I have always wondered: If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, why does no one eat it? It’s because breakfast actually sucks. Someone recently told me that they had an opposing opinion, as they believed that breakfast is the best meal of the day. It’s safe to say I am no longer friends with them. I proceeded to ask 30 different people what they thought was the best meal of the day, and only one person said breakfast was the best meal of the day. 23 people thought dinner was the best meal, and six people thought lunch was the best. You read that correctly, more people believed that lunch was the best meal of the day than breakfast. Breakfast is definitely not the best meal of the day, and most people agree with me on that. 

My first reason why breakfast is not the best meal of the day is because it is in the morning. Not only is it in the morning, but it is meant to be eaten around the time you wake up. How good is that meal going to really taste when you just rolled out of bed? It’s probably not going to be satisfying. As you eat this meal, while half-awake, you are probably thinking about all the work you have to do for the day. So, you are tired and now you are sad because you realize that you have a long day ahead of you. Breakfast has now accomplished two things: make you wake up earlier and think about how long your day is going to be. At least for lunch and dinner, there’s a bright milestone for the day. The timing of breakfast just inherently makes the meal worse. Also, nobody has time to make breakfast. As a college student, I can definitely say that I would much rather sleep than spend any time trying to make breakfast. I wake up relatively early each day, and there is never a time when breakfast is on my mind. Why not just sleep longer and eat lunch a few hours later? 

Now let’s get to breakfast food itself. I am going to give possibly a very controversial opinion, but I think pancakes, waffles and French toast are basically the same thing. They are all cake/bread on which you put syrup. You can even eat all of them plain or with butter. There lies a big issue in breakfast food. Variety does not exist with breakfast. If three of the most staple breakfast foods are basically the same thing, you know something is wrong. Another issue is that most of the other common breakfast foods are not very enticing foods. Cereal is bread and milk. Toast is just bread and maybe some spread. Bagels are basically toast with a slightly different spread. I should be hungry after talking about food so much, but I can definitively say that no part of me wants to eat after hearing the “great” breakfast foods. 

Breakfast in general is one of the cheaper meals, which is a good thing. You can normally get very good value out of breakfast foods; eggs, for example, can be filling and not expensive. This is the only good thing about breakfast. However, I must point out the one glaring flaw in this concept, that is, going out to eat breakfast. Let’s take the example of avocado on toast. I can see why it is beneficial to eat avocado on toast, but please explain to me how you can justify going to a restaurant and ordering it. Yes, it is maybe worth it if you buy an avocado and make the meal at home, but why choose to pay $11.49 for basically bread and an avocado at a restaurant? You can probably buy a loaf of bread and two avocados with that price. Anytime I see someone order avocado on toast at a restaurant, I stand up and leave. Breakfast as a whole is so overpriced if you go out to eat it. I can never justify going out to eat breakfast because I refuse to pay $10 for two pancakes. For $10 you can order a large pizza. How could you say that it is worth it to pay the same amount of money for two pancakes as a large pizza? 

Finally, I am just going to say it. Breakfast is boring. There is no excitement when it comes to breakfast foods. I think there are times when you may crave a pancake or a waffle, but the flavors that come with it just aren’t something that blows your mind as much as maybe a pizza. There are so many varying flavors from the sauce and the toppings that can make a pizza exciting. Now let’s think about how pancakes are exciting. These normal pancakes now have chocolate chips. I literally fell asleep writing that. Not all meals have to be exciting, but each meal should provide that opportunity. Breakfast just doesn’t do that. 

“I want to preface this entire article by saying that breakfast in general is the best meal of the day, no questions asked,” said John Fornagiel ’22 in an article. 

I want to end this article by saying that there has never been a more incorrect statement than this one. If there is one thing that comes out of this article, it should be that breakfast is at least not the best meal of the day if not the worst. 

 Editor’s Note: Editor-in-Chief John Fornagiel approved the publishing of this article.