Healthy breakfast for healthy life

Good breakfast is the key to a healthy lifestyle determining the quality of your whole day's nutrition, according to research.

And the best way to start the morning is with a simple bowl of a healthy cereal, as it makes people less likely to turn to fatty, sugary food through the rest of the day.

The healthiest breakfast choice is cereal with milk because it is a good source of calcium and numerous other key nutrients, such as fibre, protein and carbohydrate.

The research results showed that one in five adults ate no solid food for breakfast, one third chose cereal and 45 per cent enjoyed a non-cereal breakfast. The most popular item was tea or coffee, taken on 84 per cent of breakfast occasions.

Milk was consumed with 82 per cent of breakfasts, followed by cereal (39 per cent), bread (33 per cent) and fruit (14 per cent).

The healthiest breakfast choice is cereal with milk.

Women were less likely than men to choose bread, sausage, bacon or eggs and more likely to have fruit instead.

The study found that eating breakfast was associated with a lower fat and higher carbohydrate intake over 24 hours compared with skipping breakfast.

But this was mainly attributable to cereal-based breakfasts as non-cereal meals were associated with a higher intake of saturated fatty acid and lower protein intakes.