To get right to the point, this is a quick, easy breakfast idea that takes about as much time to make as a pop-tart, but will make you feel good the whole morning instead of giving you a high-then-low sugar roller-coaster without nutrients.

Ingredients

  • 2 slices whole-grain bread
  • 2 Tablespoons nut butter of choice
  • Enough fresh, frozen or dried fruit to cover top of each slice of bread

Directions: Take some type of high-quality whole-grain bread, spread it with a nut butter like peanut butter, almond butter or cashew butter, and add a fresh fruit on top.

High-quality bread includes Ezekiel bread or bread that says “100% whole wheat” (not just “multi-grain” as that’s often code for “mostly processed white flour”).  Ezekiel bread is so healthy because it contains a variety of whole grains without added sugar, but it can be twice as expensive as normal bread ($4.99/loaf) because it is so rich in nutrients.  Processed white bread can sit on the shelf forever and not go bad because, if it’s mostly sugar, salt and processed white flour, not even bacteria and mold want to eat it, and longer shelf-life= less cost.  Ezekiel bread is often sold in the freezer section, and I will store it that way at home, too, until I use it.  Then I will warm it up in the toaster oven to defrost it.

Breakfast seems like the meal that seems to fool people the most.  There are many breakfast cereals that purport being healthy, however the first ingredient on the ingredients list is sugar.  With names like “Blueberry Morning,” “Apple Jacks,” and “Quaker Oats Oh’s!”, or “Cap’n Crunch All Berries,” I mean, they sound healthy.  They look healthy.  But they’re not, and it’s super frustrating when you are trying to make a healthy decision but the packaging thwarts your efforts.  As a rule, most breakfast cereals are just junk :-(.  Yogurt is also very rich in sugar, typically.

Breakfast options that normally aren’t junk include steel-cut oatmeal flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and fruit; plain yogurt that you flavor yourself with fruit, maca powder, or stevia instead of sugar.  Maca and stevia are just sweet-tasting things that don’t ramp up your blood sugar like white sugar does, and often have important nutrients sugar doesn’t have.  Firm tofu can be made into a scrambled-egg like dish if you add smoked paprika and turmeric for color and flavor, along with garlic, onion, soy sauce, black pepper, and nutritional yeast if you have it on hand.  Other good breakfast options include any type of non processed fruit, veggie, bean or grain product.