We’ve been telling ourselves for 100 years that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day.” The problem is that it is not true

They’ve been hammering us with that slogan for so long that it should be true. That is, if from different speakers they proclaim that under no circumstances should we skip breakfast, it will be because it is lunch. most important of the day. But how we already pointed herethe studies on which they have relied to affirm this are conclusive. It also does not seem true that it is good to have breakfast to “start the day with energy”, nor that it reduces our appetite throughout the day.

So who and why started proclaiming it? The history of breakfast is like many other social uses, something that has more to do with the roots of the context from which it came than with an innate need of our body to practice it.

Several things came together between the 19th and 20th centuries so that breakfast became established as just another meal in Western societies. The first, the change of production model. Before, workers, mostly rural and dedicated to work in the fields, ate breakfast quickly whatever was out therelike last night’s leftovers.

It wasn’t so much a meal as it was an appetizer. With the arrival of cities and the industrial revolution, work schedules were established. The workers, who spent the entire day working, saw the benefit of eating something before going to work.

From 1822 onwards

And here things started to get interesting. Progressively, the more money American workers were able to earn, they ate more meat. It was the star product to eat in the morning. They could prepare a meatloaf, a chicken or beef dish in the same way they would at lunch or dinner time.

And all of this cooked with butter. The dyspepsia or indigestion became a public health problem on the level that obesity is now. The people of North America ate poorly, foods that were too heavy and altered their intestinal flow.

The 19th century was also the time when western doctors They began to worry about nutritional health, germs and, later, vitamins. Thus, while the newspapers and magazines harshly criticized the problems caused by dyspepsiathe industry and the market naturally looked for a substitute. There came muesli and cereals, then minimally processed flour or corn that in many cases had to be soaked before consumption.

The initial flavor and appearance of the cereals was that of military porridgebut they were attractive to a large part of the consumers: it seemed like a “health” productnot like those red meats that prevented good circulation. Furthermore, it was a food that I didn’t need to be preparedas easy as putting them together with a little milk so you can swallow them and go to work.

Replacing big meals in the morning with a light product The health of the population improved, which is why many doctors and cereal merchants used this slogan to expand their consumption: breakfast is the most important meal of the dayand that is why you should take care of yourself early in the morning. Is practically the same idea of ​​health that whole grain houses continue to sell us so that we can lose weight.

Corn flakes arrive

Breakfast then began to be seen as the solution to all the problems. For the little ones, without a good breakfast they would not be able to reach their maximum level of effort at school. Also alcoholism It was caused by lack of food in the morning. According to certain prestigious doctors of the period, morning hunger encouraged the employee to begin to abuse the bottle until he became dependent on it. Some vendors went even further and talked about how their cereals They could cure malaria and appendicitis.

Already then the cereal was promoted as “organic” foodAs we see today, some products are sold more expensive and not necessarily with better nutritional results. But the beneficial halo of the cereal remained and extended to the breakfast ritual, whether it was processed wheat, fruits or other foods. breakfast had come to stay.

From the 19th and 20th centuries we move to the 21st century, when the saying, never sufficiently proven by science, has already been established as an immovable truth. Cereals have long been no longer tasteless porridge but small ones processed sugar balls in boxes with smiling animals that bill billions of dollars a year.

And there is another agent that, for years, has been interested in making sure you remember that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and, therefore, eat quite well: fast food chains. Some essays have pointed out how the marketing of companies like McDonalds or Starbucks is being much more aggressive in morning products such as McMuffins or cheesecakes than in foods at lunch or dinner time.

According to them, the new big dispute is here. While many workers have already decided on their meal locations, there is an increase in people who is going to breakfast at chains outside the house. And how mornings are the time for routinehumans tend to choose one place or another to have our breakfast and not leave the pattern except in case of emergency.

If McDonalds gets you to go to their establishment in the morning, in a way you are marrying them gastronomically. And, well, you know, it’s the first meal, so it’s okay if it’s a little excessive, you’ll burn it off throughout the day (this, as we already explained, it is not completely contrasted).

Thus, from a creditable beginning in which citizens’ nutrition was improved, we have moved to a point where the industry has been adapting to our tastes and modifying our diet to the point of harming us all. Although, if we think about it, the phrase is still as true now as it was 300 years ago: “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” It is the most important. And the most discussed.

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