Amity Trident Amity's Student Newspaper

Printer-friendly version

Fast food is a staple of American society, and better nutritional choices have been all the rage. Now, the battle has become focused on the "most-important" meal of the day: breakfast. Most recently, Starbucks has jumped on the bandwagon with five new breakfast sandwiches. Subway has also expanded its menu to include omelet sandwiches and muffin melts. Wendy’s, after a failed venture into the breakfast market 20 years ago, has decided to try once more with speedier preparation methods.

Burger King’s BK Breakfast Value Menu has many items for $1, including the Hamlette sandwich. Yet the king of the fast food morning meal is McDonald’s, with its famous Egg McMuffin and improved coffee line-up. Consumer reports state that 11% of the food business is done at breakfast, and McDonald’s rakes in 25% of its profits. With this recession, more chains are trying to grab their own breakfast bullions.

McDonald’s still has a healthy lead on the other businesses since it started frying and brewing almost a decade before any others. Yet Subway’s reputation for healthy items may attract more people. Alternatively, Starbucks, which provides coffee beverages to a sizable chunk of the population, has the flow of people to increase its profits by offering hot sandwiches. It seems the business completion has switched to optimization, rather than location. Instead of building more stores in remote locations, the managers are aiming to maximize their revenue from already-existing sites.

It seems that America is catching onto a fast food breakfast. Do you remember the last time you had a homemade breakfast, sitting down, on a weekday? No, wolfing down some chewy granola bar on the bus does not count. I mean at a table, with your family, in a leisurely manner on Tuesday morning. Most of us will have a difficult time trying to dredge up such a memory. The unfortunate truth is that we simply lack the time to have a Victorian-style breakfast. We tend to settle for cereal, coffee with some pastry treat, or just skip breakfast altogether. Then, we hear reports that obesity rates have skyrocketed and the average BMI is unhealthy.

I don’t know whether or not breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day, but I think it is definitely necessary to provide some fuel for one’s body before jetting off to school or work. That said, I don’t think the best way to start any day is to ingest large amounts of fat, cholesterol, and sodium. However, eating hot slop called oatmeal appeals to me about as much as writing a report on it. So, what can we eat that is healthy, pleasantly edible, quick to prepare, and transportable? My personal favorite is a yogurt parfait with cinnamon granola, blueberries, and strawberries.