I am pretty excited this morning, because today’s the day that the grounds manager from a small local college is coming over to spend a few hours helping me salvage a row of overgrown, antique quince bushes and convert a small corner of my yard into an edible garden.  I expect that we’ll be working pretty hard, so before he gets here I need to eat breakfast, and that’s what we’ll be discussing today.

Well then, what’s for breakfast?  In one word? Protein.  In three words?  Not refined carbohydrate.  For more on why not, read here,  here, and here.

When I stayed in a youth hostel in Cairo, Egypt, many years ago, breakfast consisted of steaming bowls of mashed fava beans.  In Germany the breakfast tables were filled with plates of thinly sliced cheeses and meats.  In Israel, we ate soft cheeses, cucumber and tomato salads, and roasted eggplant.  Where refrigeration is less common, people typically eat the leftovers from dinner when they awaken. 

The six major categories of protein include meats, eggs, fish, beans, nuts and dairy.  Now I’m not saying you have to eat them all.  Just pick what you like from among all these choices.  Want some examples?  OK — here goes.

In the meats department, you could have a leftover hamburger.  Or ribs.  Or heat up some chicken wings from last night.  Yes, for breakfast.  In the Midwest, you know, a typical breakfast 150 years ago might have been a pork chop and a cup of coffee with real cream.  They didn’t have a diabetes epidemic then.  Want something more exotic?  Check your refrigerator.  Chopped liver maybe?  Anything goes, from aspic to venison, or veal, if you prefer. 

Don’t care for meat?  What about fish?  There’s smoked whitefish, catfish, tuna (straight from the can if you’re in a hurry), sardines of course, kippered salmon, leftover trout, cod or shellfish, though I expect the chances are slim that you’d find much leftover lobster.  Still…

Eggs.  My favorite, hands down.  Boiled, fried, scrambled, poached.  You can crack one into a little ramekin containing a spoonful of basil pesto. Put the dish into a water bath (loaf pan with 2 inch water) and stick it in the toaster oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes.  You cannot believe how extraordinary this recipe is until you taste it.

For really busy people, nuts are a mainstay of healthy breakfast eating.  When my children were younger, particularly the one who did not usually appear downstairs until 2 minutes before the bus was scheduled to come, I would run plastic spoons along the surface of the peanut butter and hand them over, calling them “peanut butter lollipops.”  A short time later, on my own way out, I would collect the empty spoons from the mailbox at the top of the driveway.  Peanuts not your thing?  Try almond butter, or cashew butter.  It’s not cheap, but then again you don’t have to eat it every day.  I also keep a jar of peanut butter at the office for the 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. hungries. 

Then there are the nuts themselves.  If you keep a bag of nuts in the car, you can eat a handful or two on the way to work.  This has to be the easiest way to eat breakfast!  If your excuse is that you don’t have time to eat breakfast, this is the way to go!  Don’t care for peanuts?  No problem.  Try almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts…did I miss any?  Buy a different kind each time, or make a trail mix from a few.  The more the merrier.  Don’t buy coated nuts.  Make sure to avoid salted nuts, especially if you have salt-sensitive high blood pressure.  You want to buy pure, unadulterated nuts.  I would also suggest storing large bags in the refrigerator or freezer to protect their fragile oils.  They will keep fresh a lot longer. 

Allergic to nuts?  No problem.  Substitute sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

Now let’s talk about beans.  Maybe there’s some lentil soup in your refrigerator, or a three-bean salad.  If you have refried beans, you could heat them up in the microwave with some cheddar melted on top.  Hummus and tahini are great choices for breakfast.  Scoop them up with slices of cucumber, celery sticks, carrots or even apples. 

What about a burrito?  Is it ok to eat a whole-grain tortilla for breakfast? 
Here are your guidelines for eating grain at breakfast time:  If you are 1) diabetic, 2) pre-diabetic (at high risk), or 3) more than 30 lbs. overweight, do not eat grain for breakfast.  Can’t deal with that?  OK, maybe one serving once a week, like at a Sunday brunch, or on another special occasion.  Otherwise, stay away.  It’s making you sick. 

Why?  Because grain requires a ton of insulin to metabolize.  Even whole grain.  Worse, stripped grain requires even more insulin.  Stripped (refined) grain requires an absurdly enormous load of insulin to digest and metabolize.  Remember that insulin works less efficiently in the morning, and learning to eat smart is all about learning to conserve your insulin.  So if you eat refined carbohydrate at breakfast time, not only are you wasting your body’s insulin, but you are wasting it at the exact time of day when it works worst.  That’s like hitting a man when he’s already down.  Don’t do it.  Eat plenty of fresh produce with your high-protein breakfast instead.  Especially vegetables.

Now, as long as you do not fit into one of the above 3 categories, you should feel free to incorporate some grain into your breakfasts — BUT it must be a whole-grain product. 

Lastly, let’s discuss dairy.  Last week’s post about yogurt works.  So does cheese, and milk.  Less well known, but just as good, are kefir, clabber, and so on.  Goats milk works, just like all the other mammals whose milk is consumed by humans, although not commonly in America.  What kind of cheese?  You name it, as long as it doesn’t contain the words “processed” or “food.”  If someone has to tell you it’s food, it probably isn’t. 

So what did I choose for breakfast?  Leftover guacamole, tomatoes, and 3 generous slices of jarlsberg (a type of swiss) cheese.  A cup of tea with real cream.  And 1 banana for good measure.  Now watch me garden!