a situation where McDonald's breakfast is the option, I always just get a couple of hashbrowns.

300 calories (150 each), deliciously greasy. I can't imagine eating them regularly though.

What confuses me most is the popularity of breakfast cereal. This stuff is ridiculously unhealthy, on many levels, but the easiest attack is on the sugar content: most breakfast cereals are around 30% sugar by weight.

Frosted Flakes? That's 11 grams of sugar per 30 gram portion. Coco Pops? 12 grams of sugar per 31 gram portion. Honey Smacks? A mind-blowing, god-help-you 15 grams of sugar per 27 gram portion. Yes, these little delights are more accurately described as "pure sugar" (55.5%) than as "puffed wheat cereal" (44.5%).

What about something healthy-sounding, like honey-nut cheerios? Fooled you! 9 grams of sugar per 28 gram portion. The smart marketers know that the general public is catching on to the fact that maybe you shouldn't eat a bag of sugar every day, so they say it's sweetened with honey. Honey sounds good and wholesome, right? Well, it's 81% sugar by weight, so you decide.

Even something as bland-tasting as Rice Krispies is 10% sugar by weight. A large bowl of these for breakfast is still the same as munching on a tablespoon of sugar.

Plus who eats 30 grams of cereal?

That's what the nutritional label's "standard serving size" is. Of course the actual normal serving is much larger -- at least twice that.

> That's what the nutritional label's "standard serving size" is.

Interestingly, most of the cereals I buy (which have vastly less sugar per identified servings than the ones being pointed to) tend to have standard serving sizes of around 55g, not 30g.

What cereals do you buy?

> What confuses me most is the popularity of breakfast cereal.

It's the laziest breakfast I can make for myself. Even cutting slice of bread looks like more work than trowing some random debris in milk.

If you feel too lazy to furnish proper nourishment for yourself, you're not really hungry.

(Which is fine, people love to snack after all.)

Sometimes the other way round for people, especially at the end of the day: too tired to prep properly and too hungry to wait.

I'm rarely ever hungry. If I don't eat I get a headache, don't have energy to eat anything and fall asleep. When I wake up I have strength to make myself some food but it's hard for me to tell if I'm doing it because I'm hungry or if I'm doing it just because I know I need it after yesterday.

When I was a baby I never cried because of hunger, I was just falling asleep.

I find the opposite. When I am really hungry (usually after a long bike ride or similar) I will eat almost anything. Usually I don't have a sweet tooth, but in those cases, I crave sugary stuff far more than normal.

>> If you feel too lazy to furnish proper nourishment for yourself, you're not really hungry.

This is incorrect, probably worrying.

You can buy a box of muesli with fruit and/or nuts, and it's still better than the "cereals" that are mostly sugar. It takes the same amount of effort.

When I have time, I even buy the ingredients separately and mix them once in a big container.

There's this great new invention called "sliced bread". It's the best thing since, er..

Well, sugar salt and fat (milk/yogurt in the case of breakfast cereal) are the time-proven only workable ways of shuttling food stuffs into the human mouth that on their own are more fit for birds or goats, whether cereal grains or salad greens. Irony of the "balanced-diet" human omnivore.

When I get to the end of the article and it says in large print

> Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

and then the heading over a video

> The science is in: exercise isn't the best way to lose weight

I can't help thinking that this kind of web journalism is itself just junk food. /rant

Anyway, I wonder what the author would call breakfast in Spain. I was recently in Barcelona, and the breakfast there was, just as my wife remembered from years ago in Valencia, chocolate croissant with cafe con leche, where "leche" is what we'd call condensed milk, and they give you three tube-shaped packets of sugar to go with it. I looked for a good while to find an "English" breakfast, i.e. eggs, and they served them with French fries.

edit: To clarify my rant, I wasn't objecting to the claim about exercise, so much as the presentation. It's the endless gravy train of tabloid-style "x is good/bad," at once patronising and pandering, which only further undermines its credibility by claiming that "the science is in." Oh really, the science is in this time. I'm glad we can finally put this behind us.

Personal experience suggests that the best (only?) way to actually lose weight is the fork put-down, and increasing my level of exercise only ever makes it harder to practice portion control.

Interesting, exercise has been the biggest factor for me, and it's actually kind of two fold. 1: it burns calories, 2: because I dislike working out, it makes me not want to waste it by eating shit food.

A lot of people I think take the approach of "well, I exercised, so I can afford to eat this cheesecake", or something like that.

I took it as: "ugh, I hated that workout, so I had better not eat this cheesecake"

I think the biggest battle is mental, and not so much physical.

Exercise also decreases appetite for some people. At least acutely.

(I think it's because of the adrenaline, but not sure. Stimulants like adrenaline, caffeine and nicotine suppress appetite.)

wish I had that problem. After a good run, I'm craving food.

I'm also happy to eat directly after working out. But some of my friends have the opposite problem.

    > A lot of people I think take the approach of "well, I
    > exercised, so I can afford to eat this cheesecake"

Perhaps, but for me it definitely increases the degree to which I'm hungry and the degree to which I enjoy my food afterwards

    > I think the biggest battle is mental, and not so much
    > physical

Can certainly agree with that. I've found the principles of "Mindful Eating" to be pretty helpful, specifically having read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Chocolate-Yo-yo-Dieting-Weight...

It might be useful to distinguish between intentional exercise and incidental exercise.

By intentional exercise I mean exercise that you consciously set out to do in order to help lose weight or improve your fitness.

By incidental exercise I mean exercise that happens incidentally to doing other things.

I've lost a fair amount of weight over the last 10 months (110 pounds, or 50 kg). I haven't really done much intentional exercise but because as I've lost weight my energy level and stamina have improved, I've ended up doing more things that provide incidental exercise.

For instance, I used to put off mowing the lawn because it was physically taxing. Now it is no big deal and so I mow about 4 times as often, and I mow places that previously I was content to leave overgrown. So I now get a lot of incidental exercise from mowing the lawn. I've also done a bunch of other garden work that I would not have done 110 pounds earlier, and have plans for a bunch more.

I used to prefer to shop at a smaller supermarket, because I got tired walking around a big store. Now I regularly shop at a large market that has lots of locally grown food, and also at a Walmart superstore. So now I get a lot of exercise incidental to shopping.

I'll probably be doing a few more home projects if it ever decides to actually start being summer here (Pacific Northwest), which will give me more incidental exercise both from doing the actual work and from shopping trips to Home Depot.

I used to enjoy bicycling, not specifically to exercise but just as an enjoyable form of transport. I was a regular bike commuter when I lived in Cupertino in the early 1990s, but when I moved to Seattle in 1992 that stopped. I took one ride around the block my first day in Seattle, and learned that fat cyclists and hills do not get along, and have not been on my bike since. But I still have my bike (1990 Miyata Triple Cross). I just pulled it out of its corner in the garage, and checked it out. Most things still work on it (although it needs a good cleaning and lubrication, a new front tire, some adjustments on the brakes and front derailleur, and maybe some new cables). A year ago, fixing it up would be too much work, but now it will be no problem, and once I do that I might take up bike commuting again. (I'm still in the Puget Sound area, but in an area that is much less hilly than Seattle). So that will be a bunch more incidental exercise.

I did try some intentional exercise, such as using a treadmill, but I found it kind of depressing. I'd finish a session and feel like I'd had a good workout, and then look at the estimate of calories burned and see that I'd burned off the equivalent of a few Tic Tacs.

Hating the exercise you do doesn't sound like the most effective way to go in the long term, it's going to take will power every time.

Couldn't you do some alternative kind of exercise that you find more enjoyable?

Well the no exercise part is mostly true. Diet is the most important factor.

Can we stop with sweeping statements? Exercising when on a bad diet all the while being definitely overweight sure won't work, while fixing your diet will help even withojt exercise (although it'll help, especially as regular exercise helps in regulating hunger)

But currently I need do shed only a little bit of excess weight, and short of starving myself "fixing" my diet more won't help at all, only exercising will do.

Running a calorie deficit does not require starvation.

You can easily live on 1500 kcals a day and lose as much as you like.

I know because I have done it.

Well congrats on having a body that doesn't constantly scream for food when you only eat 1500 calories a day, because mine does (and probably a lot of obese people).

That being said I have successfully fought through it and lost significant weight before. But I felt hungry the entire time. I'm trying a different approach by adopting a low carb diet this time around, though.

> only a little bit of excess weight

> obese

I just knew you were weasel wording. Fats are always in denial.

You wouldn't be hungry after eating a kilo of carrot & cabbage salad. So all you're telling me are the lies you tell yourself.

What? It's not even my reply.

Anyway currently if I reduce calorie intake my body just gets into a massive slump mode as it tries to minimise calorie burn, resulting in zero weight loss unless I downright fast. Conversely, just having a balanced diet and going running regularly keeps my body very close to optimal weight.

Oh yes, sorry.

It is water retention that often causes plataeu, which admittedly, is where the exercsie does factor in.

Nice mixup :)

I am fat, and I'm eating at a 30% calorie deficit right now on a low carb diet and swimming at least 3 times a week. I'm not denying anything (but then again you thought you caught the gp in a lie).

I can eat two heaping plates of salad at a salad bar and be hungry an hour later (and no, it's not thirst, because I drink plenty of water, especially when dieting). That might not be a full kilo, but I am full when I finish. It just doesn't last very long, like some people say about Chinese food.

This is the first time I've tried a low carb diet, though, and it has been easier to get through the day. Simple calorie restriction before (but still eating carbs ) was impossible for me to sustain for longer than a couple of weeks.

Personally I have found the opposite.

Well, even if you do absolutely no exercise and still eat less than you burn every day, you absolutely will lose weight. There is no magic trick to it and it works for everyone.

Exercising is important to be healthy, of course, but if you exercise to lose weight it usually doesn't work as planned, mostly because you feel exhausted after training and eat more thinking that you "deserve" a big meal.

Yes, I notice a number of overweight people who claim that their bodies defy physics.

The leche in a cafe con leche is just regular milk. Perhaps your thinking of a Cafe Bonbón?

When I visited Spain it was eggs and thick cut bacon, cafe au lait with whole milk. Which is basically what I eat here in the US, minus the bacon.

Spanish people typically don't have eggs and bacon for breakfast (a pity, I'm from Spain and I love that kind of breakfast).

You probably had breakfast at a hotel or some other place that caters to foreigners.

It was some outdoor plaza in Madrid. Might have been lunchtime. The milk was better than anything I've ever had in the US.

No, that is generic continental breakfast or even English breakfast served in some hotel.

This is more typical:

https://www.shbarcelona.com/blog/en/pan-tumaca/ (it says Catalan but is common everywhere)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churro

Lots of people of course resort to cereals or some dessert (croissant, waffles...) but eggs and bacon is really weird. A toast with something on it (olive oil, butter, jam, the aforementioned "pan tumaca") is way more common.

This is not the typical breakfast in Spain, not even close. And cafe con leche contains plain milk, not condensed milk, you had been to a terrible place :)

Okay, I stand corrected about the Spanish breakfast. My wife spent a year there as an artist in a sort of fisherman's villa in Valencia, and had me believing that was the norm.

I just came back from Barcelona too and the Catalan breakfast I found was things like bread with tomato, octopus, tripe, etc

There were plenty of bakeries selling croissants dipped in chocolate and little cafés selling eggs and french fries but I got the impression this was mostly for the tourists (at least according to the large rant we got from the hostel night manager when we asked him where he recommended for breakfast).

Well if you exercise you replace fat with muscle which is denser - Though when I did 15 miles a day on a bike commuting I lost a stone in a couple of weeks so the statement that exercise does not lead to weight loss is bollocks.

It's not just American breakfast, almost everything has way too much sugar in it. I've been in the US for almost 4 years. And for the most part i've gotten used to the sugar and salt. But it still surprises me time to time.

On a related note i find it funny when my American friends say something has "lots of flavor", all i can taste is salt, no flavors. And when I say something has "lots of flavor" they think it has none.

Feed them Thai or Szechuan food.

I had this with a friend from SF who was visiting Prague. We were eating some traditional Czech food and he was complaining that the food was so bland - and bemoaned the lack of Sriracha :-/

Exactly my experience. Even when you get a wok-style prepared meal with fresh veggies often there is a sauce poured over it that just makes the whole thing sweet and salty. Salt and sugar are a national addiction in the US. I think it is only fixed by not feeding kids sugar anymore. WHO recommends max 25 grams of sugar per day, for an adult, that means you can eat half a Dunkin Donut Banana Chocolate Chip and no more sugar for you for the rest of the day.

It probably has to do with how little Americans cook at home. Just make a meal out of fresh veggies and manually add the amount of sugar and salt that are added to the prepackaged meals from the supermarket. You'll immediately see that it's insane.

Breakfast, mix and match any of:

Pork (Bacon, ham, sausage)

Eggs (fried, poached, scrambled)

Cottage cheese or full-fat, unflavored Greek yogurt, like Cabot

Greek olives, a tomato, pickles maybe

That'll keep you going all day, without getting hungry. Long ago, I used to eat two honking great bowls of cereal for breakfast, and be murderously hangry by 9 AM.

That works well for you, and that's awesome, but I don't think there's much evidence that there's one breakfast that works for everyone. People are different - notably in the make up of their gut microbiome, which has a big impact on what you can digest well. In your case it appears you can't digest cereals well, or you don't absorb processed sugar as well as other people, so breakfast cereals are a poor choice. That doesn't mean someone else wouldn't do well eating them.

Food and the way we digest it is a hugely complex subject.

As a counterexample to the grandfather comment, I do well without breakfast, and only get hungry at lunchtime. Probably because that's what I'm used to.

I eat a big lunch, because food at Google is good, but I can't be bothered to get up in time for their breakfast.

It works for you, but it all depends. That would have me passing out all morning. When I couldn't sleep in college I would stay up until 6:00 AM just to eat the big breakfast and finally go to sleep).

My breakfast: * 2 cups of coffee * Nothing.

And people will judge you for not eating breakfast with alarming harshness. It works for me though.

I also have a diet that consists of large (some would say enormous) amounts of vegetables and not a whole lot else, unless I'm splurging. This happened after several years of fighting with my weight and discovering that by eating low calorie-density foods I could lose weight and not feel hungry all the time.

It is astonishing how portions in the US (and where I live now, Ireland) are not just too big, but perhaps 5 times as big as they probably ought to be. I order a stew and it can easily feed three people.

This is missing the other side of American breakfast: Eggs, sausage, bacon, ham... Often combined with these other items, but not always. Very different macronutrient profile.

I thought a proper American breakfast was eggs, maybe with a side of bacon, ham or sausage. Most of this stuff is what I'd call a "Continental Breakfast".

It is. Most people I know have that, cereal, or nothing. These days I do a piece of fruit or nothing. I do miss those fresh bakery sandwiches I'd get in Germany though...

Maybe you get a different view from other countries, but Googling from the UK I thought it quite telling that if I: - search "english breakfast" I get pictures of a full english - sausages, bacon, black pudding, beans, tomatoes, toast, eggs; - search "continental breakfast" I get pictures of what we would call a continental breakfast - croissants, jams, maybe cold meat, fruit salad - search "american breakfast" I get pictures of scotch pancakes loaded with syrup and an "almost full" English as above

I think the obvious difference for me though when I was travelling around the USA was not breakfast at home, but the ease with which you can get (and the consequent quality of) breakfast "on the go".

Other than McDonalds (of course) and a handful of restaurants, I can't think of anywhere here to get breakfast, or something breakfasty, except cafés/sandwich shops that'll be selling the same things they will for the rest of the day. Maybe that's just the different view you get living vs. touring around on holiday, though.

Continental breakfast is an English / British term. We actually eat lots of different things on the continent. (Google for German breakfast, or French breakfast etc.)

I don't doubt it; I spent a good deal of my childhood in rural Normandy - parent post used the term first, so I was responding from the point of view of it being interesting to see our different viewpoints.

Yeah, I don't think of it as reflective of what people normally eat for breakfast on the "Old Continent". I meant it is what is described as a "Continental Breakfast" in hotels and certain restaurants. Tends to be high fibre, uncooked food, with some dairy and fruits (hey, more sugar!).

Have you had a continental breakfast?

That's an awfully personal question, but yes.

The article's description reminds me of free breakfast you find at cheap hotels, the "meeting" breakfast they provide with coffee with those all too early work meetings, or the stuff at gas stations. Basically the prepackaged side of things when you don't have time to cook breakfast or sit down at a restaurant.

Continental breakfast(at least in Europe) is usually some bread, butter, ham and cheese. Maybe some jam on the side. Continental breakfast definitely does not include anything cooked(well, unless an occasional boiled egg counts)

Right, so that'd be uncooked things like a muffins, granola, yogurt...

Total click bait. Muffins aren't breakfast in the US, they are something you might buy along with a coffee instead of having breakfast but they are not breakfast.

IHOP New York Cheesecake pancakes? There is nothing typical or representative about this at all. You can find glutinous outliers like this anywhere if you look. I've never even heard of this item. Additionally IHOP itself is a bit of a joke.

Dunkin donuts? Its fast food, its junk food. Again it's what someone might eat when they didn't have time for an actual breakfast.

Where are eggs? Where are bagels? Where is fresh fruit and yogurt? Where is toast? Because these are things that are far more typical of American breakfast items. Oh wait because these wouldn't serve your click bait title? The irony is this article itself is junk food.

You can make poor eating selections in any country and for any meal. That doesn't make it typical.

Let's just call both American breakfast and desert what they often are: piles of flavored sugar. Why not eat some fruit as desert if you absolutely must finish a meal with something sweet (and why must you, actually?)

Typical non-American making untrue biased judgements against the US. I think I've been to IHOP twice in my life. For us it was either oatmeal, eggs or toast before getting on the school bus. On the weekends we had bacon and eggs. OP has no idea what he's talking about.

"Duhh I went to Germany and had a 1 liter beer for breakfast WHAT AN UNHEALTHY PLACE"

Nutritionist Adelle Davis warned about excessively sugary breakfasts in her popular book "Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit" (1954). Chapter 2 described the effects of various types of breakfasts, taken from the results of clinical studies. Some excerpts:

"The sources of sugar and starch in our American diet are cheap and overabundant; proteins are expensive and scarce. Typical American breakfasts, therefore, consist of fruit or juice supplying natural sugar; cereals, hotcakes, waffles, coffee cake, toast, or other starch quickly changed into sugar during digestion; usually refined sugar is added to cereal and coffee; jam or jelly may be eaten; quantities of sugar pour rapidly into the blood. In a matter of minutes the blood sugar may increase from 80 to 155 milligrams... As the digestion of a high-carbohydrate meal continues, however, sugar keeps pouring into the blood. In effect, it calls to the pancreas, “Send more insulin! More! More!”... The more carbohydrate eaten, the greater the insulin oversupply. For example, in the studies mentioned, the largest amount of sugar was freed during the digestion of the breakfast containing oatmeal."

"If we now consider typical American meals with a critical eye, we see innocent stupidity elevated to an art..."

"You may say you are not hungry in the morning; this remark means, “I overate last night.” Hunger sets in only when the blood sugar drops to about 70 milligrams; 12 hours after a typical American dinner the blood sugar is usually 95 milligrams or even higher. To launch a campaign of efficiency, the best technique is to have a mid-meal in the late afternoon. Dinner should be simple and graciously served: a soup or salad so delicious that everyone wants a second helping, meat or meat substitute, perhaps a low starch vegetable, milk, buttermilk or yogurt, and fruit. Appetites can be satisfied and the meal enjoyed without potatoes; gravy, and dessert, provided the afternoon snack is sufficient. Such a meal is easy to prepare, creates less havoc in the, kitchen, and allows you eagerness for breakfast the next morning."

When it comes to food and nutrition, many people suddenly become 'armchair' experts. But these observations and conclusions were backed up by clinical studies. Note, too, that this was published over 60 years ago. Ms Davis was a household name in the US throughout the 60s and 70s; she was to nutrition what Rachel Carson was to environmentalism.

Fortunately, breakfast is also the meal that you can best get away with eating no carbs at all. Nobody looks funny at you for eating bacon and eggs. Even if you have to accede to custom and have some toast, you can just butter it and have a protein-rich meal that is far closer to ideal than you can often get away with eating lunch and dinner.

IHOP has the Quick-2 Egg breakfast: 2 eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast. Frankly, the dessert pancakes, etc., make me a bit ill just looking a them.

However, you can order just plain pancakes, a waffle or French toast without the sugary toppings.

I love breakfast for this reason, sometimes I'll even have it for dinner.

There are a hundred different ways to make an omelette, they all taste great, and none of them have any sugar or refined grains. You don't have to compromise at all, you get exactly what you want, and it's still healthy.

Also, why do grains get a free pass? They're literally inedible to humans without being processed, no other mammals consume them (unless we force them to), gas station junk food is 95% grains and sugar, and somehow people still think this is a health food.

Rats are pretty happy to eat our grain given the chance, aren't they?

Hmm you're right. Looks like some forms of rodentia will eat grains if they're around.

I still think they'd be better off eating an omelette though. :)

Plenty of animals eat grains, but grains aren't available year-round. Grain, and seeds in general, are more nutrient-dense than the stalks and leaves of the plant they come from, but are only available for a short period. Animals which subsist on them must either be highly mobile, to reach many different types of plants which flower and produce seed at different times of the year, or they must be able to store the seeds until they become available again.

A cow eats the grain along with the rest of the grass, but if it tried to live on seeds alone it would be a pretty thin cow.

But breakfast is the meal at which quick energy from carbs make the most sense, you're going to be active afterwards.

I've never had anyone look at me funny when having just some kind of meat and some non-starchy vegetables for lunch or dinner, which isn't much higher in carbs than the breakfast you describe in the no-toast form, and lower than the with-toast form.

Its not what I always do -- I'm not fanatically anti-carb, at all -- but I've certainly done it around other people, and no one seems to care.

This needs more detail before it becomes convincing. Is "sugar" on the left the same as sugar on the right? Or is one glucose and the other fructose or sucrose?

If you haven't watched Sugar: The Bitter Truth [1] yet, you should. (Warning: It's 90 minutes long.)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

How exactly are bacon and eggs the same as dessert?

They're very clearly not; not in any regard what-so-ever. They're the exact opposite of dessert:

Low in carbs, high in protein, low in calories, very healthy.

Here's a recipe for bacon and egg ice cream: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-to-cook-like-heston/a...

"What it often is", not "what it always is".

I wish Starbucks would have healthier breakfast options to go with my coffee. Besides the oatmeal, everything else on their menu is like a candy bar.

I can only eat so much un-sweetened oatmeal. I don't really don't know what else they could sell, maybe some sort of plain bread?

If you're out at a Starbucks chances are you're also near a grocery store or food mart of some kind. Pick up an apple, avocado, berries, etc. Or just pack them in a bag--whole fruits are easy to transport. Be wary of the glycemic index of fruits though and don't go for the super sugary ones, see this list for example: http://adrenalfatiguesolution.com/fruits-lowest-glycemic-loa...

edit: Also plain bread/toast is a horrible breakfast. It just turns into sugar in your body and won't make you feel full at all. Don't kid yourself about 'whole grain' being any better either--it's all the same to your body.

You think your Starbucks coffee is actually healthy? (many of Starbucks' drinks have more sugar than a can of Coca-Cola)

Why in the world would you smugly jump to the conclusion that he's ordering sugary drinks? He just said coffee. You can get black coffee at Starbucks.

true, but i've yet to see a single person doing so. most people add sugar into their already sweet lattes and other stuff

Worse yet, their oatmeal is misleadingly labeled. They call it something like "old fashioned" or "steel cut", but in reality it's mostly instant oats, with a few heartier bits thrown in. It's very salty, but probably still the healthiest option at Starbucks.

This article is truly about a whole lot of nothing. When I ask friends to go for breakfast, no one is thinking of yogurt, granola bars, muffin, smoothie or cake. The only thing on that list a few would think of might be waffles and pancake. The reality is that most would think eggs, if an omelet with veggies, meat, toast and coffee, perhaps oatmeal and grits. This is an American breakfast. Most places will give you a plain pancake and waffle, and the syrup is up to you.

As an American living in Europe I would call pastries for breakfast a western breakfast. The idea that the US eats nothing but sugar for breakfast and this is unique in the world is way off base. Among my friends and colleagues, mostly Europeans from many different corners of Europe, it is exceedingly common to eat some form of croissants or pastries for breakfast. I think the difference lies in the portion sizes and density of these pastries.

I'll have pastries once a week when I have breakfast with my wife, but otherwise I tend towards yogurt, bananas, and a handful of cereal. I'm not on the "sugar is evil" bandwagon. I definitely do manage my weight but it is more about calorie control than sugar intake. A serving of yogurt will have between 100 and 220 calories depending on if it is plain or has a bunch of good stuff added (I like both), a banana around 100 calories, and a handful of cereal about the same. I love sugary cereal and don't want to eliminate it from my diet. The difference between how I consume it now and when I was a kid is that I really eat one handful at breakfast time whereas in my childhood would eat one to two large bowls.

Granola is the killer. The crunchy kind of granola has more calories per gram than sugary cereal and unfortunately is more dense. I see many people trying to eat a healthy, low calorie yogurt and granola breakfast only to fill the bowl with granola. Game over.

I have noticed that that areas with human settlements for the longest period seem to have most diverse and healthiest food choices. Mostly Asian - Chinese, Indian, Persian, Japanese. Western food is the crappiest of all. Lots of unhealthy meat, too much dairy, bad fat, salty and sugar diet. This kind of food is slowly taking over the world due to globalization.

Agreed. For example my parents follow the McDougall diet, and have done so for about 15 years. I recently took them to visit China and worried some about finding food. Breakfast was the easiest meal of all. Every shop has simple soups, porridge, and soy or peanut milk. Combined with a steamed bun you have a quick and healthy breakfast.

There's plenty of crappy food in eg India. Their sweets make your teeth hurt, and your insulin cry.

Traditional western fare ain't too bad. Don't blame all that ails of modernity on the west.

Way to go ahead to twist your parent comment into something else. You will never get any amount of sweetness in a south indian breakfast.

But in general, you are correct in that diabetics are off the charts in India. We lead in cardio vascular diseases as well. :-(

There is plenty of good Mediterranean food around the Mediterranean (funnily enough). Meat and dairy aren't unhealthy unless you are overdoing them.

>Lots of unhealthy meat, too much dairy, bad fat, salty and sugar diet.

Oh yeah, great argument. Ignore that 90% of US grocery stores is various forms of processed carbohydrates with some cheap vegetable oils and HFCS thrown in; bread, cereal, chips, cookies, canned soup, and meals in a bag like Hamburger Helper.

That's the stuff you need to worry about. Foods made with cheap carbs are the ones that are coming for you. They have great shelf life, are easy to ship, and the ingredients are dirt cheap.

As you might have read two months ago, breakfast only became "the most important meal of the day" in 1944 when General Mills launched an advertising campaign to that effect: http://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-thing/

If there's one thing I appreciate about working at a large tech company, it's that they've helped make it easy for me to develop the habit of eating steamed vegetables with my breakfast. I still eat the sugary dessert stuff, but at least it doesn't comprise my whole breakfast.

uh, sorry, what?

american breakfast revolves around eggs and ham and potatoes.

it's modeled after the english breakfast and french omelettes.

i don't see any of the above on this list. all this stuff is euro/asian carb-aholic adaptations served at shitty budget hotels.

Cereal is eaten religiously for breakfast by many.

The same can be said of any place. What's your point? The argument the article makes is that restaurant breakfasts are essentially crap -- that does not mean that's what the traditional or standard fare for breakfast in the US.

I was born and raised here: yeah, we ate cereals on occasion, but not generally sugary ones (usually things like plain cheerioes, chex, etc.) -- my parents refused to get the horribly sugary crap like fruit loops, so it was at least marginally better. More often, though, we had basted eggs, bacon, and hash browns with toast. Usually kept me running all day. Nowadays I usually end up making a latte and having a bowl of oatmeal.

I take one look at most breakfast menus and immediately start to feel sick. If I do end up going out for breakfast, usually I'll fall back to the same standby basted egg breakfast -- though usually restaurant cooks have no idea how to baste.

Generally, I'd suggest going to Waffle House if you do go out in the US -- they serve what is generally considered to be the standard American breakfast. Very nice eggs, good grits, etc.

Is it an American thing to add sugar to yoghurt or is it a Scandinavian thing not to?

As an outsider I also thought it funny that they translated waffle into a desert item.

It's definitely not a Scandinavian thing not to sweeten yoghurt, since it's common in Sweden.

That is, it's trivial to find non-sweetened yoghurt, but all the flavored varieties (of which there are many) are sweetened, often rather much.

A recent introduction by dairy giant Arla is http://www.arla.se/produkter/arla-ko/mild-yoghurt-vanilj-lat... (page in Swedish), which is specifically sold as containing "less sugar"; it still lands at 6.3% sugar (2.5% of which was added, the rest is natural from the milk I assume).

The Greek style yoghurt only has 3.6% sugar and yes, there probably is a lower limit on sugar in yougurt as lactose is a natural component of milk and classifies as sugar.

http://www.arla.se/produkter/arla-ko/mild-yoghurt-grekisk-10...

Skimmed milk has 4,7 grams of sugar per 100 gram of milk, so that is the baseline.

That does sound like a lot, but I think it is unfair to start classifying milk together with soda.

That's true. I guess I was being a little naive here. I can see that many flavored yogurts have around 5% added sugar.

But I understood from the article that even plain yogurt has added sugar, and I've noticed in some countries I've traveled to that plain yogurt is very sweet.

But even at 5% added sugar, I think it is unfair to compare it to ice cream.

Calories(fast carbs) are not bad for you if you go and spend them on some useful physical/mental activity right after you consumed them.

Maybe the author has ham and eggs for dessert, but that doesn't seem like it would generalize well.

Perhaps we could call it "pre-ssert"? ;)

To think I used to eat Pop Tarts every breakfast in high school! My usual breakfast now is:

Whole wheat bagel Cream cheese Almond butter Raspberries/Strawberries/Blueberries Walnuts/Almonds

One of my favorite early scenes from Makers by Cory Doctorow comes to mind. (For context, Lester had just brought a homeless woman a doggie bag from Denny's, where they were about to get breakfast).

> Lester joined them again. He was laughing. "She is funny," he said. "Kept hefting the sack and saying, 'Christ what those bastards put on a plate, no wonder this country's so goddamned fat!'" Perry laughed, too. Suzanne chuckled nervously and looked away.

> He slid into the booth next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's OK. I'm a guy who weighs nearly 400 pounds. I know I'm a big, fat guy. If I was sensitive about it, I couldn't last ten minutes. I'm not proud of being as big as I am, but I'm not ashamed either. I'm OK with it."

> "You wouldn't lose weight if you could?"

> "Sure, why not? But I've concluded it's not an option anymore. I was always a fat kid, and so I never got good at sports, never got that habit. Now I've got this huge deficit when I sit down to exercise, because I'm lugging around all this lard. Can't run more than a few steps. Walking's about it. Couldn't join a pick-up game of baseball or get out on the tennis court. I never learned to cook, either, though I suppose I could. But mostly I eat out, and I try to order sensibly, but just look at the crap they feed us at the places we can get to -- there aren't any health food restaurants in the strip malls. Look at this menu," he said, tapping a pornographic glossy picture of a stack of glistening waffles oozing with some kind of high-fructose lube. "Caramel pancakes with whipped cream, maple syrup and canned strawberries. When I was a kid, we called that candy. These people will sell you an eight dollar, 18 ounce plate of candy with a side of sausage, eggs, biscuits, bacon and a pint of orange juice. Even if you order this stuff and eat a third of it, a quarter of it, that's probably too much, and when you've got a lot of food in front of you, it's pretty hard to know when to stop."

> Suzanne couldn’t help it; she blurted out: "But willpower --"

> "Sure, will-power. Will-power nothing. The thing is, when three quarters of America are obese, when half are dangerously obese, like me, years off our lives from all the fat -- that tells you that this isn't a will-power problem. We didn't get less willful in the last fifty years. Might as well say that all those people who died of the plague lacked the will-power to keep their houses free of rats. Fat isn't moral, it's epidemiological. There are a small number of people, a tiny minority, whose genes are short-circuited in a way that makes them less prone to retaining nutrients. That's a maladaptive trait through most of human history -- burning unnecessary calories when you've got to chase down an antelope to get more, that's no way to live long enough to pass on your genes! So you and Perry over here with your little skinny selves, able to pack away transfats and high-fructose corn-syrup and a pound of candy for breakfast at the IHOP, you're not doing this on will-power -- you're doing it by expressing the somatotype of a recessive, counter-survival gene.

> "Would I like to be thinner? Sure. But I'm not gonna let the fact that I'm genetically better suited to famine than feast get to me. Speaking of, let's eat. Tony, c'mere, buddy. I want a plate of candy!" He was smiling, and brave, and at that moment, Suzanne thought that she could get a crush on this guy, this big, smart, talented, funny, lovable guy. Then reality snapped back and she saw him as he was, sexless, lumpy, almost grotesque. The overlay of his, what, his inner beauty on that exterior, it disoriented her. She looked back over her notes.

> And don't forget: Not everyone necessarily has to eat breakfast.

Well... it is the meal that prepares you for the day. And really, the first meal of your day, regardless of the time it happens, is your 'break fast'.

There are different meanings to that word in common usage.

Eg just look at the phrase "second breakfast".

Does the phrase 'second breakfast' actually exist outside hairy-footed Tolkien-creatures?

Pretty common in Germany. People eat at home with family, then leave for work or school, and have a small breakfast with co-workers later in the morning or during recess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_breakfast - "a meal eaten after breakfast, but before lunch. It is a traditional meal in Bavaria, Poland, and Hungary."

"(its Hungarian name, tízórai, actually means "[snack] at 10")"

which we would call 'brunch' (or also 'snack').

Or "morning coffee break".

Or "elevenses".

sed s/you/me/

I feel prepared by around 9 AM, but I don't have a meal until around 1. I respect that it works for you but the breakfast-shaming present in a society that already pushes people to eat when they're not hungry is absurd.

In a similar vein, there's this absurd notion of bulking or cultivating mass in the US. Overweight men delude themselves into justifying disgusting and gratuitous diets with 100-200+ grams of protein. Peanut butter, a sugary treat elsewhere, is considered some sort of super food like quinoa or kale.

Do you think there are circumstances where it's ok to shame fat women? E.g. if they had incorrect beliefs that lead to bad diets?

Perhaps if they make up reasons why being over is healthy, then yes.

I disagree with the parents assertions that PB is unhealthy, but also disagree that people can't be criticized for their weight, if they have control over it.

Yes, especially if they are unhealthy.

If they are fat they are already unhealthy.

You can't downvote it away.

    > where it's ok to shame fat women

I think shame is a poor tool for anything, but I think people who are overweight should be made aware of the health implications and continuously encouraged to lose weight, in much the same way that smokers are continuously reminded their habit is killing them.

Do you seriously believe that in this day and age, people are not aware of the health implications of being overweight? Or of smoking?

Bear in mind that what you consider "encouragement" others may call "bugging me about my own choices."

    > people are not aware of the health implications of
    > being overweight

    > others may call "bugging me about my own choices"

I believe that I will bear the health and related collateral costs of obese people via my contributions to my country's tax system.

I will also bug you if I see you dropping litter in public places or smoking in an enclosed area that also encloses me.

I always find it bizarre that overweight people get all the "positive body image" stuff in the press, despite it being well known that its unhealthy, while underweight people are never described that way. Neither are healthy.

Over-eating is seen as a moral failure, in a way that under-eating is not, which probably is at the root of that.

Uh, what? Peanut butter has very little sugar. Peanuts are pretty widely regarded as one of the better things you can snack on... and (reasonable) peanut butter is just smashed up peanuts.

I'm not even going to engage with the anti-protein half of your rant, because... what.

depends on your peanut butter brand. some brands have 100% peanuts and 0% sugar. Others add lots of sugar.

I think you'll find even when they add loads of sugar, it's hard to match the calories from the protein & fat.

    Overweight men

Men with more muscle mass and body fat (because it's impossible to have one and not the other without steroids)

    100-200+ grams of protein

For a 200lb man, that's about right [0]

    Peanut butter, a sugary treat elsewhere,

Jif peanut butter has 7g protein, 3g sugar, and 190kcal per 2tbsp. It's tasty and a good way to get some extra protein in.

What bone do you have to pick with Americans and/or bodybuilders?

[0]: http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-pro...

I was very surprised to see Jiff has only 3g of sugar, but also note it is the second ingredient http://www.jif.com/products/creamy-peanut-butter

I've found a peanut butter here in Oz which is just Peanuts crushed with Coconut Oil. It's appreciably less sweet than the more processed variety.

Ideally peanut butter contains:

Peanuts.

If we're splurging then I suppose salt is OK.

I wouldn't even mind the palm oil except that I immediately think of dead orangutans which doesn't do wonders for the appetite.

Is this post a joke?

As a Type-II diabetic, I have to get my energy from proteins, with next to no carbs. Peanut butter is one of my very slim choices in snack foods.

> In a similar vein, there's this absurd notion of bulking or cultivating mass in the US

Half seriously, I'm a bit concerned about this trend. It seems that most hollywood movie stars have to be huge nowadays, not only super heroes, but even normal characters. Huge is the new normal! Actually, I even remember going once to see a dentist in New York, and the guy looked like a bodybuilder! Will we reach a stage where all men have to be huge in order not to be unattractive?

That stage has already been reached. Hence why skinny/fat men (in the absence of compensating factors such as money) don't get girls.

The average height in the west has been increasing over the last century due to improved diet.

I imagine there is some genetic selection for it as well. Generally women find taller men more attractive.

> Peanut butter, a sugary treat elsewhere

If your peanut butter has any sugar in it, you're doing peanut butter wrong.

In fact, if your peanut butter has anything but peanuts -- except maybe some small amount of salt -- in it, you're doing peanut butter wrong.

(Yes, lots -- but not all -- commercial peanut butters do it wrong.)

As bad as this stuff is, it has nothing on the British "full breakfast". Bacon, eggs, deep fried mushrooms, deep fried tomatoes, fried bread, toast, sausages, beans, black pudding, hash browns... Greasy, nasty food in obscene quantities. Who decided that even the tomatoes needed to be fried!?

Fried. Not deep fried. No one would do that.

Thats so 2000's. Fat is fine these days. Carbs are bad. Heard it on the internet.

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