Popular Science talked about the formation of cultural eating habits

Breakfast is an important part of the diet, but it doesn't always mean the same thing. What is considered breakfast in one country may be very different from what is eaten for breakfast in another. In the USA, these are usually eggs, bacon and cereal, while in the UK they are beans with fried bread. However, research has shown that the idea of what breakfast is is primarily cultural, not scientific. This was reported by Popular Science magazine.

One of the most striking examples is the story of bacon, which became an integral part of the American breakfast thanks to an advertising campaign by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, in the 1920s. At that time, Americans ate lighter breakfasts, but advertising campaigns convinced the public that breakfast with bacon and eggs was great.

Similarly, in the 1940s, orange juice became a popular breakfast drink after manufacturers found a way to promote it amid an abundance of oranges. The foods that count as breakfast vary from culture to culture. In Japan, rice, fried fish and vegetables can be served for breakfast, while rice and beans are popular in Latin America. This shows that breakfast is primarily a cultural phenomenon, and not a set of products that is defined by scientific recommendations.

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The idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day also arose not on the basis of scientific evidence, but through marketing campaigns. In 1944, the phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" was popularized by an advertisement for Grape Nuts, which eventually became a cultural truth, despite mixed scientific research on the subject.

"This does not mean that bacon, eggs, cereal and orange juice are a bad breakfast: each of them has its pros and cons. However, our ideas about what can be considered breakfast are driven by cultural rather than scientific differences. As a culture, we have collectively decided that certain foods are eaten in the morning and certain foods are not. Sometimes people even intentionally influence the breakfast culture in order to sell certain products," said Justin Pott, the author of the article.

As Pott concluded, the notion of "traditional breakfasts" has no objective basis. People can put eggs in a roast, bacon in a pizza, or cereal in an ice cream cone, but that doesn't make these dishes breakfast.

On September 17, Scientific American magazine reported that intermittent fasting, in which people abstain from food for certain hours, has become a popular method for improving health and weight loss. However, recent studies and experts have questioned its benefits, especially for people with predispositions to diseases.

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