The Perfect Breakfast Food May Be...

...oatmeal and other whole-grain cereals.

Men who regularly eat oatmeal and other whole-grain cereals instead of refined-grain cereals for breakfast may live longer and reduce their risk of heart attack or stroke, reports Reuters of new research from Harvard Medical School in Boston that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

So what IS a whole-grain cereal? Look at the list of ingredients on the side of the box. The first ingredient must be either a whole grain or bran and have at least two grams of fiber per serving to be called a "whole-grain" cereal.

The more whole-grain cereal a man reported eating for breakfast, the less likely he was to die from any cause or from heart or blood vessel disease such as heart attack or stroke, even after the investigators accounted for risk factors such as diabetes, obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity, reports Reuters.

And if one bowl is good for you, then two must be better! Go ahead and have seconds. The men who ate the most cereal--that is, more than one serving a day--had a 17 percent lower risk of death from any cause than men who rarely or never ate whole-grain cereal. In addition, those who ate the most had a 20 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease than those who consumed the least.

Well I'm going to have say that something with nutritional value in the morning is key. Something that packs some carbohydrates with fibre. The body breaks down the carbohydrates, utilises that for the first part of the day. Plus! You get the added benefits of fibre. People just don't get enough fibre into their diets these days.

Furthermore, I've decided to become better at cooking Italian food. I ordered a couple of recipe books the other day off of Amazon, so who knows what I'll be having for breakfast in a couple of days!