Sadly, most people have cereal and milk for breakfast every day. This is sad because cereal and milk are some of the worst things to put in your body (if you actually want to feel good and have energy throughout the day). I have so many patients complain of lethargy and lack of energy, and the overwhelming majority are eating milk and processed sugar for breakfast. It still surprises me that I have to tell people why these things aren’t good for you. However, I do.

Cereal is fairly obvious in that it’s virtually all sugar. Sugar is ok if it’s from a good source like fruit. It’s bad if it’s been refined and processed. You get none of the natural nutrition and just the extra calories. The sugar floods the bloodstream and causes the pancreas to work in overdrive at releasing insulin to clear the sugar from the blood and get it into the cells. Refined high-glycemic foods are the reason we have so much type II diabetes in our society.

Dairy is inflammatory. Period. There are a lot of good things about milk, but they all come with the price of chronic inflammation. Human bodies aren’t built to be consuming dairy other than breast-milk as young children. Our calcium and vitamin intake can easily be fulfilled by vegetables, fruits, fish, and nuts. This is coming from someone who LOVES milk. I love the taste of it. It’s wonderfully refreshing. However, I can’t argue with my body. My energy was zero when I was consuming milk and cereal. I was literally tired all the time. My wife and I now start out every day with a smoothie. The ingredients vary sometimes, but usually are frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, a banana, and some orange juice. We’ll usually have some eggs with it, and since we’ve ate like this, we both have a great amount of energy throughout the day.

Rather than trying to justify why milk and cereal are good to consume, just try it for a week or two. Make yourself a smoothie, have a couple hard-boiled eggs, maybe a handful of nuts, or some leftover salad or salmon from the night before. No one says breakfast can’t be leftovers. Anyways, you’ll notice wonderful benefits almost right away when you eliminate milk and cereal from the diet. Just try it… you might like it!