Time for a hearty breakfast (From Dorset Echo)

Time for a hearty breakfast

9:55am Monday 19th January 2009 in

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THE Brits top the European league of breakfast-skippers – a dubious honour since it is the most important meal of the day we are missing out on.

A survey commissioned by the Home Grown Cereals Authority in 2007 revealed that many people have lost touch with those basic culinary skills, such as preparing a cooked breakfast.

Some 49 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds, for example, were unaware that a soft boiled egg should be cooked for three minutes and 33 per cent of the same age group did not know how many tablespoons of oats would make an average-sized bowl of porridge for one.

It may be for its convenience that toast remains one of the most popular breakfast foods. Quick versatile and healthy, latest sales figures show that bread is undergoing a revival perhaps because of the wide variety of seeded breads or those that are freshly baked in store. But starting the day with a healthy breakfast has never been easier, whether waking up to a bowl of hot porridge, sitting down to poached egg on toast, whizzing up a fresh fruit smoothie or grabbing a granola bar on the way to work or school.

This year the 10th annual Farmhouse Breakfast Week will take place from January 25-31 and looks to be the nation’s biggest-ever breakfast celebration, with hundreds of events taking place across the country.

Run by the Home Grown Cereals Authority, the week is an annual campaign that emphasises the importance of eating a healthy breakfast every day.

‘Think breakfast’ is the theme of this year’s celebration to encourage everyone to wake up to breakfast as part of a balanced diet and active lifestyle.

As well as ‘breaking the fast’, waking up to a healthy breakfast is good for our mental wellbeing. Numerous studies have shown that those who eat breakfast are less depressed, less emotionally distressed and have lower perceived levels of stress compared with those who skip it.

Sports dietitian Jane Griffin says: “A healthy breakfast can give you a head start by benefiting mood, physical and mental performance, weight and health. As well as recharging the body and brain’s energy reserves, a healthy breakfast provides essential nutrients, which if missed are less likely to be compensated for during the other meals of the day.

“So, the old proverb ‘breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper’ still holds true today.”

All stages of the food chain from farmers to food producers and retailers to consumers have been encouraged to hold events across the country to promote the importance of starting the day with breakfast and to celebrate the wealth of high quality regional produce available across the UK.

In our neck of the woods, an annual farmhouse breakfast will take place at Whitchurch Canonicorum village hall on January 25 from 9am to 3pm where the proceeds from the meal will go towards the village hall fund.

A full English breakfast will be on offer for brunch or lunch and there will be other variations on the theme using local produce, and a quiz and draw in aid of Cancer Research UK.

South Street in Bridport will also enjoy a community Sunday breakfast, with the papers, a free raffle, quizzes, sausage tastings, and live music from local musicians.

To celebrate the most important meal of the day, a selection of new breakfast recipes has been created for Farmhouse Breakfast Week 2009 which is available online at farmhousebreakfast.com