I love breakfast, so much so that it’s getting to the point that if someone tells me they usually skip it, I almost take it personally. Breakfast is glorious for several reasons, the primary two being that it involves the best food and, in my opinion, the best time of day (no, I’m not taking that back). On weekdays especially it can be cast aside because you’re late for the bus, you can’t be bothered, you have no food…
Try and meal plan for a week of breakfasts. Wake up on time and eat. Believe me, it’s a much better option than the other two hundred people in your lecture hearing that 9.35am stomach rumble. It’s one meal really hard not to love.
Monday
Granted, Monday mornings are classically less wake-up friendly than any other weekday. Flip the I Don’t Like Mondays on its head and, just like the adverts, get your week off to a great start!!!!!
I’m talking oats. Oats are magical. Reliable, quick and really tasty, you can whip them up for porridge in five minutes. They also go with everything: fruit, syrup, honey, yoghurt, seeds, nuts and any other health-food-store-sounding product. If you really can’t be bothered to stick some milk and oats to heat in a pan, shove some in a bowl the night before. If you’ve never tried overnight oats, for the sake of the passion with which I write this article, please do. It’s a soggy bowl of nutritional wonder, and you don’t use up any time you need to get to the first exciting thing of the week.
Tuesday
Eggs get ready to rumble: thank you, world, for chickens. Eggs can be cooked in about 12,000 different ways, which inevitably make them a fantastic breakfast staple. One of my favourite ways to cook them is the not-really-omelette, which involves frying a load of sliced mushrooms and tomatoes in olive oil with some spinach and feta cheese and pouring beaten egg on top. Otherwise scramble a couple for scrambled eggs on toast, which needs to be eaten with ketchup. Needs.
Wednesday
Even if you don’t live for yoga, you can still eat a bowl of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. This is another breakfast option that is really quick and simple, whilst also being pretty self-explanatory. Shove some honey on top and you’re good to go. Cocoa powder mixed in is usually a good shout and a great way to make it less healthy.
Thursday
Make use of your oven grill and char some mushrooms, tomatoes and bacon. It’s a sort of half-English breakfast that is fairly good for you, if you can stomach hot food in the morning. I don’t think it needs toast but if you have a really long day ahead try and get some carbohydrate in you for obvious reasons. There are some really good recipes for hash browns on the Internet – it’s definitely worth investigating, and you can cook a batch for the week.
Friday
Friday is absolutely no fun to be extravagant with breakfast. It’s the end of the week and difficult to be bothered about getting even two of your five-a-day down before 10am. In this case, stick to the wonder that is cereal and toast, but try and make some changes as it is a surprisingly shocking choice health-wise, especially with regard to the sugar levels in cereal. Grab some granola: full of birdseed that tastes really good. Have it with almond milk, and drink a glass of orange juice for good Vitamin C measure. If your loins burn for toast, have wholegrain, and I’m definitely not going to say hold off the peanut butter.
Saturday/Sunday
Okay, it’s the weekend, which means you have time to recollect and make breakfast! There’s only one option here, which is the inevitable full English. I’m not going to call it a fry-up because that connotes motorway truck stop, and it’s so easy to make it delicious without having to teach your bacon how to swim. Again, try grilling what you fancy – sausages, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms – have plenty of toast, eggs, HP sauce, more hash browns, ketchup, and of course: don’t forget the baked beans.
Even though many of these things are obvious, we’re coming to the end of the second term, and every GCSE revision textbook/A-Level study guide/university study mentor you’ve ever had will tell you to eat well during crunch time. It’s underestimated how important it is to have more than a lukewarm black coffee to start your day with. Make space for mornings, regardless of whether your morning starts at 2pm. Buy the right food, because as has become apparent, everyone in Lancaster seems to live no more than 50m away from one of 600 Spar shops in the city. You’ll feel a lot less scrambled for eating breakfast.
