Most replayed moment: How to build a better breakfast | Prof. Ben Gardner & Tim Spector

Jonathan Wolf (0:01)

Hello and welcome to ZOE Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health.

We've all heard the same, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And while it may sound like a cliche, there is some truth to it. Because for many of us, breakfast is the one meal that we keep the same, day after day, morning after morning. And this consistency means our breakfast choices have powerful influence on our long-term health. So today, I'm joined by Professor Tim Spector and behavior expert Professor Ben Gardner, share practical ways to break out of unhealthy routines and build a breakfast habit that will support you every single morning. Tim, I'd like to get some actionable advice on what we should eat for breakfast to support our day.

Tim Spector (0:52)

What I have is my go-to breakfast, I call my breakfast bowl, which is full fat Greek yogurt mixed with a milk kefir, which is like a super yogurt. I like to have three fermented foods a day, so that gives me two of them. Then I get some frozen berries from the freezer, so I would maybe get three different fruits added to that and mix nuts, or I'd pick the ZOE Daily30 and just put a scoop of that on top, and I'd have that with a black coffee.

I definitely wouldn't have any fruit juice or anything else like I used to in the old days. That would be my fairly standard one. I will vary that and sometimes have sourdough rye bread, which is high in fiber, and I'd have some avocado on that, and I might again put another ferment, whether it's sauerkraut or whatever, onto that. But I also, weekends might have some eggs, and I know other people like things like peanut butter, which in this country isn't a common breakfast, but actually would be much healthier than marmalade or jam or anything else, and sometimes I'll have cheese as well.

Jonathan Wolf (2:04)

Tim, why is that better than the cereal and low-fat milk?

Tim Spector (2:09)

Well, most people don't respond well to having just a massive amount of refined carbohydrates and sugar in their diet because of this problem of the sugar spike, which has this knock-on effect for the rest of the day, causing lack of energy, mood changes, and hunger.

It also sets you up long-term for getting type 2 diabetes and putting on weight. So moving away from these highly refined breakfasts to real food with real plants, real nuts, real seeds, things that have a structure in them means that everything is absorbed much more slowly, much more naturally the way it was before highly processed foods came on the market. Again, picking full-fat yogurts rather than low-fat yogurts because we want to have the minimum amount of ingredients and we know that fat fills us up as well. So these meals will actually make sure that you can get through to lunch without having a desperate urge for snacks. Everyone's going to have a slightly different version of this and there are some breakfast cereals you can have like wheat-a-bix or things that do have a lot of fiber in them and are relatively low in processing risk. So I would just advise people to keep it plain and simple and definitely avoid those refined sugars.

Jonathan Wolf (3:29)

I had lots of questions from listeners about high protein breakfast cereals, which are clearly being promoted everywhere. Would that be a good thing to switch on to?

Tim Spector (3:40)

Most of them are rubbish and you're just wasting your money.

I know there's a big marketing surge here knowing that if they put high-end protein on the cover of anything at the moment, they'll sell more of it. But there's no scientific evidence that most of us need an extra protein. Generally, these are highly processed, risky foods that the protein is just masking the poor quality of the rest of it. Whether it's a protein snack bar, or it's in a cereal, or it's in a drink. Generally, these are high-risk foods that are not going to give you anything like the benefits of a natural food breakfast. Most of us are not deficient in protein, we're deficient in fiber. We really need to start building that fiber up early on in the day, so that we can get our 30 grams of fiber in. We don't need extra protein because we just pee it out or it turns to fat.

Jonathan Wolf (4:36)

The other thing I had a ton of questions on, because apparently you created a storm on social media, is something that's popular here in the UK, a spread called Marmite, which if you're not in the UK, you'll be like, one earth is that. Is Marmite healthy?