Second Breakfasts Can Be Good For You

A second breakfast can be just as beneficial as a first breakfast. Find out why on BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. A brain
stuff is Christian Sager here. A second breakfast has never
been just a Middle Earth popbit tradition. Europeans have long
enjoyed eating another morning meal. School Children in Germany get
a mid morning break around nine thirty a m where
they eat a second breakfast, which studies show benefits their health.

(00:26):
German adults also eat second breakfast, a small meal of
poached sausages with mustard and pretzels, and sometimes beer, according
to German born chef Michael Kufner of the bright Water
Center for the Study of Food, but now Americans are
picking up on it too, and depending on lifestyle, a
second breakfast can be just as beneficial as a first.

(00:50):
Exactly what a second breakfast is, though, in America, depends
on who is eating it and why. Athletes who need
fuel to power hours of practice eat law arged meals
with specific ratios of carbs, fat, and protein. For the
average exerciser, a light breakfast might be plenty to sustain
a workout, especially when followed later in the morning by

(01:12):
a more substantial breakfast. For Americans with hectic mornings that
involve dropping kids off and rushing to work. Go to
options for first and second breakfast include handheld microwavable foods
such as burritos, sandwiches, and oatmeal or snack bars, yogurt
and yogurt based drinks, or cereal. While brunch is typically

(01:35):
just a late breakfast and usually a leisurely sit down affair,
a second breakfast for most Americans is a chance to
fuel up for the day ahead. A second breakfast isn't
quite a snack either, or at least what was once
thought of as a snack is now becoming more intentional.
For athletes, a second breakfast can help power morning training,

(01:57):
build muscle mass, or provide an opportunity to recover over
after a hard early workout. Even some athletes are consuming
upwards of four thousand, five hundred to six thousand calories
in a day, breaking up high calorie meals is more
comfortable on the digestive system and easier to consume than

(02:17):
trying to eat a large number of calories in one sitting.
According to Stephanie Horvath, the director of Sports Nutrition at
the University of Tennessee Athletics Department, while most Americans aren't
doing so much activity to justify eating six thousand calories
a day. A second breakfast can be helpful for people
who love to exercise if it's carefully planned. The government's

(02:42):
recommendation for Americans is close to two thousand calories a day,
so surprisingly, another crowd that might benefit from a second
breakfast are people who want to lose weight. Where second
breakfasts help athletes power through workouts and put on pounds
of muscle, a second breakfast can help dieters manage hunger.

(03:02):
This strategy is called front loading calories, the concept of
eating most of the day's calories by midday. A big
breakfast and a smaller dinner can help people lose weight
and manage hunger and blood sugar, according to a study
published in the journal Obesity Indeed, research shows people who

(03:22):
eat more during the day lose weight better than those
who save their calories for later. Today's episode was written
by Sean chaivis produced by Tristan McNeil, and For more
on this and other topics, please visit us at how
stuff works dot com.