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Breakfast might not just be the most important meal of a child's day - it might be one of most important meals of their life. A new study released Wednesday by non-profit group Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign shows the positive effect that school breakfast can have on a child's performance in class and on standardized tests, and what this can mean for their future. Eleven million low-income students eat a school-provided breakfast. Share Our Strength partnered with professional services firm Deloitte to analyze third party studies and publicly available data to assess the impact of existing school breakfast plans on students' academic performance. They found some rather eye-opening statistics. While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday. September is National Breakfast Month! It's said to be the most important meal of the day, the one that sets the tone for how hungry you'll be, and the food choices you make for the rest of the day. Yet, most of us skip breakfast. Often we don't have time, or energy to make something nutritious and filling. Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up. Here in the U.S., it’s time to pick up our spoons and start eating cereal. We used to hold the world record for most cold breakfast cereal consumed (a record set in May 2012 in Rye Brook, New York). Now that title has been cruelly snatched away by 648 New Zealand schoolchildren, who, along with their teachers, ate more than 300 boxes of Weet-Bix cereal, soaked with 106 gallons of milk. We have some training to do, to get back the cereal-eating title. Here are some cereals to help the cause, no matter what your special dietary restrictions might be. Chocolate-for-breakfast cereal? Check. Save-the-world cereal? Check. Coffee-meets-cereal? Check. Go, team! Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up. Q: What do health enthusiasts have in common with anyone who’s got a really bad hangover? A: Breakfast as your key meal. True, diet breakfast might not always resemble the one that you go for after a night of bad decisions with the Long Island Iced Tea three-for-one special. This list is geared for those in need of hot fat and starch in extra-large quantities. But here’s good news if you live in both worlds: in her book, "The Big Breakfast Diet: Eat Big Before 9 A.M. and Lose Big For Life," Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz says, "You can have all the foods you crave, from pasta to bacon to ice cream, with just one catch - you have to eat them before 9:00 A.M." Now, good luck getting yourself out of bed in time to find these breakfasts. I had just loaded up a plate at the breakfast buffet in my hotel in Warsaw, Poland, when I noticed the other guests making a beeline for a small table just off to the side from the main spread. That’s when I saw it: A silver serving platter full of perfect little slices of cheesecake topped with an apricot glaze. It was 8:30 a.m. and I had already made plenty of choices from the European breakfast fare on display: freshly-baked rolls, sliced cheeses, and a selection of cold cuts, pâtés and other meats. Still, I didn’t hesitate for a second. Syrup makers falsely passing off products as authentic maple syrup might soon find themselves in a very sticky situation. Senators Patrick Leahy from Vermont and Susan Collins from Maine introduced legislation last week that would make the fraudulent sale of maple syrup a felony offense, the senators said in a statement. “I have been alarmed by the growing number of individuals and businesses claiming to sell Vermont maple syrup when they are in fact selling an inferior product that is not maple syrup at all,” Leahy said. Behold Scottish breakfast, which was easily accessible to me all last week when I was trouncing about the West Highlands on my first proper vacation in five years. It's laden with streaky bacon, sausage, and black pudding - not as traditional as haggis, but the hotel wasn't keen on the local offerings. It also has lightly roasted garden-fresh tomatoes, a mushroom that flavor-wise could easily have doubled as beef tenderloin, a tattie scone (not unlike a potato pancake) and a fried egg straight out of a chicken somewhere in the immediate vicinity. Now, back home, I pine for this breakfast. I sit on windowsills, staring out into the middle distance and dreaming of the day that this breakfast and I can be reunited. I have stopped just short of composing a mournful, touching love ballad starring this breakfast, but I'm fairly certain that this here counts as a mash note. Finally ready to l'eggo your Eggo? Look no further than Belgium native and proprietor of the Wafels & Dinges truck in New York City, Thomas DeGeest. The light, crispy and deep-pocketed Belgian (or Brussels) waffle was first introduced to Americans at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City - and it's been battering through the ranks of breakfast staples ever since. Belgium Crown Princess Mathilde and Crown Prince Philippe even made a royal pit stop to the Wafels truck on their last visit stateside – so if it's good enough for the Belgian Monarchy, it's certainly good enough for us. This is some weekend ironing you certainly won't mind adding onto the agenda. Linda Petty is an editor at CNN Living. She liked boxed mixes, tarted-up vegetables and letting produce rot in her crisper. I don’t always eat breakfast at home. But when I do, it is usually healthy. It may be some oatmeal with fresh fruit, black walnuts and cinnamon or perhaps brown rice with lemon juice, soy sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. But if I’m running late, my breakfast is often a ham and cheese biscuit picked up on the way to work from a fast food restaurant with a huge container of unsweetened ice tea. |
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