“Wakey wakey, rise and shine, put your warm feet on the cold floor!” This was what my silly grandpa used to sing-song to my Mum and her sisters early on a cold wintery morning. Fifty years ago, with no central heat, they would have to reach out and the first thing they felt upon day break was startlingly cold tiled floors. Today most of us have the luxury of central heating, rugs and wall to wall carpeting. But we don’t even think of them as luxuries any more. We have computers, Blackberrys, the World Wide Web, flat screen TVs, McDonalds, Wendys and on the go breakfast drive thrus. We’re so much more advanced than we were 50 years ago. Or are we?

After my Mum and her sisters touched ground, they would scurry downstairs to eat the most important meal of the day, which is breakfast! On cold winter mornings none of them were permitted to leave the house without the staple, a steaming hot bowl of porridge, sweetened, of course, with a spoonful of molasses.

Say what, you might ask? Well, porridge, in England, would be what you know as oatmeal. But porridge conjures much more meager, even dower and certainly unappetizing images doesn’t it? Perhaps something like the Dickensian Oliver Twist and that famous line, “Please sir, can I have some more?” Twist was referring to porridge. So for the purpose of this article, we’ll be sure to refer to porridge as oatmeal. But more about “oatmeal” later.

Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day because our brains need glucose, in other words fuel, in order to work properly and by that I mean walk, talk, think, or, heaven forbid, work. Skipping breakfast means that you’ve probably gone about fourteen hours until you finally re-fuel at lunch. Until then you’d have nothing in your body to help it work and as a result, its forced to labor on almost empty. Therefore your brain won’t be working nearly as well as it should be, you won’t think as quickly, solve problems as well, be alert and even in a good mood. Also, missing breakfast could mean that you’re missing out on important nutrients. Many breakfast foods contain large amounts of vitamin C and D, calcium, iron and fiber, which are hard to find in meals later in the day. Many people don’t eat breakfast because they believe skipping it will help them to lose weight. False! Your body will only lose its sense of satiety signals (meaning it won’t know when it’s full) so not eating in the morning leads to overeating later in the day. Also, if ones body is starved at certain times (like the yo-yo dieting syndrome), it will only store carbs and sugars when it finally gets them so as not to be left on empty when the next starvation occurs, therefore also adding weight. It’s actually more healthy and weight conscientious to eat small and regular meals.

So now that we’ve established that breakfast is just about imperative to our health – what should we eat for it?

These days there are so many breakfast cereals on the market that almost mile long grocery store aisles are devoted to them. There’s Cocoa Pops and flakes with raisins, strawberries and the like. There are sweetened clusters of goodness-knows-what and loops with fruit, pop tarts and muffins galore. But a careful look at the labels of breakfast cereals reveals they are drenched in sugar and that all too familiar and not so health-conscious fructose syrup. I have a girlfriend who used to eat a blueberry muffin for breakfast, but was horrified when I pointed out that she was basically eating cake to start the day. Only yesterday I tried to find a simple box of Bran flakes, without raisins or blueberries, just a simple and healthy cereal, no bells and whistles and certainly no fructose syrup. But in a sea of literally hundreds of choices, I couldn’t find any. So why do we start the day so carelessly, especially when there is two feet of snow and temperatures are freezing outside? Could it be that even after 50 years my “Silly Grandpa” still knows best?

According to the American Cancer Society, oatmeal is one of the best things to eat in the a.m. It’s also proven to be very good for your heart, and recently, I saw a segment on TV that put forth oatmeal as one of the best things for your libido. So forget oysters, just have a sexy bowl of oatmeal in the morning.

Be sure to make your oatmeal with milk, instead of water, for added calcium and protein and add sweeteners to your taste and liking. Personally I love oatmeal and my husband makes the best ever……so give it a try, you might just find your self “asking for more.”

Skin Deep

Getting Your Oats