Science Says You Should Be Eating More Protein for Breakfast

Are you eating enough protein for breakfast? Are you used to eating cereal, or possibly a breakfast grain bar, or even some oatmeal with berries? Possibly you like buttered toast and an orange to start your day.  If you’re like many Americans, your meals get progressively higher in their protein content as you make your way through the day.  However, recent research is suggesting that we may have things completely backward.

Why Would Protein for Breakfast Matter?

Proteins are a critical part of our nutrition. They’re composed of long amino acid chains and are critical to skeletal muscle growth. Those are the muscles that we need to be able to move around. Recent studies have indicated that while eating proteins in general is good for us, we can get even more out of them for our muscle preservation and growth if we consume them at the right time of the day.  When is that?  According to research, it’s in the exact reverse order used by most people eating the typical American diet.

The concept of when you eat your nutrients is called chrononutrition. It steps beyond just how many servings of food groups you have in a day and considers the timing of your nutrients and macronutrients as well.

Interestingly, researchers examining chrononutrition have found that protein digestion and absorption fluctuates throughout the day.

When is it Best to Focus on Proteins?

Preliminary studies have suggested that eating protein for breakfast and lunch helps to promote the growth of skeletal muscles in adults.

Research conducted by a team led by Professor Shigenobu Shibata at Waseda University examined the impact timing makes on the consumption of the macronutrient.  The research started with a study of laboratory mice but progressed to include sixty women aged sixty-five years and older, in a later human study.

What they found was that when the women ate protein for breakfast instead of at dinner, their skeletal muscle preservation or growth was better than that of women who took in their proteins later in the day. That had been the trend observed in the mice, as well, showing a cross-species trend in this regard.

Therefore, in terms of the impact on keeping up healthy skeletal muscles overall, it appears that it may be beneficial to focus on consuming proteins earlier in the day than to wait until dinner, as is typically the case in the average American diet.