Why do we eat cereal for breakfast?

Norman Swan: Well, Tegan, what's the worst breakfast you've ever had?

Tegan Taylor: That is a tricky one for me because I am a passionate breakfast lover and I'm trying to think beyond, you know, maybe burnt toast. How about yourself?

Norman Swan: Undercooked black pudding in Glasgow.

Tegan Taylor: Oh, ugh, that is a visceral reaction.

Norman Swan: Well, you're listening to What's That Rash?, not What's That Vomit?, but What's That Rash?, a podcast answering all the questions everyone's asking. I'm Norman Swan on Gadigal land.

Tegan Taylor: And I'm Tegan Taylor on Jagera and Turrbal land. And today's topic is breakfast.

Norman Swan: So today's question is from Eliza.

Eliza: Hi, ABC. So, my friend and I were having an argument over what counts as breakfast food. And they were saying pancakes and bacon and eggs and things like that, that's all breakfast foods. But I was saying anything can be a breakfast food, you just have to eat it at the start of the day. We're just wondering what the research says and what we should probably actually be having for breakfast.

Tegan Taylor: I actually wanted to start with Eliza saying 'what is breakfast food?' because philosophically I know that she asked for a research and evidence based answer, which I absolutely will give, but also, to just weigh in with my own two cents; technically breakfast is when you break your fast, so maybe anything you eat for the first time when you're eating that day is breakfast.

Norman Swan: Well, I suppose it doesn't mean to say…in the olden times, presumably that could be midday when you break your fast, not necessarily when you wake up, just when you start eating.

Tegan Taylor: Yeah, exactly. And the thing that I found kind of interesting, and when you think about it, it makes complete sense that breakfast foods are usually foods that you don't need to do a lot of preparing, you don't need to go out and kill a beast or go and harvest and grind some grain, you're using something that's already in your house. So sometimes it's leftovers, sometimes it's eggs, because you can just collect them from your chookies in the morning. Or yeah, it's bread or porridge, something that is relatively easy to prepare at home.

Norman Swan: Didn't they have wine for breakfast in the 15th century?

Tegan Taylor: You do you remember that time? Is that what you were having for breakfast?

Norman Swan: Yeah, that's my childhood.

Tegan Taylor: I mean, yeah, wine and beer were pretty much breakfast drinks. I think it was only a couple of 100 years ago that coffee and tea overtook beer as the main drink at breakfast time, which brings me to the point of breakfast…

Norman Swan: What, the hair of the dog, to actually get a bit sloshed?

Tegan Taylor: No, to give you energy for the day. That's why coffee is a must for so many people, but it should influence the foods we eat too. I do have a fun little story about coffee and stimulants though, if you want to hear it.

Norman Swan: Go on, stimulate me.

Tegan Taylor: Well, you don't even know how on the ball that joke is because you know Kellogg's the cereal brand, it was invented by two brothers whose surname was Kellogg, the hint is in the name, and they invented cornflakes, of course, as well as other breakfast cereals.

Norman Swan: So, morning cardboard, yeah.

Tegan Taylor: Exactly. Because, in part, they ran a sanatorium, it was meant to be for people who are recovering, they need easy-to-digest foods, but a subtext of what they were looking at doing with these very plain bland, easy-to-digest foods was reducing people's carnal urges. And they thought that people were less likely to masturbate if they ate a bland diet, as compared to stimulating substances like tea and coffee.

Norman Swan: Gosh, I'm never gonna go near a box of cornflakes ever again. Masturbation aside, Tegan, and coming back to poor Eliza's question, she's desperate for an answer. So let's go to the recipe. I mean, if you go to any hipster part of Australia, they're sitting there in the outside of the cafe regardless of what the outside temperature is, they're having mashed avocado…

Tegan Taylor: I knew smashed avo was going to come up in this conversation.

Norman Swan: Scrambled eggs, lashings of coffee. Occasionally when they're feeling guilty, granola. Is there any sense of what we should be eating?

Tegan Taylor: For starters, I will not hear a bad word said about granola, it is my preferred breakfast food and I love it. And if anyone wants my homemade granola recipe, they can DM me. But in terms of what you should be having for breakfast, like any meal, you want a balance of carbs, protein and fats. You want to aim for complex carbs, things like bread, oats, maybe even some rice. Complex carbs are good because they take longer to digest, they keep you fuller for longer. And that's the case for protein too. Your protein might be an egg or some yoghurt and you want to aim for unsaturated fats, so avocado, nuts, so that's why it's not just a millennial thing, smashed avo with an egg on top, it's got everything you need.

Norman Swan: Except the payments for your mortgage.

Tegan Taylor: Touché! But look, the research on skipping or not skipping breakfast is mixed. Breakfast eating in general, like regular breakfast consumption is associated with things like improved weight control, better cognitive function, cardio metabolic health. And then there's also been a study that's looked at breakfast consumption in a whole lot of different countries, mostly Western countries, places like Canada, France, the UK and the US, and what they found…this isn't saying what you should eat, but this is what people are eating, they tend to be a nutrient rich meal, usually quite a lot of carbohydrates.

Norman Swan: Which makes sense, by the way, because specifically what's happening in the body overnight is that the body stops metabolising glucose, which is the basic energy currency of the body, and starts to break down fatty acids, fat basically, to fatty acids in the liver, and metabolises the fatty acids into energy, and that produces ketones, so you become ketotic. In other words, sleep is ketogenic. You want a ketogenic diet? Well, this is a ketogenic sleep. And that's actually quite good for the body. It reduces oxidative stress, biological rusting, it reduces inflammation, it probably improves the circadian rhythm of the body in terms of our metabolism. But we also wake up…if you're ketotic overnight then you're going to have a carbohydrate craving.

Tegan Taylor: Yeah, right. And, I mean, it's meeting that need, if that is a need. So the energy is more towards the carbs and less protein and fats compared to the rest of the day.

Norman Swan: And you don't mention bacon and eggs at all.

Tegan Taylor: Well, it's funny you should mention that because I do have a story about bacon and eggs and how they got their space in the breakfast foods pantheon. And it's because of Edward Bernays, known as the father of spin.

Norman Swan: Not the father of the sauce, we're not talking about eggs benedict.

Tegan Taylor: Not the father of béarnaise sauce. But basically what happened was in the 1920s people were eating less substantial breakfasts because people started working in factories and offices, industrial revolution things…

Norman Swan: And not wanting to masturbate, we've got all that.

Tegan Taylor: Exactly, you've got the main points. Anyway, sales of Beech-Nut Bacon, a particular brand of bacon were falling off, and so Bernays (not the sauce) contacted 5,000 doctors, and asked whether they agreed that a larger meal in the morning would improve people's health. 4,500 physicians agreed. It's like the initial original 'nine out of ten doctors agree'. And he ran with it and all the newspapers ran with it as well, this idea that doctors agreed that you should be having a substantial breakfast in the morning and bacon and eggs.

Norman Swan: And did the sales of bacon take off?

Tegan Taylor: Oh, sales took off, absolutely. Also, Bernays lived until he was 103 years old, so…

Norman Swan: Death defying, in a sense. But of course that was the time when nine out of ten doctors were saying that you should be smoking Virginia Slims for the best of your health.

Tegan Taylor: Oh, he actually was a pro-smoking guy. Actually, he campaigned for equal access to cigarettes, he was all about equal rights, women smoked too. And in an attempt to basically sell more cigarettes he created this equal rights campaign around women being able to smoke in public without fear of being stigmatised.

Norman Swan: Great. All right, so we've got the answer to Eliza's question now, so you have bacon and eggs, if you want to have sex, don't have Kellogg's, you can have a beer, you can have wine, you can have a packet of Virginia Slims, smoke yourself…

Tegan Taylor: No, shut up, Dr Norman Swan, no, don't listen to him, listen to me, people, listen to me. It's very serious, Tegan time now; the things you should be having for breakfast are high quality nutrients, complex carbohydrates, healthy sources of protein, maybe some unsaturated fats in there. Give yourself a great start to the day by eating great food. You should be eating it at any time of the day, but why not at breakfast as well.

Norman Swan: I'm suitably chastised, and if you want to chastise either of us (but it will be me, I'm sure), send your questions into thatrash@abc.net.au.

Tegan Taylor: Or on Instagram, you can DM us, we're @ABChealth. Thanks so much for listening to us throughout the holidays, and we'll catch you next time.

Norman Swan: See you next time.