Skip to main content

Your ‘Healthy’ Breakfast Could Have More Sugar Than a Dessert. Here’s How to Fix It

[brightcove:4421266034001 default]

There’s no shortage of trendy, healthy breakfast options online. We’re talking smoothie bowls, overnight oats, yogurt parfaits, and even flourless breakfast cookies. Pinterest and Instagram feeds are filled with thousands of melt-in-your-mouth posts gushing about how these nutritious and balanced morning meals will jumpstart your day by giving your body the fuel it needs to conquer the world.

There’s just one problem: While the Insta-famous breakfasts tend to have sinful names—think: hot chocolate oatmeal and blueberry pie smoothie—and are promoted as clean, wholesome, and nutritious, the truth is many of these meals resemble a decadent dessert rather than a powerhouse breakfast. If nutritionists were asked to rename these recipes, we’d most likely call them berry milkshakes, yogurt sundaes, and oatmeal cookies!

RELATED: The 20 Best Foods to Eat for Breakfast

Before mistaking a sweet treat for a morning meal, check out these breakfast culprits to be wary of.

Granola

It’s a healthy breakfast essential, undoubtedly made with good-for-you ingredients like oats and nuts. But most commercial varieties are packed with added sugars and fat. A poll conducted by the New York Times found that 80% of shoppers said granola was a healthy option, while only 47% of nutritionists felt the same. That’s because most granola is calorie-dense, with some having up to 600 per cup; it can also pack up to 10 grams of added sugar per serving. The recommended serving size for granola is just 1/4 to 2/3 of a cup to keep calories, fat, and sugar in check–but that amount does little to keep you satisfied.

RELATED: 21 Homemade Granola Recipes That Slash Sugar

Smoothie bowls

I’ve seen smoothie bowl recipes online with 19 grams of sugar–and that’s before adding the toppings like granola, chocolate, and berries featured in the eye-catching pics. Depending on your preferred toppings, a smoothie bowl could easily exceed your total daily added sugar allotment of 6 teaspoons or 25 grams per day.

Breakfast cookies and overnight oats

Oatmeal is considered a healthful whole grain, but oat-based flourless breakfast cookies and overnight oats aren’t always sugar-conscious. Most recipes for overnight oats and oatmeal breakfast cookies include a variety of ingredients to sweeten them up, whether it’s sweetened almond milk, dried fruit, chocolate chips, cocoa nibs, honey, or maple syrup.

Yogurt parfaits

Yogurt parfaits are a combo of two of the sneakiest sources of sugar: sweetened yogurt and granola. As a result, commercial parfaits are among the worst choices you can eat for breakfast. If you purchase a yogurt parfait at a breakfast spot or supermarket, it will likely have 350 to 400 calories and 8 to 10 teaspoons of added sugars—more than you should get in an entire day!

Instead, plan a healthy breakfast with natural sweetness

Even though they look gorgeous, social media food trends aren’t always healthy. (Remember unicorn frappuccinos? ‘Nuf said.) If you’re considering making a breakfast recipe you found online but the nutritional information is not provided, find a different recipe.

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

I recommend Greek yogurt for breakfast, because it’s protein-rich and will have low sugar counts if it’s unflavored. An a.m. meal that provides 20 to 30 grams of protein may help curb your appetite all day long. Sweeten with fresh berries–which provide more filling fiber than blended fruit–and no more than a tablespoon of granola. You can use these toppings to sweeten oatmeal too, or add just a bit of your favorite sweet granola to a low-sugar, high-fiber cereal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intermittent fasting and BMI

BMI and Intermittent Fasting Diet (IFD) Intermittent fasting diet (IFD) is one of the most effective ways of reducing your BMI. Among the different types of Intermittent fasting diets 5:2 s the most common one. In this diet you only have to consume around 500 calories (600 calories for men) in two days of the week and eat whatever you want on the rest of the five days in the week. Intermittent fasting is different from prolonged calorie restriction and starving. In these methods the body is deprived of the healthy nutrients required for normal functioning of the organs. IFD involves taking in fewer calories, but only some of the time. Most of the nutritionists are now suggesting that prolonged starvation can deprive the body of essential nutrients which can result in muscle loss. So IFD is one of the convenient ways of losing weight and lowering the BMI while maintaining a healthy nutrient level in the body and consequently enjoying a healthy lifestyle. Intermittent fas
Post a Comment
Read more

6 Sneaky Ingredients That Are Really Just Added Sugar

[brightcove:5365774388001 default] Trying to cut back on added sugar? It may require a little more sleuthing than you think. That's because the sweet stuff is hiding in countless foods (from soup to tomato sauce!) under sly aliases like "brown rice syrup" and "evaporated cane juice." But with some basic knowledge of food label lingo, you can start picking out those sneaky ingredients—and slashing your daily intake. From now on, whenever you pick up a packaged product, turn it over and scan the label for any of the code words below. While some of the sweeteners are slightly better for you than others (hi, molasses), at the end of the day, they all count as added sugar. Coconut sugar and date sugar These terms often pop up on the labels on natural foods. Coconut sugar is made from sap extracted from the buds of coconut palm plants. And date sugar is typically made simply from dried, ground dates. But don't be fooled: While a whole food source may seem lik
Post a Comment
Read more

President Trump Reportedly Drinks 12 Diet Cokes a Day. Here’s What That Does to Your Body

[brightcove:4874680279001 default] This article originally appeared on Time.com. A recent New York Times feature about a day in the life of President Donald Trump revealed that the commander in chief guzzles 12 Diet Cokes every day. Few health experts recommend drinking any diet soda —so how bad is a dozen-a-day habit? While it’s likely better than drinking 12 sugar-filled sodas per day, it’s largely too soon to say what Trump’s soda swilling is doing to his health, says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “The long-term health effects of low-calorie or artificial sweeteners are not really well-known,” Mozaffarian says. “We’re kind of conducting a national public health experiment on the entire population.” What we do know, Mozaffarian says, is that “there’s very little reason to drink diet soda” over beverages like water and seltzer, and the amount of caffeine in 12 servings exceeds medical guidelines for
Post a Comment
Read more