Breakfast of failures?
California gastroenterologist Dr. Saurabh Sethi has taken to TikTok to call out the five unhealthiest breakfast foods.
We’ve long been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, a metabolic boost that provides the cornerstone of nutrition. Yet according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a quarter of us skip our morning meal, and it seems even those who do make the time to rise and dine do not always make healthy choices.
Indeed, experts argue that what you eat is more important than when you eat, and as Sethi (@doctorsethimd) told his 476,000 followers, many people begin their day in a nutrition deficit by choosing bad-news breakfast foods.
The good doctor has previously shared his surprising pick for the “healthiest alcohol” and three reasons why bananas should be cut from your fruit smoothie recipes.
Bacon
Smoky swine tops Sethi’s list of breakfast foods to avoid.
“Bacon is highly processed and full of unhealthy fats and nitrates, which have been linked to multiple cancers, including stomach and colon cancer,” he explained.
Processed meats like bacon have been salted, cured, smoked or chemically preserved for a long shelf life.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” in 2015 because of “sufficient evidence from epidemiological studies that eating processed meat causes colorectal cancer.”
MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas reports that heme, nitrates and nitrites in processed meats can damage cells lining the bowel, increasing cancer risk.
Plus, cooking processed meats at high temperatures, i.e., frying bacon, can produce heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer in animals.
Breakfast cereal
Sethi warned that many breakfast cereals are “laden with high amounts of sugar.”
And for specific brands, sugar is just one among a long list of potentially toxic ingredients.
In October 2024, more than 1,000 cereal lovers and health activists marched on Kellogg’s Michigan headquarters, demanding the end of the injection of “harmful additives” into US batches of products like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.
In March of last year, Kellogg investor Jason Karp, founder and chief of healthy foods company HumanCo, put Kellogg on blast, asserting that “in pursuit of short-term profits, Kellogg fills its most ubiquitous cereal products in the US … with harmful artificial dyes, such as Red 40, Yellow 6 and Blue 1, as well as the preservative BHT.”
Granola
Sethi argued that granola should be consumed cautiously because it contains high levels of sugar and unhealthy fats.
Courtney Smith, a registered dietician, has echoed Sethi’s sentiment. Smith previously told The Post that granola is a “health halo,” meaning it is a food that is marketed as healthy but hides harmful ingredients.
“Granola may seem like a healthy cereal option, but it contains a great deal of added sugar, which is used to form the clumps.”
She recommends eating calorically dense granola as a topping rather than by the bowlful.
Pancakes
Standard pancakes are off the table for Sethi, who says sweet stacks should be consumed in moderation or, better yet, swapped out for whole wheat varieties.
Last year, a diabetic CEO who used a “digital twin” app to monitor his blood sugar, food, exercise, sleep and medications shared his diabetes-friendly pancake recipe. Made with almond flour, these cakes offer twice the protein and four times the fiber of regular flour without spiking blood sugar.
Doughnuts
No surprise here, folks; doughnuts were awarded a place on Sethi’s list of worst breakfast foods.
“Doughnuts should be avoided in the morning to prevent significant sugar spikes,” he explained.
Doughnuts are generally considered an ultra-processed food (UPF), a type of consumable that has been linked to rising cancer rates.
Recent research has shown that 60% of adult Americans’ daily caloric intake comes from ultra-processed foods (UPFs) — and for children, it’s 70%.
A study published by the BMJ revealed that exposure to UPFs was associated with 32 poor health outcomes, including mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and metabolic complications. Some of the linked conditions include cancer, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes.
