Breakfast Is Canceled

New research indicates that for some people, breakfast may be a waste of time

Angela Lashbrook
Elemental

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Photo: Raimund Koch/Getty Images

BBreakfast has always been my favorite meal of the day. As a kid, I’d pour myself one heaping bowl of Life cereal, then another, lingering at the table while I read a book. My breakfast is much healthier now — I make probably the best scrambled eggs you’ll ever have, and my love of Shredded Wheat (not frosted!) is practically an obsession — but I still rely on it, every single morning, to get me up and going.

My adoration of breakfast and semi-healthyish approach to it was heavily bolstered by the belief that I was doing something absolutely essential for my well-being.

Not only was breakfast a true pleasure, but it was the most important meal of the day! A giver of the force! My parents never had to compel me to eat it; I woke up each morning overjoyed with visions of an overflowing bowl of cereal with the perfect amount of milk. I would die if I didn’t eat breakfast, and those people who skipped it, who weren’t hungry in the morning or who didn’t have time to sit down with a Dear America novel and a bowl of Special K, were basically doing little more than standing in an execution line.

But increasingly, nutrition researchers realize that what we’ve been fed (ha) about breakfast is a misunderstanding…

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Angela Lashbrook
Elemental

I’m a columnist for OneZero, where I write about the intersection of health & tech. Also seen at Elemental, The Atlantic, VICE, and Vox. Brooklyn, NY.