Angela Quintas, nutrition expert: “If you eat fruit for breakfast, you should fill your toast with ham”

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, some say, and as its name suggests, it is what breaks the overnight fast, which is why it is worth choosing carefully what we eat.

It is the meal that kick-starts our metabolism and sets the tone for the day ahead, which is why experts consistently recommend basing it on the traditional Mediterranean diet.

What is the best breakfast to have?

That is the focus of nutrition expert Ángela Quintas in her book De la boca a tu salud (From the mouth to your health), where she stresses that “if we are going to eat foods such as bread, rice, vegetables or fruit, they should always be paired with a source of protein.”

“When we eat carbohydrates on their own, especially those with a high glycemic load, such as rice, pasta or potatoes, they cause a rapid rise in blood glucose, triggering an insulin spike,” the expert adds.

That insulin spike caused by carbohydrates promotes fat storage and creates a metabolic imbalance, which quickly leads us to crave more food.

For that reason, after eating fruit, rice or bread, it is advisable to include protein. Quintas practices what she preaches, opting for a balanced breakfast and setting fats aside in favor of protein, explaining that “depending on whether the protein contains fat or not, I add more or less fat.”

In her case, she goes for a 50-50 split between protein and carbohydrates, which could include a piece of fruit and a slice of toast topped generously with protein such as cured ham. “Fill the bread, not just a little,” she says. “The protein needs to compensate for the fruit and the slice of bread.”

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