Breakfast is a relatively modern invention

https://medium.com/dialogue-and-discourse/breakfast-is-a-marketing-gimmick-c47082ef4c28

67 66 7 years ago

There's a great four-part documentary by Adam Curtis about Edward Bernays, his career and the rise of marketing in the 20th century called "The Century Of The Self".

It's available on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04

ncmncm• 7 years ago

Bernays was very proud of the work of Josef Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda mimister. He considered it the best kind of use of his work, steering the ignorant masses to support of a Great Man's ideas.

BrissyCoder• 7 years ago

I've never eaten breakfast. I don't tend to get peckish until around 1ish and I always do my best work post-morning-coffee and pre-eating-anything.

weregiraffe• 7 years ago

I've never eaten breakfast.

I don't care.

pks016• 7 years ago

How's your daily schedule? I have a very hard time following the conventional meals (Breakfast,Lunch,Snacks,Dinner). For me, I would like to shift the timings of these meals, but the cafeteria operates only in conventional times.

paxys2• 7 years ago

Same for me. Intermittent fasting (no eating before noon or after 6pm) helped me lose like 40 pounds, and I now feel a lot more energetic and productive in the morning.

namdnay• 7 years ago

Office job? Any kind of manual labour or outdoor activity, there's no way I can last the whole morning without eating.

ramblerman• 7 years ago

Not OP, but I will usually do an intense workout of ~1h at 7am fasted. I don't eat till about 2pm without issues.

Of course that is still different from 4-5 hours of heavy labor. Although on weekends I've climbed mountains, and swam fasted without issues as well.

You'd be surprised how easy it is, the hunger pangs are only the first few days.

donpark2• 7 years ago

So breakfast is an American invention? I ask because Korean words for breakfast and brunch existed even before America was founded.

iopq• 7 years ago

A Korean breakfast is completely different from an American one.

isostatic2• 7 years ago

So American breakfast is relatively modern?

donpark2• 7 years ago

True although I've been having traditional Korean meals (mostly rice and lightly cooked vegetables) in America for decades. Having Korean supermarkets within driving distance is one of the hidden benefits of living in California.

paxys2• 7 years ago

The word breakfast itself also existed well before America was founded. The author doesn't claim that eating in the morning is a modern invention, rather the concept of breakfast that is marketed to us today. Don't know why the HN headline doesn't stick to the article's.

wodenokoto• 7 years ago

This article tries to make it sound like the idea of breakfast - a meal in the morning - was a new invention, when it appears to actually be arguing that the types of meals associated with breakfast are new.

bashwizard• 7 years ago

I doubt it.

The word "Frukost" (breakfast in english) has been used since the 15th century in sweden to describe the first meal of the day. Before "frukost" we used the words "dagvard" and "nattvard" to label the main meals during the day where "dagvard" was usually the first meal during the morning. It later shifted meaning and became what is now called dinner.

barry-cotter• 7 years ago

Everybody eating breakfast can be a relatively modern thing without the word being new. Plenty of people find eating breakfast unnecessary or they eat a very light one which they’d be well able to skip. Treating breakfast as a real meal instead of eating something small or whatever leftovers are there can have gone from rare to normative, which fits with breakfast being relatively modern.

kasperni• 7 years ago

Funny thing. Frukost in Denmark and Frokost in Sweden. Both came from the term vrōkost (tidlig kost) in Mittelniederdeutsch (Middle Low German) in the 15th century. In Sweden you still use Frukost for the first meal. In Denmark the usage has been replaced by Morgenmad (morning food) to refer to the first meal. And Frokost now refers to the middle meal (lunch).

Uberphallus• 7 years ago

Funnily that happens also in French. Déjeuner means literally breakfast (as in, breaking the fasting). But for some reason it moved to mean lunch, and to say breakfast you say "pétit déjeuner", or "little breakfast".

Theodores• 7 years ago

Try telling this to a two year old. By the time we get to be able to read the cereal packets we are likely to be agreeing with the marketing material and eating the product as if our lives depended on it. We will be fully indoctrinated by then.

It doesn't matter how ludicrous this breakfast meal is, or how unnatural it looks, we fully believe that these products are made because the product owners care about our health and well being.

In the days before the internet there was no way of finding out an answer to what breakfast is really about, you were kind of stuck with the marketing message. Even today when - for clickbait reasons - you read an article such as this one then it is going to come too late, one's habits of starting the day with sugar/fat/carbohydrates is very much a habit where change is not a realistic option. Changing one's diet is hard, almost as hard as changing one's mind.

What I didn't get in the article was the point made about bacon being something that just farmers ate. There must be some other thing going on with bacon - was it something that changed as a product with refrigeration or factory farming?

glangdale3• 7 years ago

I like breakfast foods (I'm a real sucker for those "big breakfasts" available at most Australian cafes) but I am really not that hungry in the morning. One of the easiest ways I found to lose weight was just to quit ingesting calories in the evening around 8pm and not eat until noon the next day - the whole 16:8 intermittent fasting thing before it was a "thing".

I'm a bit crestfallen at the amount of dull breakfasts I shovelled into my face based on all that propaganda about how your body would go into some sort of horrible famine state if you missed a meal. I mean, hey, if you're actually hungry and you like breakfast cereal, go for it, but I was definitely taking on more calories for no apparent reason.

julienreszka• 7 years ago

Hahahaha what an absurd statement.

vfc19• 7 years ago

Some of the highly processed cereal breakfasts should literally be forbidden, especially kids breakfast is very worrying.

Seriously, take the cereals that you give your kids, and read the ingredient list, you will be shocked. The second ingredient in the list is usually sugar, and the third is often palm oil.

The chocolate-like cereals are usually made of corn flour and not whole grains, which is even worst.

Here is a very tasty breakfast that is very healthy, and easy to prepare, I eat it every day.

Just take two tablespoons of rolled oats (not a lot of oats), and add frozen red fruits. Frozen fruits retain the majority of their nutrition, and are found everywhere and are very convenient.

Blueberries, raspberries, etc. take a cup, cover with plant milk and a tablespoon of ground flack seeds. Mix and microwave for 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Just to cut the red fruits potential acidity and to make it more fun, you might want to add a teaspoon of jam, not more.

Take 1 banana, mash half and slice the other half. Mix the mashed half and put the slices on top.

You won't be hungry until lunchtime, enjoy!

arcticbull2• 7 years ago

Or just don't eat breakfast. The whole 3 meals a day thing is both new and just as social construct. You get used to not eating breakfast really fast, I stopped a decade ago. There's interesting research showing that meal timings are as important if not more important (assuming otherwise complete nutrient profile) than what you eat. Your body learns what high and low levels of insulin look like by experiencing both. Not eating as frequently reestablishes that baseline and helps avoid insulin resistance, and hence type-II. It also gives you a larger caloric budget over your remaining meals making it easier to lose weight.

vfc19• 7 years ago

I've been thinking about it to give a boost to my weight loss after this long winter.

I have a couple of questions if you have a moment, do you feel energized in terms of work in the morning, or feel a bit slugish?

If it goes away the lack of productivity, how long does it take to go away? And do you feel hungry in the late morning at first, how long until you don't feel hungry anymore?

For what I heard so far, intermittent fasting is a great tool in the arsenal, but it's not more important than food choices so I haven't given it a go so far.

Thanks for any insight on your experience, kind regards.

leethargo3• 7 years ago

That is great advice for adults, but young children (especially) infants do actually need multiple meals per day. Their digestive system is still small and they have high energy demand for their growth.

z3t4• 7 years ago

There are interesting research being done, but I don't think we have enough knowledge to make any recommendations. People who eat healthy and stay fit also get diabetes.

V-22• 7 years ago

Unless there is some type of allergy involved, I don't see much of a reason for preferring plant milk over cow's milk. The ingredients list for plant "milks" is often quite long, containing thickening agents and whatnot.

vfc19• 7 years ago

Cow's milk is full of growth hormones and fat, including saturated fat and cholesterol, but I think the worst is probably that it's a cocktail of bovine growth and female hormones.

It is highly allergenic and linked to asthma and acne for example.

Those bovine growth hormones throughout our lives can't be good, making some tissues grow continuously that should not grow past adolescence, like the prostate.

Here is a series of videos on the multiple issues that milk has been linked to, from cancer to more - https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/milk/

As an alternative to plant milk, water in this breakfast also works great, the plant milk doesn't really change that much the flavor.

farseer• 7 years ago

Depending on what kind of plant milk you choose, it will also be highly processed with a sizeable ingredient list.

vfc19• 7 years ago

Water also works great, the plant milk does not change much the taste. No matter which plant milk, at least it won't have the bovine growth and female hormones and saturated fat and cholesterol.

thrower1232• 7 years ago

Cereal is awful. When I ate cereal, I could eat a heaping bowl at 7 am and be murderously hungry by 10.

I need some protein and fat in the morning; a couple eggs, a few slices or bacon or ham. Even toast with peanut butter is okay. Then I'm set up for the day and can usually skip lunch if I don't get to it.

vfc19• 7 years ago

The problem is the sugar in commercial cereals, it's often the second or third ingredient.

Be careful with that breakfast, because do look it up but I think one egg a day already exceeds the safe limit for heart disease, and bacon and ham are AFIK carcinogenic according to the World Health Organization (colon cancer I believe).

Most people aren't aware of this stuff and keep eating like that, but the science seems clear about that type of food.

code_duck2• 7 years ago

“Breakfast Is A Marketing Gimmick”, the actual title, seems to sum this up better than “Breakfast is a relatively modern invention”. I don’t think the article is trying to claim that that eating food in the morning is new.

Personally, I have always gotten up and eaten the same things in the morning but I do the rest of the day. This might be due to hailing from New Mexico… Like the south, we enjoy a lot of hearty breakfast. The typical breakfast in New Mexico is huevos rancheros, which is eggs, hashbrowns and sausage or bacon smothered in NM red or green chile sauce.

There is a traditional food eaten for breakfast in the Southwest and all of America south of here, though, which is basically corn porridge.

kstenerud• 7 years ago

The problem is that the article is written in a confusing manner, and effectively conflates "breakfast" the act of eating in the morning with "breakfast" the modern marketed morning meal. You have to read it very carefully to get what he's trying to say.

"breakfast" the act of eating in the morning has been around for centuries. Both titles are misleading.

leethargo3• 7 years ago

And then there is a third meaning of "the first meal of the day" (breaking the fast of the night) which may happen in the morning or later.

cafard• 7 years ago

Yes, centuries. Homer had a word for it.

swarnie_• 7 years ago

The typical breakfast in New Mexico is huevos rancheros, which is eggs, hashbrowns and sausage or bacon smothered in NM red or green chile sauce.

The thought of that makes me feel ill.... I'm not sure humans are designed to down this many cals before putting on their shoes in the morning. I certainly couldn't face that at 7am.

taejo• 7 years ago

I'm not sure humans are designed to down this many cals before putting on their shoes in the morning

Do you have any evidence to separate this hypothesis from "I'm not designed to..." or "I'm not used to..."?

code_duck2• 7 years ago

It’s essentially like bacon, eggs and toast with gravy, a fairly common sort of American breakfast. My point was really just that it’s a savory dish, not sweet. I don’t understood why people want to eat dessert style foods like donuts for breakfast, but I generally don’t like dessert. Health-wise, at least this has a good bit of protein, unlike a donut.

m0nty3• 7 years ago

The writing is really odd.

"According to the Dansville Historical Society, Jackson would create and use this cereal in his sanitarium in Dansville NY."

Well, did he or didn't he? Why say "would create" when you meant "created"?

"In 1878 Jackson would have a visitor to his medical facility, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg"

Again ...

"These institutions would teach that if you ate a healthy breakfast you could be more productive at work. Of course, that would be an excellent selling feature that would win over converts. Cereal companies would begin to pop up like weeds."

I'm not usually so picky, natural voice, etc. But it seems odd to use "would" all the time.

Terretta• 7 years ago

It’s a verb tense for when your story starts in the more distant past and then describes a future that will come to pass relative to that past. Makes more sense if you add the (unnecessary) additional words “go on to”.

Here’s a guy at a past point in time. That guy would go on to create the cereal, and would go on to have a visitor ...

Merriam Webster: past future adj. — of, relating to, or constituting a verb tense that is traditionally formed in English with would or should and denotes an action or state as future from a past point of view (as would write in “he promised that he would write”)

More: https://www.thoughtco.com/future-in-the-past-grammar-1690811

m0nty3• 7 years ago

"These institutions would teach that if you ate a healthy breakfast you could be more productive at work. Of course, that would be an excellent selling feature that would win over converts. Cereal companies would begin to pop up like weeds."

Why not "These institutions taught that if you ate a healthy breakfast, you would be more productive at work. Of course, that was an excellent selling feature and won over converts. Cereal companies popped up like weeds."

I understand the tense being used, I'm just puzzled why anyone would want to use it so much.

ptah• 7 years ago

possibly a weak attempt at e-prime?

m0nty3• 7 years ago

Had to look it up :)

rlue• 7 years ago

When I discover that my beliefs have been shaped in part by a marketing message, I always have to restrain myself from overcompensating as I try to revise my worldview, as in:

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

"No, that's marketing! I refuse to be manipulated. Breakfast is a scam!"

When really, the truth is that breakfast is nice but everything is culturally relative and humans are capable of adapting to a surprisingly wide range of routines, provided you maintain them long enough to get through the rough patches. Sadly, that doesn't make for a very catchy slogan.

Sometimes I think I'd be better off never having heard this notion at all, but hey, the cost of living in society is being exposed to infectious ideas.

Breakfast is a relatively modern invention

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