For as long as I can remember, and to the chagrin of my husband, family, and most of my friends, I’ve never enjoyed American breakfast foods.  It’s just isn’t my thing; mostly because starch-heavy foods first thing in the morning kinda upset my stomach.  I feel heavy and weighed down, and all around bleh.

As a result I usually end up eating something savory for breakfast; leftovers mostly.  Last night’s veggies and protein because that’s what available and lets face it, no one is gonna cook me a nice soup for breakfast.  (except my mother, whom now I’m pretty sure is the only one who’s embraced my “oddity,” and makes a phenomenal spring vegetable soup for me for breakfast when I visit.  PS, thanks mom.)

Otherwise it’s usually the –sit in the corner and eat your weird stuff while we stare at you with grossed out faces and probably add the occasional derogatory comment– routine.  My husband doesn’t add the commentary or faces anymore (smart man), but this has been, and continues to be, a point of somewhat playful ridicule amongst my friends and family.

However in other countries breakfast doesn’t look like it does here, and after I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself for being the morning outsider I began to put some pieces together about how we approach meals– and why we might truly need to shift our norms in this country.

The clincher for me was a trip to Vietnam a couple years ago…  where I learned one of my favorite dishes, Pho, is actually a breakfast item there.  And it was wonderful, and made total sense.  I was in heaven.  Finally no waffles or pancakes or biscuits or sweet rolls or cereal or just eggs as a protein option.

And seeing this, a whole country of people somehow miraculously not spontaneously combusting whilst not eating any of our traditional breakfast foods in the morning made me think, hard, about how we approach what we eat and when… especially with children.

Just like the specific coffees at specific times of day in Italy, we too have been trained that only certain flavor profiles and items go with specific times of day here.  But is it working for us?

A few years ago before I grew my parent wings I read quite a few books on toddlers (our daughter is just shy of 4 now).  Almost every book had multiple chapters on the expected dinner tug-o-war and what to do to prevent it.  Basically, now to negotiate with your kids to eat the healthy things you want them to/feel they need to, at the end of the day.

Apparently this dinnertime struggle is a BIG, and expected, thing because it’s in every single kid how-to book ever.  But here’s me cocking my head to the side… why?

Is it us, our kids, or what our society says we SHOULD be eating at certain times of day?  The ever-shifting emotional state of the 3-yr-old human child not withstanding, I’m thinking it’s actually more the last option.

We want our kids to eat healthy, we want them to eat fruits and veggies, so why on earth are we waiting for the last meal of the day when they’re super tired, probably over-stimulated, and just want to sleep to make our eating desires compulsory?

Cause you know, when I’m tired I’m all about trying new things.  Or things I’m not thrilled about.  Count me in.  *sarcasm*

Once upon a time, in our country, we learned to eat heavy meals for breakfast.  This worked, as most of the people eating these meals were doing work that burned through it before lunch.  Now, however, *most* people aren’t meeting that physical work requirement anymore.  We have shifted predominately to a mental, not physical, workday.

However our meal habits haven’t caught up.  Our way of looking at food throughout the day hasn’t caught up.  Which is harsh, because if we need to use our mental faculties more in our work spaces, we need to start our day with foods that fuel that….  and that fuel isn’t waffles and pancakes and bagels and cinnamon rolls (stuff that makes you tired if you’re not physically moving).

This fare probably isn’t nutritionally great for you either, which is subconsciously why we force the healthy stuff on our kiddos at dinner.  When you know your kid started the day with frosted flakes, then probably had more than one processed thing out of a can or package for lunch/stack, perhaps with or without fruit, suddenly dinner becomes really important to us as parents.

Dinner; the absolute wrong time of the day for us to force anything on anyone.  We are mentally, perhaps physically, tired from the day so our patience is short.  The kiddo is equally as tired, maybe even moreso considering their bedtime in relation to when we eat dinner.  However we keep banging our heads against that brick wall because our society dictates we should eat certain foods and flavor profiles at certain times of day.

Overcoming this food training would alleviate so much dinnertime stress, and frankly we’d all probably feel a lot better throughout the day.  I know the idea of switching up our traditional breakfast seems crazy, but my gut tells me I’m not wrong about this.

So where do we start; what do I do with my kiddo?  Since my daughter was old enough to eat solid food I’ve always treated every meal as it’s own entity, offering a protein, starch, and fruit and/or veggie.  She has a fruit at every meal, and in the morning and at lunch she’s not allowed to leave the table until the fruit is finished.

Breakfast is always cooked, whether it’s oatmeal or bacon or chicken or whatever, nothing out of a box.  Why?  Because that’s how she’s starting her day.  When she goes to her little preschool I know she isn’t going to be hungry in an hour because she burned through her cereal…  and we all know a hungry toddler leads to all sorts of attitude problems.  I want to set her up for success, every day.

Yes it does suck both getting up a little earlier and cooking breakfast (a meal I’ve just recently learned how to cook), but it’s worth it.  It’s worth it for me as a parent to know I don’t have to stress if she’s not up for all of the broccoli at dinner, because she’s already eaten good throughout the day.  I’ve got zero percent riding on that broccoli, and entering dinner without that pressure and concern makes for a way more pleasant meal.

We rarely have dinner arguments with our daughter, and it’s because I’M not, as the parent, bringing that to the table.  Do we still have discussions about finishing certain things?  Of course.  But it’s not a knock down drag out.  If kids are coming to the dinner table dressed for battle, it’s because we’ve started the battle in the first place… and only we can stop it.  And it mostly boils down to what foods we’ve been taught to eat when.

We are, as a society, preventing ourselves from starting our days off right– or at least better– because of some random idea about what breakfast should be.  When you think about it, that’s kind of ridiculous.  

I usually make a soup with meat and veggies in it and eat it for breakfast during the week.  My kiddo has seen me eating foods like this at breakfast her whole life, and never questions my food choices.  In fact, she’ll sometimes request udong and (duck, pork, chicken, whatever we happen to have) for breakfast.  It makes me smile when she does, because I’m hoping she won’t be pigeon-holed into thinking only certain things can be consumed at certain times of day.  Maybe, she’ll make choices for breakfast or all of her meals based off of what the food can do for her.

Maybe.  Who knows.  Parenting pipe dreams.  What I do know is the breakfast foods we’ve deemed as traditional here aren’t working for us.  They make us slow, tired, and with repeated consumption both overweight and sickly.  What are we doing?  More importantly, why are we doing it?

Why not have a bowl of soup or some veggies in the morning?  Or at least fruit, cheese and meat like many European countries do?  I’m not saying phase out the traditional foods we love, but perhaps lets take an eye to when we’re eating them.

If what we eat for breakfast can change the dinner conversation, then I’m all for it.