nutritious breakfast Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal Recipe

The AHA! Team — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 05:34:30 +0000

Recipe via Nutrition Facts – Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal Recipe Recipe by: Dr. Michael Greger & Robin Robertson from The How Not to Age Cookbook To save prep time in the morning, you can assemble this savory breakfast the night before and just pop it in the oven when you’re getting ready to eat. COURSE: Breakfast or Dessert DIFFICULTY: Easy SERVINGS: 4 Ingredients ▢ 1 cup rolled oats ▢ 2 tablespoons ground chia seed ▢ 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed ▢ 1 cup grated carrot ▢ ¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts ▢ 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon ▢ 1½ cups unsweetened soy milk ▢ ½ cup Date Syrup ▢ 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract Instructions Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Line an 8-inch (20-cm) square baking pan with parchment paper and set aside. In a bowl, combine the oats, chia seed, flaxseeds, carrot, nuts, and cinnamon, and stir until well mixed. Add the soy milk, Date Syrup, and vanilla, then stir until well combined. Transfer the oatmeal mixture to the prepared baking pan and smooth it evenly. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the oatmeal is golden brown and set. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. To read the original article click here.

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Are Fortified Children’s Breakfast Cereals Just Candy?

The AHA! Team — Mon, 13 May 2024 08:02:54 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – The industry responds to the charge that breakfast cereals are too sugary. In 1941, the American Medical Association’s Council on Foods and Nutrition was presented with a new product, Vi-Chocolin, a vitamin-fortified chocolate bar, “offered ostensibly as a specialty product of high nutritive value and of some use in medicine, but in reality, intended for promotion to the public as a general-purpose confection, a vitaminized candy.” Surely, something like that couldn’t happen today, right? Unfortunately, that’s the sugary cereal industry’s business model. As I discuss in my video Are Fortified Kids’ Breakfast Cereals Healthy or Just Candy?, nutrients are added to breakfast cereals “as a marketing gimmick to “create an aura of healthfulness…If those nutrients were added to soft drinks or candy, would we encourage kids to consume them more often?” Would we feed our kids Coke and Snickers for breakfast? We might as well spray cotton candy with vitamins, too. As one medical journal editorial read, “Adding vitamins and minerals to sugary cereals…is worse than useless. The subtle message accompanying such products is that it is safe to eat more.” General Mills’ “Grow up strong with Big G kids’ cereals” ad campaign featured products like Lucky Charms, Trix, and Cocoa Puffs. That’s like the dairy industry promoting ice cream as a way to get your calcium. Kids who eat presweetened breakfast cereals may get more than 20 percent of their daily calories from added sugar, as you can see below and at 1:28 in my video. Most sugar in the American diet comes from beverages like soda, but breakfast cereals represent the third largest food source of added sugars in the diets of children and adolescents, wedged between candy and ice cream. On a per-serving basis, there is more added sugar in a cereal like Frosted Flakes than there is in frosted chocolate cake, a brownie, or even a frosted donut, as you can see below and at 1:48 in my video. Kellogg’s and General Mills argue that breakfast cereals only contribute a “relatively small amount” of sugar to the diets of children, less than soda, for example. “This is a perfect example of the social psychology phenomenon of ‘diffusion of responsibility.’ This behavior is analogous to each restaurant in the country arguing that it should not be required to ban smoking because it alone contributes only a tiny fraction to Americans’ exposure to secondhand smoke.” In fact, “each source of added sugar…should be reduced.” The industry argues that most of their cereals have less than 10 grams of sugar per serving, but when Consumer Reports measured how much cereal youngsters actually poured for themselves, they were found to serve themselves about 50 percent more than the suggested serving size for most of the tested cereals. The average portion of Frosted Flakes they poured for themselves contained 18 grams of sugar, which is 4½ teaspoons or 6 sugar packets’ worth. It’s been estimated that a “child eating one serving per day of a children’s cereal containing the average amount of sugar would consume nearly 1,000 teaspoons of sugar in a year.” Breakfast cereals rank as the third-largest food source of added sugars in the diets of kids General Mills offers the “Mary Poppins defense,” arguing that those spoonsful of sugar can “help the medicine go down” and explaining that “if sugar is removed from bran cereal, it would have the consistency of sawdust.” As you can see below and at 3:17 in my video, a General Mills representative wrote that the company is presented “with an untenable choice between making our healthful foods unpalatable or refraining from advertising them.” If it can’t add sugar to its cereals, they would be unpalatable? If one has to add sugar to a product to make it edible, that should tell us something. That’s a characteristic of so-called ultra-processed foods, where you have to pack them full of things like sugar, salt, and flavorings “to give flavor to foods that have had their [natural] intrinsic flavors processed out of them and to mask any unpleasant flavors in the final product.” The president of the Cereal Institute argued that without sugary cereals, kids might not eat breakfast at all. (This is similar to dairy industry arguments that removing chocolate milk from school cafeterias may lead to students “no longer purchasing school lunch.”) He also stressed we must consider the alternatives. As Kellogg’s director of nutrition once put it: “I would suggest that Fruit [sic] Loops as a snack are much better than potato chips or a sweet roll.” You know there’s a problem when the only way to make your product look good is to compare it to Pringles and Cinnabon. Want a healthier option? Check out my video Which Is a Better Breakfast: Cereal or Oatmeal?. For more on the effects of sugar on the body and if you like these more politically charged videos see the related posts below. Finally, for some additional videos on cereal, see Kids’ Breakfast Cereals as Nutritional Façade and Ochratoxin in Breakfast Cereals. Key Takeaways Vi-Chocolin, a vitamin-fortified chocolate bar, was purportedly offered as a product with high nutritive value but was really just vitaminized candy. The sugary cereal industry follows a similar business model. The sugary cereal industry has been criticized for adding nutrients to cereals “as a marketing gimmick,” creating an illusion of health benefits. Children who consume pre-sweetened breakfast cereals may derive more than 20 percent of their daily calories from added sugar. Breakfast cereals rank as the third-largest food source of added sugars in the diets of kids and adolescents, listed between candy and ice cream. On a per-serving basis, a cereal like Frosted Flakes has more added sugar than a frosted chocolate cake, a brownie, or a frosted donut. Kellogg’s and General Mills’ contention that breakfast cereals contribute only a “relatively small amount” of sugar to children’s diets is likened to the social psychology phenomenon of “diffusion of responsibility.” Consumer Reports’ findings reveal that children often pour themselves 50 percent more cereal than the suggested serving size. A child eating a single daily serving of kids’ cereal with the average amount of sugar would consume almost a thousand teaspoons of sugar in one year. The industry argues it has to add sugar to its cereals to make them palatable, which is a characteristic of ultra-processed foods. To read the original article click here.

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Higher Fruit and Veg Intake Associated with Better Mental Health in Secondary School Pupils

AHA Publisher — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 07:00:27 +0000

BMJ via News-Medical – Higher fruit and veg intake are significantly associated with better mental health in secondary school children, while a nutritious breakfast and lunch is linked to emotional wellbeing in pupils across the age spectrum, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health. The findings prompt the researchers to call for the inclusion of good nutrition in public health strategies to maximize kids’ mental health. Poor mental health is a major issue for young people, with survey data indicating that its prevalence is rising. The evidence suggests that teen mental health problems often persist into adulthood, leading to poorer life outcomes and achievement. It’s not clear if school pupils’ dietary choices might be linked to their mental health. To explore this further, the researchers drew on responses from over 50 schools in Norfolk, England, to The Norfolk Children and Young People Health and Wellbeing Survey 2017. In total, 10,853 pupils completed the survey on their mental health and nutrition: 9% of Norfolk primary school children in the target year groups (9-11-year-olds); 22% of secondary school pupils; and around 6% of young people in years 12 and 13 (17-18-year-olds). Dietary questions aimed to explore fruit and vegetable intake, as well as the type of breakfast and lunch eaten; alcohol intake; eligibility for free school meals; and satisfaction with weight. Background and general health information were also collected; as well as a range of other factors, ranging from whether they had their own bedroom and bed to whether they felt safe at school and at home, including whether they had witnessed violence or arguing at home. Mental health was assessed using validated age-appropriate measures. Data from 7570 secondary school and 1253 primary school pupils were included in the final analysis. The average mental health score was 46.6 out of 70 for secondary school pupils and 46 out of 60 for primary school pupils. Only around 1 in 4 (25%) secondary school pupils and 28.5% of primary school pupils reported eating the recommended 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, with 10% and 9%, respectively, eating none. Around 1 in 5 (21%) secondary school pupils and 1 in 8 (12%) primary school pupils consumed only a non-energy drink or nothing at all for breakfast, while around 1 in 8 secondary school children (11.5%) ate no lunch. Higher combined fruit and veg intake were significantly associated with higher mental health scores; the higher the intake, the higher was the score. Compared with secondary school pupils eating no fruit or veg, eating one or two daily portions was associated with a score of 1.42 units higher while eating 3 or 4 portions was associated with a score of 2.34 units higher. Eating 5 or more portions was associated with a score of 3.73 units higher. Breakfast type was also significantly associated with mental wellbeing. Compared with a conventional breakfast, such as toast, porridge, cereal, yogurt, fruit, or a cooked breakfast, eating only a snack or breakfast bar was associated with a score that was 1.15 units lower. Consumption of energy drinks as a breakfast substitute was associated with particularly low mental health scores, and lower than those for children eating no breakfast at all. Just having nothing more than an energy drink was associated with a score of 3.14 units lower; not eating any breakfast at all was associated with a score of 2.73 units lower. Similarly, lunch type was also significantly associated with mental health scores. Not eating any lunch was associated with a score of 2.95 units lower than when eating a packed lunch. Among primary school pupils, eating only a snack for breakfast was associated with a score of 5.50 units lower while consuming only a non-energy drink was associated with a score of 2.67 units lower than those eating a conventional breakfast. Not eating any breakfast was associated with a score of 3.62 units lower. And compared with eating a packed lunch, eating school food was associated with a score of 1.27 units lower, although this wasn’t statistically significant; having no lunch was associated with a score of 6.08 units lower, although there were only a few children in this group, caution the researchers. This is an observational study, and as such, can’t establish cause, added to which there was no detailed nutritional information in the survey data and the study relied on children’s subjective assessments. But, the researchers argue: “The importance of good quality nutrition for childhood growth and development is well established. Our study adds to this prior evidence the finding that nutrition is also highly relevant to childhood mental wellbeing. The difference in mental wellbeing between children who ate the most fruit and vegetables and those who ate the least was of a similar scale to those children who reported daily, or almost daily, arguing or violence at home, they point out. “As a potentially modifiable factor, both at an individual and societal level, nutrition may therefore represent an important public health target for strategies to address childhood mental wellbeing.” “This study provides the first insights into how fruit and vegetable intake affects children’s mental health, and contributes to the emerging evidence around ‘food and mood’.” Sumantra Ray, Executive Director, NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health “The findings are timely, not only because of the impact the pandemic has had on mental wellbeing, food security, and diet quality, especially in school children, but also in light of the recently published National Food Strategy for England, which highlighted gaps in school meal provision.” He adds: “This study should help to stimulate further research on diet and mental health, as well as helping to inform public health policy.” To read the original article click here.

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