Can you eat a Full English Breakfast?

 

Can you eat a full english breakfast and still stay trim & healthy?

The popularity of the full english breakfast is perhaps down to one of the best marketing campaigns of all time.  As a result of declining sales of bacon during the 1920’s manufacturers turned to marketing guru Edward Bernay’s to help generate demand.  His idea was to conduct a survey asking Dr’s one simple question, “would you recommend a light breakfast, or a hearty one?”  When the results showed that a ‘hearty one’ was the most popular answer, he started a campaign promoting bacon and eggs as the breakfast of choice.  The rest as they say is history.

‘Coffee in the morning is fine.  It’s a good source of antioxidants.  Your choice of breakfast should include protein and some vegetables though.  Fruit is ok in the morning too … you want energy to last you throughout the day’

In the current health conscious market, and considering our far great knowledge of what constitutes healthy food the Full English is often viewed with a look of derision.  The main question is “should the Full English breakfast be confined to the history of unhealthy eating?”  Well there are probably two schools of thought on this one.  A typical Full English isn’t actually going to do anyone any favours – the saturated fat combined with the carbohydrate content is going to have a negative effect on your body and health.  There are ways around this though.  You could certainly have a breakfast of poached or scrambled egg with some grilled bacon.  By going that route we have cut a lot of the carbs out of the process.  Whatever you do don’t be tempted to throw some hash browns on there – that’s not going to help your cause.

Alternatively you can mix up an English breakfast and still use beans, tomatoes, eggs and some mushrooms.  Another tip is to replace your pork or beef sausages with some venison ones … ok the price might go up but you will be getting extra protein and you will have significantly reduced the amount of fat you ingest.  Once again grilled is the way forward and you will note we are still skipping the hash browns!  We’ve also avoided the fried bread and we aren’t allowing you to have a glass of orange juice either.  You can however have a refreshing glass of water … see how kind we are!

How many calories should you eat at breakfast?

That depends on what you are expecting to do during the course of your day.  If you are going to have an active morning then you are free to take on board more calories.  You are wise to take on board a good number of calories though (circa 400) if you are looking to build muscle.  You will have been sleeping all night and need to fuel your body quickly to aid muscle growth.

We are not suggesting that a you should eat this as your breakfast everyday but if you are careful about how you prepare it, you certainly can enjoy some form of English breakfast every once in a while.  There is no doubt that it is better to eat breakfast than to not.  Kick starting your metabolisn and getting your body fired up should be a priority when you wake up.  Just watch how you go about doing it and you can continue to eat some of the things you love.