Healthy BREAKFAST options:
In a letter to Dr. Marsha Woolf, director of Alternative Resources Unlimited, renowned Natural Medicine cancer and immune system consultant for 36 years, a patient Cris writes:
Dear Dr. Woolf,
What do you eat for breakfast? xxxz
In a message dated 10/3/10 9:52:43 PM, tibetmedmw@aol.com writes:
Dear Cris,
1. Sometimes, I make hot cereal, either brown rice cream (the Macrobiotic cure all for illness), oat or multigrain (no buckwheat as it can be overheating for the liver) with oat bran, barley flakes, rye flakes as optional add ins. My favorite combo is rye flakes, barley flakes, oats and oat bran all cooked together. I keep it pretty simple and do not eat it with fruit, etc. I use enough water when cooking to make it the consistency I like so I don’t have to add soy milk. I may add steamed or sautéed cubes veggies, peas, winter squash, sweet potato (not often). I may add a very small amt of honey or agave. Usually, I do not.
I make enough porridge (never oatmeal alone) so I have some left over for a snack. I make the leftovers into a pudding kind of thing adding unsweetened soy milk, organic powdered ginger, cardamon, a bit of org fennel powder and a touch of eucalyptus or alfalfa honey or agave.
2. In many parts of Asia, a traditional breakfast consists of what we may thing of as regular food, not specific breakfast food. This morning I will have vegetable pea soup from a local natural foods restaurant. Most of the time, I make my own hearty soups, usually making a single kind of bean-lentils, pea, mung beans, adzuki beans- adding a variety of vegetables. Sometimes, when I eat out the night before, I order something to take home for the next day’s breakfast. Also, in the USA, in many restaurants they serve so much food on the plate that it is easy to pack up part of it for the morning or lunch meal the next day. Often, I ask for a take out container at the beginning of the meal, and pack half, so I am not tempted to overeat.
3. My favorite breakfast is to eat food I cooked while I was preparing dinner the night before. I either make extra of the dinner I am cooking or prepare something else at that time with the next day in mind. This meal consists of whole grain such as short grain brown rice, millet, barley, quinoa or any combination of them or others, some steamed or lightly sauteed veggies (never the nightshades-tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, rarely zuchini, not much), sea vegetable, mostly arame or kelp, and a bean or tofu dish.
4. I rarely ever eat bread any time and particularly not for breakfast. I prefer whole grains. There is so much more vital energy in whole grains than flour products.
5. Cheat: fresh home fries from the corner restaurant, made with only sautéed potatoes, onions, and a little oil. I add nutritional yeast and organic dry parsley and tumeric. I also may add organic ginger or fennel.
6. Rarely, and only when I am traveling, in the USA I will order an egg sandwich or one poached egg with dry multi grain toast. In India, hard boiled eggs are safe, clean and easy for transport. They can be eaten with a whole wheat pita bread (chapatti) for a nutritious meal on the road.
7. Lunch option: Being in New York City, there are many Chinese restaurants. I only use one. I have known them for years, referred hundreds, and trust their cleanliness. They never use msg. I order my food with no salt, oil, and sugar, all of which most Chinese and Asian restaurants add ‘for taste’. I much prefer to put on my own salt, etc. If I order a Chinese luncheon special (at least 4 to 5 bucks less then the dinner price, sometimes I order two (different ones) and have the second lunch special for dinner that evening. This usually happens on work days so I am ‘taken care of ‘ without having to cook in between patients. Once in a very blue moon, I will have a sandwich that I buy at whole foods. Greens are very important. The chlorophyll helpa with liver function and nourishes the blood.
8. If at all, I tend to eat cold cereal as a snack. Kashi brand organic 0 sugar, or Arrowhead Mills organic puffed millet with unsweetened soymilk and a dash of honey or agave. They have many organic puffed grain cereals low in sodium- rice, corn, wheat, millet, etc. They offer great tasting clean products.
There is such a wide variety of healthy alternatives for breakfast. I leave you with an idea for you to build upon.
Hope that answers the breakfast question.
I love you dearly.