Natural Health

Search for the perfect breakfast

I am a fan of Edward De Bono, the high profile business management guru who invented lateral thinking. Often when I’m stuck for a solution to an important problem, I make a conscious effort to stop ‘trying’ to think as I would normally, and dwell on the opposite. In fact, after a point, I stop thinking about the problem completely and take a break so that obvious solutions don’t cloud my mind. Subsequently I address the problem from a completely different perspective, and often when I least expect it, a workable solution pops up inside my head.

De Bono’s latest book H+(plus) published by Random House, has reinforced my faith in this great thinker and problem solver. Although disarmingly simple, the multiple crises confronting humankind have prompted De Bono to provide solutions to some of them. Employing the virtues of happiness, health, hope, help and humour to address problems is the way to go, suggests De Bono. I would add healing to this list. In my years of helping people with their health, I have been advocating ‘being busy and involved in life’ as the prescription for superior health and well-being.

In spite of being a nutritionist by vocation, I have found that undoing people’s obsession with food has been crucial. This doesn’t imply that what one eats is not important. But being aware of nutritional choices and choosing wisely is of the essence in today’s fast-paced life. Because the body needs to be nourished for health and energy to pursue one’s dreams. It was to this end that I searched for a breakfast solution.

Although I’ve always been satisfied with my lunch and dinner choices, it took me a long time to decide on the menu of the first and most important meal of the day. Breakfast is vital because it keeps you going until the afternoon, and it’s the first meal after a long night’s fast.

Lateral thinking helped me choose the ideal breakfast. Having already tried various options, I needed not only a natural but also a convenient breakfast, since I shared the kitchen with many family members. For several years I have adhered to the Fit-for-Life all-fruit breakfast. But lately I felt the need to follow this up with something more filling. The dalia (split whole grain) or suji (semolina) options were excellent but labour intensive. The wholemeal bread option was only a standby, since I don’t fancy consuming the yeast in it. Cheese, eggs and milk had been ruled out years ago. I wanted and needed a breakfast menu that was not just quick and convenient to rustle up, but one that nourished the cells and not just filled me up until lunch.

Lateral thinking helped. One day as I was heating brown rice for my husband’s lunch, I decided to try the leftovers for breakfast. I recalled a macrobiotic foods missionary recommending brown rice for the first morning meal. At the time I found the suggestion odd. Why not? I thought. If it serves my body well for the other two meals, why won’t it do the same for breakfast? My mind went back to another macrobiotic missionary who had made me rice porridge for breakfast.

So now, I often toss vegetables and soya sauce into brown rice or add water and cook it some more and eat it as porridge. A current favourite is brown rice balls with nori (seaweed) or a vegetarian sushi. If you have never tasted brown rice you might not like it right away. Therefore, first try it at lunch or dinner because it is an acquired taste. Moreover it needs to be specially cooked to derive maximum nutrition and good taste. If not carefully prepared, you could end up with stomach pain.

Therefore please note: clean, wash (without overwashing) and cook rice with three times the amount of water (twice the amount for slimmer, smaller versions of unpolished rice) in a pressure cooker. Add sea salt to taste even if you are forbidden to consume salt. This is important because of the change in the yin-yang component of the cooked rice.

After the first whistle, put the rice on a skillet/ tava and lower heat to simmer. Cook for 45 minutes. It will be mushy but this makes it naturally nutritious and delicious. Never dispose of the water, because with the starch you’ll be throwing away precious minerals and vitamins too. The starch in whole rice is a complex carbohydrate and shouldn’t be feared but welcomed, because it’s what your body needs.

I am fully persuaded that the stress of contemporary life makes it absolute necessary to eat brown rice, a sattvik food according to ayurvedic lore. It has more nutrients than white rice; is a good source of the anti-stress vitamin B; its sodium-potassium ratio is similar to that of body cells; it’s good for all blood types and ages; does not leave toxic residue, and its complex nature provides sustained energy. What more can one ask for in a food?

Just one month on brown rice cooked this way will put your health in order and give you the additional energy you need. It’s possible you will never reach for white rice again. Fulfilling hunger with refined foods, devoid of nutrients, begins the vicious cycle of malnutrition.

One closing thought: chewing brown rice well is as important as eating it. Even in its mushy form, it needs to be masticated thoroughly, because complex carbohydrate digestion begins with the enzymes in the mouth.