24 Nov 2024
Elena Hogg, founder of local culinary company FOOD by Elena, has been preparing some delicious and healthy breakfasts…
I have recently started to pay a little more attention to breakfast. I have always self-identified as ‘not a breakfast person’ and have spent my adult life largely ignoring this meal in favour of meaningful coffee consumption. No distractions allowed.
Please don’t misunderstand me: it’s not the food per se that puts me off. I enjoy breakfast food for brunch or even lunch most weekends, in fact. But for some reason, early morning has always been an appetite-free time of day for me. Imore than make up for it later on, rest assured.
The myriad benefits of having breakfast expounded by health experts are getting harder and harder to ignore. Whilst I am certain plenty of folk who never eat breakfast are perfectly healthy (my mother is one of them, in fact), I can also see where the plus-points are.
Mid-morning energy slumps are nigh on eradicated after a filling breakfast, meaning you have a half-chance of making it to midday without having gorged on pastries, biscuits, or anything else in reach. Fall prey to those pernicious temptations and the healthy lunch you’d planned gets left in the fridge while you promise yourself you’ll do better the next day.
So now I am adopting a new breakfast mantra. It’s very simple: have some. I get a little weary of the health bloggers telling me to eat a protein-packed breakfast omelette with roasted vegetables, cheese, spinach, mushrooms, herbs and spices.
Not quick or simple in my book because I barely have time to brush my hair before the school run, so I will be leaving the breakfast eggs for those who are far more ‘morning people’ than me.
Yes, I’m a night owl rather than an early bird, so I do anything I can to front-end the workload to the night before. Overnight oats have been a true saviour in this regard. For those who’ve never been to a dieting club (where overnight oats seem to be the answer to everything), you add yoghurt to some oats and add berries or other soft fruit, give it a mix and leave it in the fridge overnight. The oats absorb all the moisture and plump up to a porridge-y consistency by morning.
Granted, it’s not the ultimate in sophistication, but for those of us lacking ante meridiem organisation skills, something prepared the night before is useful.
Having a tupperware filled with a good mix of seeds, nuts and dried fruit is a huge time-saver too: if you’ve not managed to prep anything the night before, just a simple bowl of jumbo oats (moresatisfyingly chewy than their non-jumbo counterparts – size does matter) with a handful of this protein-packed mix scattered over with milk is actually really delicious. I get unreasonably excited to see what morsel I’ll spoon in next: might it be some dried papaya? A macadamia?
This bowl of fun was initially inspired by a really tasty açaì bowl the husband and I enjoyed a couple of years ago at a lovely little eatery called Hula in Edinburgh (see photo). I remember finding every bite inspiring, especially as I realised how feasible it should be to recreate at home.
The base is coconut milk and banana whizzed up. You can use any kind of cow-provided or plant-based milk instead of coconut, and add any kind of nut butter for extra thickness, though I have to say that dolloping some directly into the bowl adds to that sense of delight when your spoon happens upon some.
You can then add oats or granola for a carb hit, then nuts or chia, pumpkin or sunflower seeds for protein. Lastly, pop in some colourful berries or satsuma segments, some chopped apple or pear, some plum or peach slices – whatever you have or is seasonal. This busy bowl of yum elicits a huge feeling of wellbeing as you eat it and, because of the possible variations, is hard to tire of.
Granted, a bowl this busy does require more time than the four nanoseconds I usually have spare, but if I’m focussed, really not much more. It’s amazing how quickly a banana can be peeled.
Get the thing made, and worry about the clean-up later. The Nutribullet I make the base in gets left to soak in the sink, while the kitchen surfaces are festooned with banana peel, apple cores and wayward chia seeds. But I’d rather sit for a few minutes to eat than clear up, which can be done later.
My other quick-but-nutritious breakfast is wholemeal toast. I used to have butter and Marmite on my toast, or sometimes marmalade. Now, however, I have learned what carbs sans protein or fats do to the glucose levels thanks to the Glucose Goddess blog, so I pile my toast with posh peanut butter – the kind with no added salt or sugar, because actually the peanutty taste is so indulgent I can manage without the extra nasties. Especially if I buy the crunchy kind.
In short, as long as there’s some protein or fat, the bread doesn’t spike your blood sugars and send you into a carb coma before your morning’s even got going. It’s a game-changer.
Avocado does the same job, so if you’re more of a savoury eater early in the day, spoon some avocado out of its skin and onto your toast with a squeeze of lime and a twist of black pepper – again, nothing too time-consuming or fussy.
In truth, some mornings are so rushed that all I can do is rip a banana from its bunch and shovel a handful of pumpkin seeds down my throat as I shimmy a coat on. But the difference even that makes to the rest of the day’s eating is startling.
Perhaps there’s a psychological element to it: I’ve made an effort (albeit small) to nourish myself, so the wheel for good choices is in motion. Or perhaps it’s very much the physical effect of minimising blood sugar roller coasters.
Wheels and fairground rides aside, breakfast is powerful. It must be if I’m somehow starting to become ‘a breakfast person’, even dare I say ‘a morning person’. Whatever next?
