A healthy breakfast provides you with important nutrients and helps keep your metabolism on an even keel throughout the day. Many American breakfast foods are less than healthy, however. These unhealthy foods can cause you to gain weight, increase your blood pressure, raise your risk of heart disease and make you feel sluggish.
Salty, Fatty Meats
Fatty meats immediately pop to mind when unhealthy foods are discussed. Sausage, bacon and fried ham are notoriously high in fat and sodium but low in nutrition. These foods should be severely limited or eliminated from your diet altogether.
Poor Grain Choices
Instead of providing an adequate amount of fiber, stripped grains such as those in plain flour are considered unhealthy. You should avoid croissants, doughnuts, muffins, white bread, pastries, cinnamon rolls, biscuits, pancakes and waffles made from plain flour. Many of these offenders are high in saturated fat as well. For better health, eliminate cereals that aren't made from whole grains or that list sugar among the first few ingredients.
Full-Fat Dairy Products
Full-fat dairy products are another breakfast dietary hazard. Whole milk, cream, soft cheeses, full-fat cottage cheese, butter and full-fat yogurt often supply more saturated fat than you need at one meal. The effect of consuming such products is made worse if they contain excess sugar, such as found in chocolate milk or sweetened yogurt,
Unhealthy Extras
Healthy extras such as spices, nuts and seeds add nutrition to the breakfast meal, but many of the most common extras only drag down the nutritional value of your first meal of the day. Avoid fake maple syrup, often called pancake syrup; gravy, fried hash browns and juice products that aren't 100 percent juice. You should also avoid eating excessive amounts of margarine, honey, molasses, jelly, grits, cream of wheat and cream of rice.
Processed and Restaurant Foods
Many heavily processed breakfast foods are high in saturated fat, white flour, sugar or sodium. These foods include frozen biscuits with meat, breakfast pizzas, flour-based pockets containing eggs and meat, and frozen breakfast bowls. It can be difficult to find a healthy breakfast option at a restaurant. Beware of the fast-food offerings, such as meat, egg and cheese biscuits and croissants; gravy biscuits; and sweet biscuits drowning in icing. Sit-down restaurant meals are often no better. In addition to fatty meats and gravy, these offerings often include sugar-laden fried apples, high-fat grain products and eggs swimming in grease.
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