Breakfast of Champions: Uncovering Culture Through Breakfast Customs
- Piece of Cake Staff
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Written by Colleen Petric
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” is a phrase I have heard long before I can remember (Bamberg 2024; Broderick 2025; Brown 2025; Gibney et al. 2018, 559).
My elementary public school held breakfast programs in the home economics room. Before the first bell, toothy female volunteers welcomed a high attendance. Whole-grain toast drowned in peach jelly, steamy scrambled eggs wiggled on ceramic plates, and sweat beaded off stacks of white and chocolate milk cartons. Kindergartners to Grade 8 students—they already gobbled down yogurt and granola or waffles and fruit at home—shuffled along to grab fuel for their day.
When Grade 9 rolled around, the classroom became vacant. The elderly ladies kept each other company. In high school, eating breakfast seemed almost embarrassing. Embarrassing enough that Spearmint Rain 5 Gum and Tim Hortons iced cappuccinos replaced banana and blueberry pancakes. My friends in homeroom—we played tug-of-war with quadratic equations—boasted, “I have not eaten anything since dinner. And I am still full.”
A Brief Breakfast History
Breakfast customs have remained dynamic throughout history (Watters 2023). Breakfast customs reveal broader religious, wellness, and work ethic values. Ancient Egyptians gobbled on sourdough around 4,000 B.C.E., and Europeans doused stale bread in milk and eggs to fry French toast from 400 to 1,400 A.D. (Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Bread 2023; Perry 1991). During the Middle Ages, some Christians saw breakfast as self-indulgent and gluttonous (Garber 2016). Only the young, elderly, or ill scarfed down simple meals, like pain perdu or “lost bread,” for energy (Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Breads 2023).
Industrialization reshaped breakfast again (Garber 2016; Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Breads 2023). Breakfasts became dense sources of fuel for productive work. Around 1870, eggs and ham, bacon and sausage, pancakes and flapjacks crowded the breakfast table (Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Breads 2023).
But the most significant transformation came in the 1900s (Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Breads 2023). American nutritionist James Caleb Jackson invented the first cereal, and American Dr. John Harvey Kellogg popularized breakfast cereal through his invention of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (Oksman 2016). Dr. Kellogg—he also served as a businessman and health-food pioneer—promoted grains, fruits, and nuts as healthier alternatives for fried meals (EBSCO Information Services n.d.; Encyclopedia Britannica 2026; Oksman 2016). Americans found cereal lightweight and easier to digest (Oksman 2016). Flashy boxes with cartoon mascots and bold nutrition claims attracted once-porridge-faithful consumers for their convenience (Pruitt 2019; Saxena 2023). When scientists discovered vitamins and minerals in the 1940s, cereals became fortified (Oksman 2016).
In the 1920s, breakfast transformed once again. Fears of low energy led American
psychologist Edward Bernays to crystallize the phrase “Breakfast is the most important meal of
the day” (Bamberg 2024; Braithwaite Communications 2020; Broderick 2025; Friday Sock Co
2025; Voyles 2023). According to Sam Dean of Bon Appétit (2012), “the Father of Public
Relations” crafted a major shift that favoured the hearty bacon-and-eggs combo (Voyles 2023).
One of Bernays’ doctor friends wrote to 5000 physicians to ask something along the lines of: “Is a larger meal in the morning better for our health?” (Voyles 2023). Over 4500 responded with “Yes.” Bernays, the nephew of psychologist Sigmund Freud, published a newspaper story with a headline that read: “4500 physicians urge Americans to eat heavy breakfasts to improve their health” (Braithwaite Communications 2020). Bernays’ success illustrates that consumers believe stories linked to experts (Braithwaite Communications 2020; Dean 2012).
Breakfast has become a “multi-billion-dollar industry,” notes My Cup of Tea (2024). Breakfast has become increasingly commercialized through cereal jingles—Kellogg’s Rice Krispies boxes read, “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” while General Mills Lucky Charms says, “They’re magically delicious!”—and bacon-and-egg marketing schemes (MrBreakfast.com n.d.; Zurowski 2025). Companies sell products. But companies also market ideals of health and productivity—what the “perfect” morning should look like.
Modern Breakfasts, A Morning Teeter-Totter
Martin’s Famous Potato Rolls and Breads (2023) emphasizes the modern resurgence of “old” breakfast foods—egg-in-a-hole, French toast, and avocado toast. But with embellishments for Instagram feeds. Some of us consume strawberries and peanut butter granola piled over vanilla yogurt, others chocolate chip and banana pancakes doused in maple syrup. Cinema has even pushed peak concentration and academic or professional performance as a result of breakfast. Take Leave It to Beaver (1957) or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), Home Alone (1990) or Matilda (1996), The Parent Trap (1998) or Pride and Prejudice (2005) (Happy Egg n.d.). “Good” students and employees eat breakfast; their stomachs do not get in the way of learning and working.
Older nutritional messaging and select current social media influencers encourage us to eat every few hours to “boost metabolism.” However, breakfast contradictions on social media have intensified. Society has become divided; society teeters between “to eat breakfast” and “not to eat breakfast.”
TikTok and Instagram posts promote skipping meals and intermittent fasting, such as going more than 16 hours without eating to optimize metabolism (Bren on The Road 2020). Some post videos with lengthy captions and flowery titles that read: “Do not eat until noon” and “You have to earn your first meal” (Mattson 2026). Others praise eating from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and restricting daily caloric intake to 500 or 600 twice weekly (Mattson 2026). Another divide? Cereal offers nourishment, but it contains processed sugar. “What I Eat in a Day” videos that feature black coffee, electrolyte powders, and protein shakes for morning energy and promote delayed meals bombard Instagram Feeds and TikTok For You Pages (FYP). Some influencers present skipping breakfast as a symbol of discipline, wellness, and self-optimization. Breakfast has become less about nourishment, more about self-management.
Conclusion: To Skip or To Scarf Down
“Breakfast” carries social and emotional connotations. Eating breakfast may appear healthy and responsible to some. Skipping may indicate discipline and productivity to others. Social media highlights that bacon and eggs, or none at all, reflect our collective obsession with productivity, timeliness, optimization, and self-control. A practical morning meal has dwindled and become a performance—proof of living in discipline and “clean eating. It's a moral debate. Both sides now play tug-of-war.
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