What kids around the world eat for breakfast | Hacker News Reader

What kids around the world eat for breakfast

nytimes.com

245 pointsmhb155 comments

People who enjoy this might like this similar thing from TIME Last year: http://time.com/8515/hungry-planet-what-the-world-eats/

For each of almost 30 countries, it has a photograph of an average family with all the food that would comprise a normal week's consumption, accompanied with a description and cost. (Not all families are from separate countries. Some larger countries have two families from different regions).

Later, the authors published an expanded version as a book, which I believe covers 80 families.

I think there is at least one more subset of photos other than the set TIME published that has been published in some major online magazine, because I am sure I saw one of a German family whose weekly consumption included an amazing amount of beer, and that doesn't match the German family in the TIME article.

More directly relevant to the current story, here's a look at typical breakfasts from several countries: http://www.businessinsider.com/breakfast-around-the-world-20...

These are adult breakfasts, not kid breakfasts.

I don't think this is relevant on the classical food expenditures of the average family. At least in Europe. I live in France, I'm middle class (~50k€ income/year before tax with my wife and 1 child), and we spend around 400-500€ __per month__ for food, including meat and organic vegetables. We drink bottled water.

This is way far from the French family presented in the pictures.

> Food expenditure for one week: 315.17 euros

1200€ / month on just food? This is more than my mortgage.

I suspect you underestimate how much you spend on food, most people do. Whenever this conversation comes up with my friends I always spend over double what they claim. I trust my estimation much more since I actually have records through splitwise on how much I have spent on groceries for each month. Maybe you should do an experiment to see how much you are really spending.

We actually did exactly that, and this 500 figure is a high-point.

I took the September groceries and checked, and we are at.. -462,11 €

So yeah, it's an actual figure.

I think people would notice if their checks bounced because they are spending more than their income each month.

$18K per year on groceries is insane. Yes, some people go with their families to restaurants and bars >1 week, but people who don't go, know they don't.

Yeah the western countries seemed to kind of highball the prices.

Average expense based on Statistics Canada puts the expenditure at 7,000 per annum, which works out to $130 a week, which is about on par with me and my wife's expenditure and we're almost dead on median income.

If you start throwing in fast food that price would really spike, but for the average family in an average week you're not going to see a doubling of food expenditure based on fast food. We might spend $25 in a week on fast food.

The typical breakfast in England is a cooked breakfast? Mmmnope.

Well as with any other "typical" article these are typical families based on what the writer to believe typical to mean, or what surveys declare as typical. Your results may vary.

The other disclaimer is that in some cultures what would be presented may be what the family itself perceives as what they should present, not what they actually consume. There is always that pressure to conform.

I have toast, does that count?

I have an intense desire to learn how to incorporate some of the more traditional diets shown. Not only do they look healthier, they are also much cheaper. How can a westerner like me learn how to prepare these meals and base our diets around them? I am sort of disgusted by how much our family spends on food, and how often we don't cook.

Really I just want to learn how to base our diets around cooking. I can cook pretty well. My wife can, too. We just don't plan ahead. I wish there was a guide that told me exactly what to do to create a traditional kitchen that can create a home-cooked complete meal each evening with < 1 hour of work per day.

In terms of running a kitchen, and how to think about food, I really liked the book The Everlasting Meal [1]

It was a bit fluffy, but gets at the heart of how to run a kitchen as an ongoing concern, rather than as a place you dive into as a one-off recipe, and leave when done.

[1] http://smile.amazon.com/An-Everlasting-Meal-Cooking-Economy/...

Thank you for the recommendation. This looks great. This excerpt from a review sold me on it:

"Tonight I had a few (lovely, organic) chicken breasts in the fridge that were getting perilously close to the date. As it is the end of the weekend, I haven't shopped in days and I don't have the ingredients to make any of my glossy paged cookbook recipes. There was some stuff in the fridge, yet I would have thought "nothing to make". Thanks to Tamar Adler, I pulled out my trusty pot, boiled some very salty water and starting by boiling the chicken (who does that???) with a handful of Tuscan spice blend. Then I sauteed a diced onion with some leftover mushrooms (that also would have gone bad), chopped celery ends my kids didn't eat from their Ants on a Log, then made a little roux. I created a sauce with a couple of cups of the broth from the chicken breasts and a cup of milk and random cheese bits. Then I tossed some random leftover cooked veggies and the diced chicken breasts in my lovely mushroom sauce. I also found some too-stale-for-salad croutons in the pantry, so I threw them in the rest of my seasoned broth, making a kind of stuffing, and put it on top of my mushroom saucey chicken concoction and baked for a few minutes. My family declared this makeshift casserole the best thing ever. And there was enough to put another one in the freezer, so I have solved "what's for dinner" twice, never having touched a single recipe. Everything except the chicken, onion, and cup of milk was what Tamar calls "ends", most of which would likely have been in the garbage."

> create a home-cooked complete meal each evening with < 1 hour of work per day

My mother did this but routinely spent an hour and a half, two hours or even more cooking daily. More if we had more than a sandwich or leftovers for lunch, and that's also not including the 20-30 minutes to prep breakfast.

I am convinced if you front-load the work on the weekend you can prepare something quickly on weekdays. I mean restaurants do it, even gourmet places. I've watched them cook. They have the sauces made, the meats thawed, the veggies chopped, and it's all organized and labeled in the fridge. They just take the stuff out and cook it and it takes about 20 minutes. I don't know how to do something like this for a small amount of food, but I'm convinced it has to be possible.

It's common in the keto dieters.

The trick seems to be finding yourself a loose weekly meal plan (5 meals you would be happy eating every weekday for a season) and freeze portioned sauces - my mother in law uses zip lock bags as they freeze flat and are quick to thaw in warm water, skipping the need to thaw in the fridge.

So basically you pick your meat for the evening and have that thawed, then you might have a choice of 3 sauces or seasonings that you can quickly thaw and mix in.

My biggest problem with prepared food is not feeling like it at the end of the day, it just makes you miserable and prone to getting take out.

What is it about being a westerner that limits you from making food like this? And if you have an intense desire why don't you act on it? As you pointed out, just plan ahead a bit.

There's no special guide needed, just a knife, cutting board, spatula and a couple pots and pans. You can make a great meal in one cast iron pan (maybe a couple if you're feeding a family) in half an hour. Make sure there's more green/other colors than beige and you're good to go.

I could do this, but without following a recipe I think it would turn out bland or bad. But you know, that's a temporary problem. I will try this.

So follow a couple simple recipes at first. You'll learn from experience about what fits your tastes, what goes into a dish, how heat interacts with food in different ways, what you prefer, which techniques work for YOU, what fit into your budget, preferences, time, diet, etc. is something you just learn from experience and it is unique to the individual.

Then after you mastered some recipes you;ll have some standby recipes (either written down or in your head) that are yours that you are comfortable with. But you'll probably keep experimenting too.

You will mess up. Probably a lot. You'll make some crappy food once in a while. You'll learn the hard way, but instead of feeling like a failure, look at what you learned from it. Try again.

I also suggest trying some stirfry first. It is extremely simple to stirfry, pretty healthy, and there is a real lot you can do with it - different flavors of sauce, different veggies, meats, etc., and you can buy the veggies frozen so there is very little prep.

I find that a lot of children don't get that kitchen experience while they are young so they grow up clueless in the kitchen about how to even start to prepare meals. I really can't understand this too much. I was in the kitchen since I was old enough to stand upright and hold a spoon helping out, standing on a chair to reach the counter or stove. As a result I'm extremely comfortable in the kitchen. I'm far from a "good cook," I'm average, but having that comfort I think is key.

Yeah, a bland meal or five isn't going to kill you. You learn as you go. Salt and pepper goes a long way, and experimenting is a big part of cooking. And there are lots of recipes a quick google away to use as a starting point.

I heard this segment on NPR recently:

http://www.npr.org/2014/09/30/352808184/how-to-cook-everythi...

It was about the book "How to Cook Everything Fast: A Better Way to Cook Great Food"

http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Fast-Better/dp/047...

Personally, buying a slow cooker was an awesome investment. In under 30 mins I can easily put things into it and leave them cooking over night and have excellent meals for the rest of the week.

Try signing up to a service like HelloFresh. They deliver a box of groceries to your door every week with 3-5 dinners for 2-4 people (you choose), complete with instructions, and virtually all meals can be cooked in under 30 minutes. You get to cook, it's all fresh, and no planning or thinking ahead needed.

Disclaimer: No relationship except as a satisfied customer.

I would recommend learning to cook quiona. It's faster and healthier than rice.

1. Rinse the quiona off with water until there is no more foam.

2. Bring water (with a bouillon flavoring cube, or instead use vegetable broth) to a boil (about 4 parts water to 3 parts quiona)

3. add rinsed quiona to boiling water, lightly boil for about 7 minutes.

4. enjoy!

Quinoa

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

If you are both capable enough cooks, what are you cooking regularly at the moment that takes a lot of time, > 1 hour? I cook most of my own meals and have over time found dishes that are enjoyable, healthy, cheap, and don't take too long to prepare or clean up afterwards. I usually revolve around pastas, meats with sides of vegtables, curries and a few others.

look at the paleo food movement. Not for the diet itself, but they've got a lot of good information about having real foods on hand, being able to cook it in a reasonable amount of time, minimal ingredients and prep, etc.

Look at slow cookers, they're really fantastic for the cooler months and are about the simplest way to get started eating home cooked food without much fuss or cost.

There are lots of ways/reasons to cook - for appearance, for health, for workout efficiency, for PC reasons. I like this one: for flavor. I only have about 10,000 dinners in my adult life, I want to make the most of them. Getting 2,000 more by making the other 10,000 taste bad is not in the plan.

Did I say something about tasting bad? Did you reply to wrong comment?

Since we've got too deep and I can't reply. If you're getting anything out of a slow cooker thats raw/hardly cooked then your power must have went out along the way.

There's a huge gulf between tasting ok, and tasting great. Eating raw/hardly cooked vegetables is not the recognized route to fine food.

You missed a reason (my main reason): for cost while maintaining adequate quality.

While food is like sex (even when its bad, its good) I don't like to skimp on money there.

Sorry, but I'm unable to see the photos in the TIME link.

cool link (time). So many cardboard boxes.

Breakfast in South India esp. Karnataka/Bangalore is quite varied. Each day means a different breakfast and both parents and kids usually eat the same food. What we do is pick from one of these each day

1. Dosa - Similar to Crepes but not sweet.

2. Idli - A Rice Cake

3. Uppittu or Upma - Semolina with Vegetables

4. Rava Dosa

5. Rava Idli

6. Vada - Deep Fried rice doughnut

7. Cereal - Not a traditional breakfast and usually rare

8. Toast with Jelly/Butter

9. Vermicelli with Vegetables

10. Awwalaki or Poha - Flattened Rice with Vegetables

It's a bit over the top for sure, even by Indian standards. I'm not sure if people from other states in India choose between all these. I would be bored stiff to eat the same breakfast everyday. One other thing to note is that usually traditional breakfasts are not sweet and do not have any sugar in them. That's for later!

I am a 38 years old French with extensive travel experience and the Indian breakfast buffet at the Taj Palace in Delhi has been my all-time favourite... More than ten years later I still fondly remember it ! I guess that it is incomparably more luxurious compared to what the average Indian gets, but I believe that the principle of having proper non-sweet hot dishes for breakfast is a wonderful idea. As a low cost alternative in East Africa I love to head through the market and get maize meal with curry sauce as a breakfast on the way... But in the morning family rush of my French routine I would have a hard time organizing anything more elaborate than baguette and chocolate milk...

I think the trick is to organize this the day before and prepare things for lunch/dinner that easily transfers as extras for breakfast. Cold meat, feta-cream, olives, cous cous-dishes and other things that fits cold the day after. And ofcourse some proper bread which is completely impossible to get up here in north Sweden... The industrybread here is awful.

That's really awesome!

I'm too lazy to make myself any breakfast ... so I usually just stumble into work and then my stomach tells me at around 11am that I'm missing something important. It's too late for breakfast by then, so I just hold out for lunch.

When I'm back in India, I definitely try to take advantage of the awesome Udupi [1] options. MTR [2] @Lalbagh Rd remains an absolute favourite!

Coincidentally, there's a new breakfast business in Bangalore called Brekkie [3] that's getting a lot of rave reviews (disclaimer: started by a good friend of mine). They serve Indiranagar and surrounding areas with a variety of bites.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udupi#Cuisine

[2] http://www.mavallitiffinrooms.com

[3] http://www.brekkie.in

Need to try Brekkie the next time I'm in Bangalore for sure!

I am also from Bangalore. To cater for varied tastes of my siblings, my mother is following a timetable for morning breakfast in which nothing repeats in a month except for Idli and Dosa(which are there once in a week),

One thing I've always wondered - at what age are Indian kids (or kids from other cultures with spicy cuisines) introduced to spicy food? They mention kimchi for toddlers in the article, what about in India?

I'm not Indian but spicy food is effectively introduced pre-birth. The nutrient range that one gets from ones mother pre-birth appears to have a bearing on ones taste later. Certainly some flavours are passed on to breast-milk, eg http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2452382/Mothers-shown-how-to....

The first solids one of my kids (UK) had was Thai green curry, at 5 months, but it wasn't very spicy. Our kids just ate what we eat when they were ready to ween [move on to solid foods]; I can imagine this is probably quite common and so in many cultures if the adults are eating spicy food then the kids are from the time they begin to ween.

Spice-"lite" (ie., the less spicy part of sambar etc.,) are introduced as early as 1 year. Kids essentially eat the same food as their parents by age 2, even if they are still hand-fed by their mothers (sometime even up to the age of 5).

(speaking as a South Indian).

Well, the concept of spicy or non-spicy food is non-existent, at least that is how it was in my family. Some people like a lot of spices, others do not - it is like a family tradition. Generally the mother controls the family taste, husbands fall in line :)

When I was growing up they'd tone down the spice for kids until they were 5-6+. Still slices compared to American food. Our daughter has been eating spicy food since one or so. Not the super hot stuff that even makes Indian people sweat, obviously.

FWIW, my american born daughter (to us south Indian parents), started eating spicy food at the age of 1. She can bat down spicy chicken and fish to make both her grandmothers proud.

We started at 5 months for the spices, mild chili coming in at 8 months. By 2 years he was loving raw onions :)

Exact opposite experience here: after three months in a range of smaller towns and larger cities across South India I found the ubiquitous idli, vada, dosa menu horridly repetitive. (I am an Aussie living in China and here the local breakfast options are to my mind far more varied: steamed buns, rolled up rice paper snacks, various soups, congees, noodles, breads, fruits, etc.)

Not surprised. The North Indian compatriots who die to eat Idli, dosa etc., get tired of it soon after they land in South India (after a week or so)...

However, an actual south indian person does not eat the same things over and over again. As someone mentioned above, the menu rarely repeats over the course of a week, even 2 weeks.

Even if the base dish (Dosa) repeats, the side-dishes can vary wildly during a month.

Unfortunately as a tourist it's very hard to avoid this horridly repetitive and limited menu. Give me a thali any day.

It is often observed that there are three kinds of food on offer in South India: VEG, NON-VEG, and CHINESE. Perhaps idli, vada and dosa are the corresponding trinity of staple breakfasts?

Agreed. 1, 2, 3, and 10, are/were pretty common stuff that I eat/ate. 4, 5, and 9 were less common 15 years ago, but is today a lot more popular, thanks to readily available breakfast mixes (primarily from MTR http://www.mtrfoods.com/products/breakfast-mixes )

Hopping on the comment Kartik mentioned below, we just started Brekkie with the sole purpose of curing people of boring breakfasts ;) check us out on facebook.com/BrekkieBlr or give us a ring (number is on the website: www.brekkie.in) - mention that you're the ycombinator guy and your first breakfast is on me!

I have a memory of having some porridge like breakfast but with curry leaves and fruit when I was there as well. I love dosas, used to get them in the tiffin restaurants, the only restaurant I have ever been to that closed for lunch. Fortunately there are a few places in London that sell these.

I grew up in Bangalore for the first 15 years of my life. I consider my upbringing to have been pretty spoilt in terms of culinary things (among others, I'm sure), but I never had as much choice as you seem to have! My breakfast consisted of four idlies each morning 5 days a week. Friday was dosa day, which I had to negotiate seriously for. Vada/Upma/Poha/Rava idli were all weekend breakfast/brunch things and not every weekend. I'd compare it to about the frequency that I have waffles/omelettes/sausage and bacon over here in the US.

You forgot one of my favourites, Akki rotti - savory stiff crepe made from rice

The name Akki reminded me of Akoori (something quite different) - a Parsi version of scrambled eggs - it's a bit wetter than regular scrambled eggs, but tasty. Had it a few times in a restaurant. Googling for the term shows many links.

kids and parents have the same breakfast. We're from bangalore and in bangalore. Here's what we eat most days of a month. Rotti, dosa and chapati gets repeated more than other items.

1) Bisibelebath -- http://goo.gl/zqlaFd

2) pongal(spicy and sweet)/kichdi -- http://goo.gl/KvFH4m

3) idli/RavaIdli plus chutney/samabar -- http://goo.gl/ykGnQa, http://goo.gl/RQro5r

4) dosa plus chutney/palya -- http://goo.gl/NzfOjj, http://goo.gl/kWDD8o, http://goo.gl/Jg9BD9

5) poori with palya/chutney/saagu -- http://goo.gl/m4D4QR, http://goo.gl/OVvL5Z

6) chapati with palya/chutney/gojju -- http://goo.gl/gPPPdV, http://goo.gl/Yqe6CT, http://goo.gl/kfV4OY

7) akki/raagi/wheat rotti with palya/gojju/chutney/sambar -- http://goo.gl/GXxvyF, http://goo.gl/gYZ9kg, http://goo.gl/rs7Ucn

8) chitraanna/soppanna/huliyanna/puliogare -- http://goo.gl/bmcxOT, http://goo.gl/ppxeMY, http://goo.gl/K0uzVS, http://goo.gl/MifvBT

9) avalakki(poha) (spicy and sweet) -- http://goo.gl/YtH1Lh

10) uppittu/upma plus kesaribaath(sweet) -- http://goo.gl/YtH1Lh, http://goo.gl/RPjWoV

11) Noodles

12) vangibath(rice with brinjal) -- http://goo.gl/8YI6J7

13) raagi mudde -- http://goo.gl/5UTwHR

---------

rotti -- can be made in rice, raagi, jowar or wheat flour

palya -- dry curry -- can be made in practically any vegetable

gojju -- wet curry -- can be made in practically any vegetable

Interesting. I know we can google, but some of the lesser-known among those items might not show up in the results. In any case, it would be great if you could add a few words of English describing at least the less common items. Spoken as a bit of a foodie :) Other readers might appreciate those descriptions too.

This is in essence what I enjoy most out of good web journalism. Taking advantage of one of the real powers of hypertext, the lack of "shelf space" restrictions on column inches, to have huge, blown-up photos; and using understated interaction and animation techniques to enhance the reading experience.

It's a fine line, and most of the stories in this style are filled with the "million paper cuts" style of UI/UX issues. But when it's done right, it's very effective.

> to have huge, blown-up photos; and using understated interaction and animation techniques to enhance the reading experience.

I probably scrolled past at least 5 images, meaning I had to scroll up to look at the actual breakfast. On top of that the images below, of the kids, loaded faster. I don't have a bad connection. Very frustration article to read in my opinion.

Same here. I appearently scrolled too fast, the images only faded in way too late, I could barely see the lower border fading in before it scrolled out of the view. I'm on a pretty fast machine, no notebook, and a fast connection, too.

At first I thought it was a rendering error leaving half the page empty. I can't really grasp the purpose of the fade in effect anyway - the images are already loaded, so why not display them immediatly? This constant movement is distracts the eyes unnecessarily.

edit: I was mistaken, they actually only load the images on demand. That explains the fade effect. Distracting nonetheless, perhaps the extra images should be loaded earlier, e.g. an extra window height below the current viewpoint?

Not to be contrary for the sake of it, but maybe your connection isn't as good as you think it is. I'm using a laptop from 6 years ago and it loads on time, so it's not because some JS took ages to run.

I _think_ my pictures loaded on time, but since they animated when i was scrolling I thought maybe they hadn't loaded before so scrolled up anyway. It was frustrating in my modest experience.

Agreed. Felt like '95. Look at the white space... wait... wait...

"The first time Saki ate the fermented soybean dish called natto, she was 7 months old. She promptly vomited."

Yes, that sounds about right. Natto is the single most disgusting food I've ever eaten. It looks like snot and smells like some kind of animal vomit.

One nitpick with the article: I know that the food was put out to be photographed, but seriously - Oyku Ozarslan from Istanbul has eleven dishes put out before her on the table for breakfast? Are her parents doing anything else but preparing and then washing dishes?! If I did that in my house we would have FIFTY FIVE dishes to clean before 8:00am :-)

Turkish breakfast does usually involve lots of plates, but everything is shared (so it's not per person). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_cuisine#Breakfast

Thanks for reminding me of simit, used to be the thing I'd have between breakfast and lunch when I was working in Istanbul. The weird thing is I could probably get something very similiar in London but I never even bothered to, it just doesn't feel the same having it out of that context (of all different flavours). It's completely psychological (and wrong). I miss Istanbul.

Natto is indeeed disgusting on first experience, but my 2-year-old eats natto and rice for breakfast every morning (this is in Japan). We've tried to vary it up, but he insistently shouts natto!

I first experienced it at age 15 and it was revolting -- stinky slime with small soybeans in it. BUT I ate it to be polite to my Japanese hosts... and lo and behold after about 5 times I found myself wanting more. Now I eat it regularly, and find it delicious. :)

I keep trying to eat natto every time I go to Japan, but I just can't get over the sliminess. I don't find the smell or taste unpalatable -- it's the texture that does me in.

My only advice is try, try again. For me the magic number was 5 days in a row. I'm really glad I acquired the taste/slime-tolerance though, because now it is one of my favorite foods.

If you can already deal with the smell/taste, then you might like it better as in natto-maki form:

https://www.google.com/search?q=natto+maki&client=safari&rls...

I used to have this issue with mushrooms. I mostly got over it by introducing a small amount of mushrooms (buried in other veggies) with my meal. First uncooked (because the texture is not as revolting uncooked) then cooked. Then I emphasized the mushrooms more and more in my meals. Very slowly. Now I mostly like them!

How long did it take you to get used to having a cup of miso soup after every breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

I'm guessing Natto has a similar smell/taste to Korean Cheonggukjang (청국장), which smells like an a pair of wet moldy socks or old shoes, but the moment you get it in your mouth and the flavor your tastebuds detect combines with the smell your nose is gettings, it suddenly makes "sense" and is absolutely delicious -- an incredible hearty flavor with all these wonderful subtle under and overtones (sometimes with a hint of of a kind of smokiness). It's the weirdest taste hack I've ever encountered in food and one of my favorite Korean dishes.

It's made out of a kind of fermented soybean as well.

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

> Are her parents doing anything else but preparing and then washing dishes

I imagine you could pop saran wrap on those dishes, put them in the fridge and keep eating the leftovers the next couple mornings.

Those eleven dishes belong to: Oyku Ozarslan, 9 years old, Istanbul

Japanese food is the most disgusting I know of. Pick any random dish and there's a 50% chance it will be disgusting to me and untrained people in general. That said, it's supposed to be healthy - I would love to like it.

Most food is acquired taste, thabs to our evolved brains that instinctively avoid potential poisons. Eat it five times, don't die, and it becomes palatable

They could likely say the same thing about randomly-selected dishes from your cuisine. You drink milk, like a baby? And not even your own species, but out of the bottom of a cow? And sometimes you let it go bad to the point where it solidifies? And sometimes you take THAT and let it grow MOLD?!

And it's not just the Japanese... Ask a Southern European what they think of Wonder Bread, for example.

The prevalence of Japanese restaurants in the US in recent times disagrees with you.*

*I don't know how authentic these are.

in New Zealand, toast covered with Vegemite, a salty paste made of brewer’s yeast

Up next, a crowd of angry Kiwis heading for the NYT offices. Vegemite is an Australian thing, New Zealanders eat Marmite. (Of course, to an outsider like me, they're both about as palatable as dipping my bread in soy sauce.)

Point of fact - Kiwis eat both Vegemite and Marmite, and the preference is binary and very strong (no-one likes both equally, that I've ever met) and survives the usual jingoism between Aussies and Kiwis.

I am a Kiwi, and like my mother I've a strong preference for Vegemite, though my father and brother are both Marmite people.

My wife is American, and has converted to being a Vegemite-lover after finally experiencing it correctly (NOT a mouthful on a spoon, like all those "look how disgusting Vegemite is" videos show). We did a blind taste test last time we were in New Zealand, and to my surprise we could both correctly tell Vegemite from Marmite, and both preferred Vegemite - even though it's Australian!

Edit: grammar

I like both equally, so you've now "met" one person! I was born and spent my first 8 years in NZ, then moved to Australia.

Freak. Everyone knows that Vegemite is the one true spread. Fun thing you can do with vegemite - get a bunch of French people in a room that have tried vegemite and get them to discuss whether the word is masculine or feminine. Some want feminine because of the 'ite' ending, others want masculine because of the nature of the product :)

I'm convinced Vegemite is something Australians thought up for the sole purpose of annoying British people when they buy it by mistake ;)

Both sounds like derivatives of thermite, so the confusion is at least somewhat justified :)

The breakfast in Istanbul is pretty elaborate. I'd like to live there if I'm eating, but not if I have to do the cooking.

Look carefully. Except for the eggs, none of it needs to be cooked fresh, including the pastry. Cheeses, olives, halvah etc go from fridge to the table, back to fridge, and get restocked on the weekends...

I can only say this from experience traveling around the mediterranean, but this seems to be a pretty common breakfast.

Some olives, feta cheese, a boiled or fried egg, some sliced tomatoes and cucumber, fresh brown bread with butter and some jam or honey. Once prepared you can quickly make little sandwiches, and is quite tasty!

These meals are pretty easy to put together, when tomatoes are good my wife and I often switch off on making breakfast and can whip this up for ourselves pretty quick. It's much more enjoyable than our normal greek yogurt, granola, and fruit.

I was thinking the same thing for the Japanese breakfast. Are those foods prepared beforehand or is someone (probably the mom) waking up early to cook those?

it's a little more elaborate than we genuinely cook every day, but:

Rice - in a rice cooker with timer, so just needs scooped

Natto - from a package

Pumpkin - been made already, prolly leftover from previous night's dinner

Cucumbers - same (those are not fresh, they are in a vinegary sauce)

Eggs -take 5 min, wife makes them every morning

Miso soup - leftover from previous night's dinner

Salmon - leftover from previous night's dinner, or from little "bento sized" frozen packaged & microwaved

The "real" meal is elaborate, but as you can see from above, a lot of it is left over from last night or night before, constantly mixed in for variety

These days, my older girl settles for toast :-)

Planet Money did a great radio program on the (probably the mom) aspect of homelife in Japan - http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/07/19/203372076/will-rob...

Judging from the breakfast, it is easy to understand, why japanese are less overweight than americans.

My kids are 3 (preschool) and 5 (kindergarten). I wake them at 6:30ish and they dawdle down to get dressed and have breakfast, which is typically just some kind of fruit. I then take them to school where they have a morning snack around 9:30. School provides healthy snacks for the younger one -- fresh veg/fruit, crackers, cheese, etc -- and I provide for the elder. I pack lunches for both, and at their request they each get a pb&j on high quality bread, some kind of veg, some kind of fruit, and either yogurt or cheese. Occasionally I'll toss in a homemade dessert, something chocolate or trail mix. They have afternoon snack around 3:00/3:30. School provides something healthy for the younger, I provide something for the elder. Usually it's sliced fruit, but he has an ever-present granola bar in his lunchbox if he's still hungry.

The point is that, while this is moderately healthy food, it's still really basic, simple, inexpensive stuff.

For dinners (and leftovers for my wife's & my lunches), we make a big pot of soup/stew/chili on the weekend, and eat a ton of veggies. We're mostly vegetarian, and pasta, pizza, tofu, eggs, and salmon all make regular appearances during the week. None of it takes long to prep and I work from home so I can get started before picking the kids of from school around 4:30.

I would hate to have to work outside the home and not be able to start thinking about dinner until 6pm or later. We put the kids to bed by 8:30 and we're usually asleep by 9:30.

Your 3 year old is likely not getting enough sleep. A three year old should be sleeping 11-12 hours a day. If waking up at 6:30-ish, around 19:00 she should be in bed sleeping.

My bed time was 8:00pm for the longest time (until I was in 6th grade - then it moved to 9:00). It isn't out of the question she is going to bed at the proper time.

But yes, the National Sleep Foundation says 11-13 hours of sleep a night for a 3 year old and at that age sleep is extremely important for proper brain development.

I'm a little tickled by the author's clear concern about the idea of giving coffee to a child, yet in our society we give adderall - amphetamines - to preschool aged children. Caffeine really seems pretty tame in comparison.

It's not exactly fair to assume that the author isn't also concerned about the prescription of adderall to kids as well.

We give amphetamines to children only with the consent and supervision of a doctor. Whether or not it's a good idea, it's certainly a more controlled environment than just drinking caffeinated beverages on your own schedule.

As a kid in Germany, I used to eat a slice of bread with butter and jam or nutella on it, sometimes with cheese, plus a glass of OJ or milk. Sometimes cornflakes with oatmeal/muesli and cold milk and maybe some fruit, which I still do every morning.

I do enjoy a good hotel breakfast with baked beans, crisp bacon and hash potatoes (plus the normal continental bread/jam/cheese selection), but I wouldn't dream of preparing food myself in the morning when I'm still asleep.

I think there is a lot more variety than one photo suggests. The link someone posted from time magazine, where the weekly food of a family is shown seems to be much more representative (look at the nice fresh vegetables and fruits in non-western countries).

For the record: my german kids breakfast: oatmeal without sugar, dried fruits, milk from the local farmers cow, fresh fruits from our own garden, tea. bread with home made jam (from our gardens fruits ;o). Toast with Nutella only on sundays, but my mothers jam was so much better...

Butterbrot with some kind of spread or cold cuts still seems to be the typical German breakfast. Except for Sundays when the sliced bread is replaced by fresh rolls and possibly croissants.

My favorite breakfast to this day is either a bowl of cold cereal with milk or something like a full-English or some minimized version like eggs and bacon or pancakes without the beans and tomatoes (I'll never understand that) -- hot oatmeal with nuts, raisin and cinnamon (I don't really need sugar with it) will also do fine.

When I travel overseas I like to go "local" with my foods, but breakfast has always been special to me, an almost holy meal. I've never really been able to get into how other places do it. I'll spend exorbitant amounts of money on milk and cereal or eggs and the local sausage analog or whatever or at the very least some kind of pastry and coffee.

I've tried to eat like a local for breakfast, I really really have, but it kind of ruins the start of that day for me for some reason and I've never been able to really shake it.

It's a weakness. But I like to tell myself that the definition of separate food categories just for breakfast is a sign of an advanced civilization (even though most of what I eat is farmer's food) which makes me feel better.

I've heard Indian breakfasts sound quite civilized, I need to try one one of these days.

Talk about food and leave out Indian food? zomg! Here's some food for thought http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/quickstir/lifestyle/24-Li...

I think my quality of life would be vastly improved if I started my day with something like this, but I can neither buy this despite living in a very walkable neighborhod nor see myself developing the habit of organizing and executing it myself.

I think this kind of eating really follows from having a partner and a family. It is much harder to have the kind of motivation to do this on your own. In many cases however I think these are idealized meals, not necessarily everyday meals.

I imagine if they did a photo series on what the worlds bachelors ate for breakfast it would look much different.

P.S. Sorry to assume bachelor status.

Some of them were Saturday breakfasts as well - that certainly inflates the quantity and quality of food on offer.

Maybe it's time to get married?

As an adult, I would have a hard time eating olives for breakfast--and I like them. You know...in salads, on pizza, etc. I cannot fathom a child eating a bowl-full for breakfast. Especially when the bowls of feta-esque cheese and sliced tomatoes are already sort-of daunting.

I'll make a wild guess and say that kids around the world actually eat the equivalent of pop tarts (if they have money) or oatmeal (if they don't).

> I cannot fathom a child eating a bowl-full for breakfast.

They don't do that. The page doesn't make it wonderfully clear, but some of these breakfasts are DIY buffet affairs where of some dishes only a little is used and the rest is put back.

From the Netherlands, when I was young I didn't know many kids who were allowed refined sugar/equivalent for breakfast and now I don't know many parents allowing their kids refined sugar for breakfast. Or at all actually unless at special occasions or in very low quantities. Pop tarts (or equivalent) for breakfast sounds absolutely horrible to be honest. Olives on the other hand...

I grew up on brown bread with cheese for breakfast as did my friends; we are all almost 2 meters tall; is it a coincidence? :)

I'm British and as far as I could see, when visiting in the 80's my very middle class dutch cousins in Eindhoven and Amersfoort practically lived on Chocoladepasta and Hagelslag sandwiches.

http://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2011/03/06/hagelslag/

Uh ... So all the talk about hagelslag is just nonsense? I haven't tasted it, but just from the looks of it I'd say it probably contains quite a lot of refined sugar. And it seems to be very popular with kids (as the article says).

Disclaimer: I'm from Sweden, but I've been to the Netherlands quite a lot.

Nope, I know a lot of kids from school who eat that stuff like crazy. Not my hippy mom though haha. But it wasn't at all on the list of 'things other kids have that I wan't but can't get', I still don't like it to this day. It's basically bread with sugar, which is pretty ridiculous considering the bread itself contains plenty of sugar.

I really wish we'd be eating more warm and more green in the morning. Fruits are great, but they're also sugar bombs. So when I see a tiny kid eat a kiwi (sugar bomb), a glass of pure orange juice (two oranges full of sugar-juice), bread (carbohydrate-bomb that gets turned into sugar) with jam (full of sugar, made of fruits) and milk with chocolate cereal (more sugar!) I'd be surprised if that kid couldn't concentrate in class. For one, that's the volume of food I might eat in the morning (at 80kg), but with much less sugar.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-sugar, I eat fruits and jams and bread every day. But some of these breakfasts seem completely unbalanced.

Hope to see more oatmeal like the Icelander kid!

Funny to see kids in Brazil drink coffee. Reminds me of having coffee as a kid (cafe late late late though, more milk than coffee) in Morocco when I was young.

No :) I said I was not allowed, nor were most of my friends nor are most kids of my friends now. Just on special occasions and then the darkest kind (pure hagelslag). The about being the tallest (we are) was a joke; that works (apparently) fine with Hagelslag as well.

I've been eating bread with butter and chocolate sprinkles and a glass of milk for over thirty years. When I was in school in the 1980s/1990s almost everyone would regularly eat bread with sprinkles.

I looked up the ingredients of the package with sprinkles in my fridge and per 100g, 66g are sugars. I just made one serving (two slices of buttered bread sandwiched with one layer of chocolate sprinkles) and the sprinkles weigh about 23g. So, for me, per day, that'd be about 50g of sprinkles, or 33g of sugar.

I've been in most of those countries (long enough to know about their breakfasts) and can attest these are very accurate. But stepping back a bit, it's not too surprising a somewhat in-depth piece of investigative journalism on the new york times is more accurate than someone on the internet's ... "wild guess".

From my experience, these are accurate. In many countries, the morning meal does not differ much from the other meals of the day, and will consist of things that Americans find quite strange.

olives, tomato and feta makes a very nice breakfast. As does Greek yoghurt and honey. Oats do not grow in Greece, so probably cost more - oatmeal is a Scottish/northern countries thing, not really very universal. And poptarts, yuk.

When I was a kid in Scotland my favourite breakfast was what we called rollies (AKA butteries or Aberdeen rolls) - a particular treat was having them served with scrambled egg inside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttery_%28bread%29

Why? The strong taste? Well my sister used to be absolutely obsessed with olives when she was very very young. I never understood it myself, I didn't like them as a kid. I tried them again in adulthood and loved them. I could easily eat a bowl of olives. In fact I have.

I had pop tarts when I was 6 years old and went on a trip to the USA with my family. It was horribly sweet and not at all delicious. On the other hand, peanut butter was an enjoyable discovery.

Pop tarts for breakfast? That’s insane :D And I would think people with money would generally give their kids a healthier breakfast than so.

I live in North India and my mom used to give me a varied breakfast every morning. It includes Aloo da paratha with Butter or Cream Parantha with Hot cup of milk SOmetimes Daliya or vermicelli Many a times I used to get cooked spicy vegetables with baked bread (roti)

My breakfast was never boring. Everymorning I ate something different from the last 7 days.

The breakfast on sundays used to be memorable.

I love the fact that (in the UK at least) Nutella is marketed as a "hazelnut spread", presumably so that parents can give it to their kids without all that pesky guilt that surrounds giving your children chocolate.

I still remember the excitement of this exotic foreign goo first making it to our shores, a schoolfriend bringing a jar to my house as if it were some sacred relic.

Breakfast in San Salvador, El Salvador, means . Hot tamales - usually with salty with chicken or sweet. . Fried eggs and beans with cheese . A side of plantains and a toasted tortilla . Hand crafted hot chocolate and coffee . Mango juice with a speck of pinnaple

Glad we live in a world so diverse in even the little things we eat in our mornings.

If you drink orange juice with breakfast frequently, you might want to reconsider: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/misunderst...

Reconsider because the producers add "flavor packets"? Why would this scare me? Because of the sugar? It's no mystery there's sugar in there, otherwise the beverage wouldn't be sweet.

I'll continue to drink my "fresh-squeezed" juice. Thanks anyway for the promo-scare piece.

Natto for breakfast in Japan ? This claim is completely unfounded. Tons of Japanese actually HATE natto themselves.

As I commented above, my 2-year-old eats natto with rice for breakfast every morning. ("Natto, the stinky slime-encased beans that kids ask for by name!®")

Also, when I go to my Japanese wife's parents house, the whole family often has natto on top of rice as part of breakfast, often with chopped onions or thin sliced okra on it.

And, I myself came to like natto after forcing it down a few times at breakfast to be polite to my host family the first time I visited Japan 25 years ago.

So I'm pretty sure it is common to eat natto for breakfast in Japan. There are surely some people who hate it, though -- but lots of kids hate takoyaki, too.

I visited a Western friend recently in Tokyo and he introduced me to natto. I of course hated it! He really got into the Japanese culture and eats it with rice for breakfast most days.

in kansai, people don't usually eat natto. In kanto, they would. For breakfast, it depends if you're traditional or not. At a hotel, it would not be surprising to be served natto for breakfast.

Enough with the "Kansai people don't eat natto" thing, that's just not true. I lived in Kansai for years, and there were like a dozen brands of natto on supermarket shelves, everywhere. Big beans, small beans, with sauce and mustard, with just mustard, with added kombu taste, treated with "stink-less" process, you name them. My neighborhood sushi place had natto-maki prominently on the menu. If you order a traditional Japanese breakfast at an upscale restaurant in Osaka, it will most likely include natto.

Lots of Japanese like natto, lots of Japanese don't like natto. Go to France and you'll find the same thing is true of blue cheese.

Maybe natto is slightly more popular in Kanto. Maybe it wasn't common in Kansai 100 years ago and that's how the myth started. But let's stop staying Kansai people don't usually eat natto, when it's plain to see that's not the case.

If I would have said, "Kanto people don't usually eat Okonomiyaki" would you also have replied in a similar way?

I dont really see a difference in American eating habits when compared to Europe. Most of them looked like variations of the same thing. I would love to eat chocolate bread when I was younger every morning like Amsterdam. The biggest difference is the American/Europe vs Asia (Japan/Korea).

In Australia, McDonald's is exceptionally busy in the morning for the drive-through and the sit-down areas. Lots of parents bring their children there before school. At least the one in Albion, Brisbane.

Two from Malawi, two from Brazil, two from Turkey, two from Japan. It was an interesting piece, but I guess the writer and photographer couldn't get as much of the world in as they would have liked.

Nitpick: The rice porridge, 粥, eaten in China is only called 'jook' (zuk1) in Cantonese speaking parts, like Hong Kong.

It's called 'joe' (zhōu) in Mandarin speaking parts (i.e. most of China).

I don´t believe that in some countries one prepares 12 different foods for breakfast every day. This only reflects "pretending" attitude of those countries when they know someone is looking.

It probably takes a lot less time than frying up bacon and eggs. Remember that these are typically large extended families, and those are usually communal dishes. So there might be 12 foods in the middle of the table, but 6-12 people are helping themselves from the dishes. The other thing to remember is that most, if not all, of those foods are leftovers and/or prepared ahead of time in large quantities. It doesn't take long to pull stuff out of the fridge and put it on the table.

I enjoyed reading about breakfast while eating mine. I had pumpkin soup and toast. In my opinion, soup is highly underrated as breakfast food (in the Western world at least).

Missing my favorite: Denmark. The best pastries in the world + a wide variety of cold cuts, cheeses and spreads with lots of butter and rye bread.

Wow, so much sugar in the Netherlands breakfast. My hippie mom would turn over in her grave if we ate that for breakfast!

Hagelslag is delicious, but yeah, even one piece of bread with the stuff on makes me a bit sick to my stomach with the sweetness.

God, I could never stand Rooh-e-Afza growing up. I guess I should go turn in my brown person badge.

Italian breakfast usually is made of:

* a bowl of cereals, or

* a glass of milk, cookies, jam, or

* croissant/pastry, coffee/cappuccino.

ahhh i miss the great traditional breakfast in Tokyo . It took a while to get used to cold fish and rice for breakfast, but I ended up loving it.

Also worth mentioning is Tamago kake gohan (egg rice), literally raw egg over rice mixed together

In that dish is the rice hot? Does the egg end up semi-cooked? I really hate most convenient American breakfast foods because I don't like to eat sweet stuff in the morning. Egg and rice sounds pretty appealing and very convenient.

Did you live in Tokyo?

Following can be used for healthy breakfast. Boiled eggs. Milk + oats. Fruits.

Great photography.

When I was in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) for a while, I tried out some restaurants and foods of various cuisines. (Many of the malls in KL had food courts with different ethnic food specialities.) Quite good. Roti canai (pronounced roti chanai) was one good item (among many - mentioning it because it is a breakfast item, the topic of this thread). It is like an Indian paratha, but with a bit more fat/oil used to make it. In the places where I ate it, they served it with an egg spread and cooked into the top surface of the roti. Almost a breakfast in itself, with some tea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roti_canai

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratha

Or what I ate could have been roti telur, since it had egg in it (according to the first Wikipedia article above).

That is, in fact, roti telur! you can fold in a variety things into roti canai:

- roti bawang (onion) - roti sardin (canned sardines) - roti pisang (banana)

I had a roti pisang at home in KL last month and nearly wept at the impossibility of finding this anywhere else.

Cool, thanks for confirming it. Good to know about the other variations of roti canai. Hope you find some of those items you like in other places eventually :)

No breakfast for http://www.rediff.com/business/report/india-is-home-to-13rd-...

What about the common man that has nothing for breakfast?

And what about the 16,000 kids that die everyday because of hunger?

Great photos (although possibly not showing those kids' typical breakfasts, but something they came up with for the photo session), somewhat boring text. But my gripe with this article is mainly that it's the year 2014 and a famous US-based publication would have the means (financial and technological) to produce something that would live up to the expectations raised by the title: representative dishes from many more than just a handful of countries, not a few shiny pictures for a 10 minute read, but instead something that could actually be used a reference and at some point become a publication of historical value. The TIME article linked in the comments does it much better.

tl;dr - sad times: hyperbole everywhere and "fast food" journalism. Someone ought to do it properly.

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