Have you eaten yet? (the most Chinese greeting, btw)

If you haven't, please do your best to try and get a snack or a full meal in. You're worth the effort and your body needs the necessary nutrients to function.

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Rise and Shine: 10 Healthy Breakfast Ideas to Start Your Day Right

Introduction: Breakfast is often referred to as the most important meal of the day, and for good reason. A nutritious breakfast not only provides you with the energy you need to kickstart your day but also sets the tone for healthy eating habits. However, finding the time and inspiration to prepare a healthy breakfast can be a challenge amidst busy morning routines. Fear not! In this article, we'll explore 10 delicious and nutritious breakfast ideas that are quick, easy, and perfect for fueling your day ahead.

Conclusion: With these 10 healthy breakfast ideas, you can start your day off on the right foot and fuel your body with essential nutrients and delicious flavors. Whether you prefer a refreshing smoothie bowl, a hearty omelette, or a simple bowl of overnight oats, there's something for everyone to enjoy. So make breakfast a priority and reap the benefits of a nutritious start to your day.

DO YOUR BEST TO EAT BREAKFAST!

Breakfast is an extrely important part of the day. Even if you can't manage a lot, do your best to try and eat something in the morning.

If you never have or don't do it often, try with something small like a handful of nuts or one hard-boiled egg. And then work your way up.

It'll make a difference and you're worth the effort!

People with low spoons, someone just recommended this cookbook to me, so I thought I’d pass it on.

I always look at cookbooks for people who have no energy/time to do elaborate meal preparations, and roll my eyes. Like, you want me to stay on my feet for long enough to prepare 15 different ingredients from scratch, and use 5 different pots and pans, when I have chronic fatigue and no dishwasher?

These people seem to get it, though. It’s very simple in places. It’s basically the cookbook for people who think, ‘I’m really bored of those same five low-spoons meals I eat, but I can’t think of anything else to cook that won’t exhaust me’. And it’s free!

SPREAD THE WORD THIS IS FUCKING GOD TIER OH MY GOD, SOMETIMES I HAVE SPOONS SOMETIMES I DON’T BUT NO COOKBOOK OFFERS LEVELS IN THEIR RECIPES THIS ONE DOES!

also found here:

the ebook is FREE here also

I'm bored and it's like 2AM so here's some mid/low effort food, mostly cause I hope it helps someone but also so I can have a list I can reference quickly when I don't know what to cook/get in a slump and can't put much effort into cooking

Broccoli and rice

- Cup of broccoli (or more, I like more)

- Butter (salted or unsalted or margarine, just some kind of oil, whatever you have lying around)

- Some kind of instant rice (I usually use minute rice for rushed meal prep so keep that in mind during the instructions)

- Curry powder

- Boullion cubes

- Optional; garlic powder, onion powder, and parmesan

1) Start making your rice (minute rice usually has a 1:1 ratio of water and rice)

Add curry powder (measure with your heart) and boullion cube to the hot water before the rice (for the cubes I use, one cube = about 2 cups of stock, so I cut them roughly into quarters to adjust when cooking only for myself)

Leave it alone. Seriously leave it alone until you are done cooking do not touch it you don't need to touch it.

2) Cut or rip apart your broccoli into bite sized chunks

3) Heat a pan over medium heat

Melt some butter (again, measure with your heart. Mostly because I genuinely did not and never have measured this; the important thing is making sure you have enough so nothing sticks)

Chuck in your broccoli

Cook until most of the broccoli is crispy and browned

Take off the heat (add garlic powder, onion powder, and parmesan here)

4) Chuck broccoli and rice onto a plate or into a bowl

*Asparagus is really good cooked like this too if you want to add it or sub out some of the broccoli

Tortilla Pizza

- Tortillas (Two large tortillas is what I usually have lying around and is a meal for me, this is surprisingly filling for what it is)

- Pizza sauce

- Grated cheese

- Optional; literally any other topping you have the time and energy to prepare

1) Set oven to 350°F

2) Spread sauce on tortillas; add cheese and any other toppings

3) Bake for about five minutes

*I'd put this on parchment paper and just bake directly on the rack of your oven; idk about you but I don't have a pan that comfortably fits two large tortillas

*Keep an eye on this while it bakes; you may need to go a little longer, but don't let the edges get too brown, tortillas burn easily

Meat and Cheese Board (Grownup lunchables/"Whatever I had in the fridge")

- Block or sliced cheese

- Fruit (Apples and grapes immediately come to mind)

- Jam/jelly/marmalade (World's your oyster; I like fig marmalade and dandelion jelly, they go well with apples and cheddar)

- Crackers

- Deli meat (Turkey/chicken breast slices my go to; even better if you have real turkey/chicken breast leftover from another meal)

- Crackers (Any kind; triscuits, saltines, melba toast, pretzel crackers, crusty bread, whatever)

- Optional; peanut butter, cream cheese

1) Measure ingredients with your heart; what can you/want to eat?

2) Cut fruit and cheese into bite sized pieces

3) Put any jam, jelly, marmalade, or other spreads/dips into bowls (or drop directly on your plate/cutting board for less cleanup)

4) Put everything either on a plate or the cutting board you used

*Yes this is a valid dinner, it does not matter that it's just a bunch of random shit thrown on a plate. It has fruit. It has protein. It has carbs. It has fats. It has things you like. It is both body nourishing and soul nourishing. It is a good dinner.

*Sub out or add things where you see fit. Peanut butter can become almond or soy butter, apples can become pears, add some vegetables, use any kind of cheese you want/have at home, if you have leftover meat from last night use that instead, don't use meat at all; this is my favourite "I don't know what to make" meal because you literally can't fuck it up and best case scenario you only have to wash a knife, a cutting board, and whatever utensils you used to scoop out any jam or peanut butter

Mason jar noodles

- 1L Mason jar

- Rice noodles (I use the ones that are already separated into single serves because I cannot for the life of me accurately measure how much rice noodle one person can eat

- Vegetables (frozen or fresh, whatever you have/can manage today. I like broccoli, baby corn, and peppers)

- Cooked chicken breast, shredded or cut into chunks

- 1 tbs low sodium soy sauce

- 1 tbs sriracha

- Chicken stock cubes

- Minced garlic (maybe like a teaspoon or two? I never measure this)

1) Cut vegetables into bite sized chunks and chuck them into the mason jar (if they're frozen and already bite sized just go ahead and chuck them into the jar. Measure with your heart, only you know how much vegetable you want)

2) Put sriracha, soy sauce, garlic, stock cube, and chicken into the jar and mix everything around. Rest rice noodles on top (as mentioned before, my stock cubes would make a lot more chicken broth than I need; I usually cut them in half but it usually ends up being a little too much)

3) Close up the jar, store in fridge until ready to eat. When it's food time, pour in enough hot water to cover the noodles (I eat straight out of the jar with chopsticks but it's a lot easier to pour them into a bowl if you can

*Bring your jar to room temperature before eating; I am begging you to not subject your glass jar to thermal shock and end up with glass in your hands

*Disclaimer that I heard this one from a dietician on YouTube (Nutrition By Kylie), and that this was intended to be meal prep and eaten at a later time, but nobody stops me from just chucking everything into a bowl and eating it then and there so nobody is going to stop you (maybe take some time on a good day/a day you aren't busy and prep a few of these ahead of time so that you can just pour boiling water into a jar and you have food ready to go on days you just can't cook for one reason or another)

Chicken Wraps

- Chicken strips (or nuggets, or chicken burgers, or leftover chicken breast; any chicken that you don't have to do much with, I just like crispy chicken so that's what I wrote)

- Tortillas

- Lettuce

- Sauce of choice (I like caesar or ranch)

- Shredded cheese

- Optional; bacon and tomato

1) Cook chicken strips according to directions (or cut/shred and reheat chicken breast)

2) Tear or cut lettuce into shreds (or just use the whole leaf, I don't bother cutting it half the time)

3) Put everything on a tortilla; roll it up

*Obviously not the end-all-be-all of chicken wrap possibilities, change whatever you want about it, this is just a reminder that you can do something ~different~ with and add to your chicken strips if you're getting sick of them

Yogurt (Hey, sometimes the simple stuff escapes us when we're overwhelmed)

- Cup of vanilla greek yogurt (or whatever you have lying around, my family just always has greek yogurt and it has a decent protein content)

- Berries (blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries don't need to be cut; strawberries don't *need* to be cut but I'd suggest it if they're a decent size)

- Granola (crush up a crunchy granola bar if you really want to)

- Optional; honey, dandelion jelly, some kind of jam, etc.

1) Put yogurt in a bowl

2) Sprinkle on granola

3) Throw berries and optional honey/dandelion jelly/jam on top

*I use enough granola to make a layer on top of my yogurt but I also love granola a little too much to be normal; one serving for most store bought granola is roughly 1/4 cup

*I cover about half of my bowl with fruit

*Home made granola is also 1000x better than store bought and if you have not made your own before please try it at least once

Ready Made Food

*Also a perfectly valid thing

*They aren't the best nutritionally but the important thing is that you are eating

*If all you can do today is put pizza pockets in the microwave or open a lunchable, you are still eating and that is good

*Focus on eating consistently first we can worry about nutrition later

*Do not feel bad over canned ravioli

[Image description: There are 7 images that are screen caps of tiktok user @/chris.irish.rd's video

Image 1: Reminders from a slightly angry dietitian

Image 2: Consuming soy is not going to lower your testosterone, but consistently underfueling will

Image 3: Just because the body CAN function with minimal carbohydrates doesn't mean it is "healthy" or preferred

Image 4: Your brain needs carbohydrates to understand Severance

Image 5: If you're hungry an hour after eating, there is a reason. You're allowed to eat again

Image 6: Food is personal and it can serve many purposes. You don't have to justify your eating

Image 7: You aren't supposed to weigh the same as you did in high school or college /end ID]

hey jsyk while hellofresh is dummy expensive and i wouldn’t recommend it if you already know how to cook (if you’re a beginner like i was when i had it for 3 months, then it’s worth it), you should know that ALL OF THEIR RECIPES are free on their website and they all fuck hard

i will say that all the cooking instructions for veggies are pretty much the same (season with salt + pepper and roast on the top oven rack at 425F), but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

that being said, it also introduced me to methods i wasn’t at all expecting. i would have never thought to use cream cheese in my meat sauce, and now all my friends are constantly asking me to make my special rigatoni.

happy cheffin! :)

And remember to eat something.

i had to make a solution for this for myself, mostly because of depression, but it makes a nice How To for folks who are low on spoons or could use some help in the kitchen.

Fortunately i was a professional cook for over a decade. UNfortunately the first post i made explaining it was suuuuper long. Let's see if i can do better

So you select any protein that you can cook in a frying pan -- chicken breasts, ground beef, pork chops, sausages, steak, chicken thighs, whatever. You also select one or two types of veggie (mushrooms or tubers also work, i just did this with potatoes and carrots for dinner tonight).

[i like cooking for vegetarians, but this is how i cook for myself when i'm low on spoons - perhaps i'll do another post for meatless meals]

You'll also need some kind of oil, and a sauce or two of your choice in a bottle. All cooking gear is a large frying pan with lid (i prefer non-stick) a spatula, a cutting board, and a knife.

You cut the veggies into bite size pieces, cut up enough for two meals. One kind of veggie is fine, or you can do mix two or three

Put frying pan on medium heat with a little oil. Tubers or mushrooms or go in the pan a few minutes before the protein. 2 portions of the protein goes in the pan, about 5 minutes with lid (don't worry you can still get a good sear on both sides)

Now flip your protein if it's flip-able and add normal veggies, put the lid back on another five-ish minutes.

Take your protein out and put it with one portion of the veggies in a microwave safe container. That's going to be your lunch tomorrow. Put the other portion of protein on a plate to rest (you have to let a cooked protein sit a couple minutes before you serve it or when you cut into it all the juices run out and it goes dry - the liquids thicken as it cools, preventing this drying out if you let it rest, the goal is to serve it very warm but not hot hot)

While it's resting, pour some sauce from your bottle in the pan with the rest of the veggies and turn up the heat. A single sauce/bottle is fine, i like to get fancy and mix a couple. Two examples of personal favorite mixes are 1: bbq sauce and a hot sauce like sriracha 2: roughly equal parts low sodium soy sauce and worcestershire (makes something similar to a teriyaki sauce) A swallow of wine is almost always a great option if you want to add that to your sauce too, just add it to the pan before the other sauces so the alcohol has time to burn off.

...

Here is the important bit. While your veggies are finishing, wash your cutting board and chef knife. Then when you dump your veggies and sauce over your protein on the plate, while it is still too hot to eat, you wash your frying pan and spatula before you eat. Now the only dishes you have left to do are your plate and fork. Maybe a steak knife.

...

The whole thing takes about 35 minutes even with washing the dishes, and that includes your lunch for the next day- just pour a different sauce on and stick it in the microwave for a couple minutes (or five minutes back in the frying pan) and you have a full healthy lunch with a different flavor

You can use this technique every single meal and it yields hundreds of combinations, from pork and potatoes bbq, to salmon and broccoli teriyaki, to chicken and zucchini in a soy glaze.

It will keep you down to less than an hour of kitchen time per day total for both lunch and dinner including all dish clean up, uses the least dishes, the least effort, requires the least technique, and is, depending on what you pick out, very affordable

here are a couple more examples from this month; i didn’t take pictures of the salmon i did recently, but you get the idea

it's not super fancy, but it is easy, affordable, quick, and any flavors you want. Hope this helps some folks

Happy Cooking!

hey i just want to address a thing or two real quick

the time is adjusted for beginners/those low on spoons so that i don't give false expectations to people.

Because i've worked in kitchens, when i'm at full energy and highly motivated, i can probably do this in 18 minutes if pick the right veggie.

but if i'm exhausted or depressed or whatever (or for someone less experienced in a kitchen) 35 minutes is a more realistic time. Plus it gives wiggle room for things like choosing mushrooms or potatoes, or using an extra thick piece of protein, or fiddling with the sauce, all of which which can add a few minutes.

So if you happen to take 40 or 45 minutes to do this, you're not going to feel so much like i lied to you, whereas if i tell you this takes 20 minutes, while i personally can technically do that, i think it's sort of misrepresenting the truth of what this post is for. But i've seen a couple comments along the lines of "yeah maybe for YOU with your professional skills" and i just wanted to clear that up. The good news is (especially for those whose issue is kitchen skill more than spoons) the more comfortable with this technique you become, the closer to, like, a 25 minute time you can probably get

And if this amount of effort is too much for you, then it's too much for you, and i hope you find better solutions.

I spent about a year only being able to eat a single microwaved item each day because i was so depressed i had to reeeally force myself to do even that much. So I get it. But this is a good effort level for people who are somewhere between no spoons and full spoons, as well as for people who just don't really know what to do in a kitchen, and it does seem to be of use to people in those situations, and i am so happy to be able to offer any help i know how to offer.

wishing you all the best nutrition you can manage for yourself! <3

Reminder to eat!

And please, do your best to have some fresh fruit and veggies on a regular basis. You and your body are not enemies and you deserve all the necessary nutrients to live a good life!

Please remember to eat.

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I don't care what your perception of the female body has been warped into by the media and advertising prevalent in culture. eat some goddamn carbs

The amount of people I know IRL and online who skop meals and then feel exhausted and try perk up with nicotine and and an energy drink before ending up so anxious they make themselves sick pisses me off. You need OATS!!!!!!!!

I went to a boarding school in Denmark (efterskole) for two years in the mid 00s, whose entire thing was “healthy eating and exercise leads to a healthy mind leads to the ability to learn and become an enlightened and informed participant of society”. the one thing they kept repeating over and over is “don’t drink your calories it will make you anxious and hungry and if it’s in the form of Coca Cola the caffeine will only exacerbate this”

We would regularly have guest speakers on a variety of topics - an anorexia patient, a person who’d studied abroad in the USA, a person who freestyled their further education (this was about to be abolished so not an option for us, but still an inspiring talk), a person who’d refused their military service and was instead doing community service (and why), and so on and so forth.

At one point we had a guest speaker come talk about it his work with juvenile delinquents.

He was the overseer of a house where these kids (our age! Some younger!) lived - not a prison - and where they would receive schooling to complete their mandatory primary education in a setting where social workers were on hand to assist and basically the whole point was to nurture the kids in an attempt to prevent them from choosing a life of crime and/or become dependent on the welfare system due to inability to work. They had support, teachers, people who believed in them, etc.

And yet these kids were failing. They were unruly, anxious, restless, spent their breaks smoking or going to the corner shop for soft drinks or snacks and were too wired to settle down at night to sleep so would often wind up sneaking out and causing trouble - even if the trouble was only some half asses graffiti on a bus stop .and in the morning they would be too exhausted to get up and would take half a day - until lunch, when they would be going on their corner shop lunch break - to wake up.

The problem was: these kids weren’t eating proper food. They were subsisting on nicotine, sugary snacks, and Coca Cola. So this guy, who’d heard of our school, got in touch and requested meal plans and then introduced mandatory breakfast and lunch, with dinner still optional, all following our school’s carefully designed meal plans (vegetable frontloaded with only 100g meat per person, one vegetarian day, one fish day, all bread made with whole meal flour. And since this was Denmark, dinner was a “cold table” i.e. rye bread with various topping choices, salads, and any lunch leftovers reheated as a side). And he made it mandatory for all the staff too, and assigned seating groups with a staff member (we had this at our school too), so that each meal resembled a family meal.

And suddenly these kids were having complete breakfasts with oatmeal porridge and yogurt and toast and some fruit and milk and orange juice, which gave them a solid source of energy to start the day, and they had a hot meal for lunch, and after a about a week of this dinner attendance skyrocketed. The kids weren’t restless and anxious anymore. Most of them voluntarily quit smoking and most of them stopped getting a soft drink from the corner shop too - they weren’t hungry anymore, so the sugary craving went away. These kids, just because they were getting three solid meals every day, flourished. They could concentrate in class. They were awake in the morning. They didn’t stay up late wired and restless. They all graduated and went back home and didn’t see the inside of any system, welfare or criminal, again. These kids didn’t want to be troublemakers - they just (for whatever reason) didn’t have the foundation they needed to succeed and that foundation, it turned out, was proper nutrition.

Really, truly, please do not underestimate eating. Don’t skip your meals. Take care of yourself.

- simple yogurt bowls. I like vanilla, but I accidentally bought plain recently, so I add honey to sweeten it and add granola. if we have some I also add blueberries or other fruit

- bagel with cream cheese. I like blueberry protein bagels (I struggle to eat enough) with strawberry cream cheese, but my partner likes peanut butter on his bagels.

- cubed chese with cherry tomatoes, I skewer them on toothpicks. I use sharp cedar and Colby jack just because that is our favorite and cheap for blocks of cheese

- bag salad, toast, and ceasar dressing. i bulk make salad since i use it each day for lunch so I add an extra bit of dressing to the toast depending on how much is already in the salad and I either make a sandwich with extra vegetables if we have any, or i eat it on one slice

- pasta with butter. just boiling so pasta and throwing it into a bowl with a fork full of butter. this is harder for me since it uses a stove, but dinner foods are good too ^^

- tuna and rice. having a rice cooker is great since it can schedule rice to be ready when I get off from work. I add a bit of regular mayo and rice vinegar and canned tuna. for a spicier take, you can add sriracha. also kewpie mayo makes a good alternative if you have it

reblog with your own easy cheap meals

Some quick and easy nourishment ideas:

Making sure to have a bunch of diff already prepped food helps you to easily pile together on some protein, some fruit/veggies, some carbs and your fave snack on a plate and just start eating. It really cuts down on the overwhelming feeling of omg, I need to make a meal. And using a plate instead of just grabbing a box of crackers ensures you're getting a variety of different foods so you can get the necessary nutrients your body needs.

Remember fueling yourself with care is important bc you are worth the care. ❤️

Exam breakfast ideas

January-February means exam time here, so if you happen to also have exams or just want some quick and simple breakfast ideas then this is for you!

On average these recipes take around 10-30 minutes, quicker if you already prepped the night before e.g. soaking oats if you're doing overnight oatmeal.

Quick question for the followers of this blog.