Typical restaurant breakfast

I recently had a prototypical restaurant breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, mostly because of the $5 price. It was probably the first such breakfast I’d ordered in a couple of years.

The reason? This standard breakfast is typically a carbohydrate bomb, much more so if you throw some hash browns, potatoes or pancakes onto the groaning plate. This combination totals about 100 grams of carbs, which as a Type 2 diabetic would send my blood sugar levels surging to unhealthy levels. That’s how many carbs I consume in a week!

How about a gut-busting stack of pancakes?

But who cares, if you’re not diabetic? Here are some stats to consider. The carb-laden breakfast I described adds up to 1,200 calories (about half my daily needs), 80 grams of fat (95% of daily needs), 525 milligrams of cholesterol and 1,860 milligrams of salt. Believe me, not healthy numbers.

Yet when I peruse breakfast menus at reputable restaurants, the overwhelming emphasis is on platters of carb-heavy food. Banana cream pie French toast anyone?

Eggs benny with all the carbo trimmings

Admittedly, there are some recent concessions to healthier breakfasts, such as morning bowls that might remove toast from the equation. If you’re prepared to scour their menus, Denny’s offers a Fit Slam (450 calories and 59 grams of carbs, which could be further trimmed if the English muffin was eliminated), while IHOP provides an egg-white omelette totalling 480 calories and 26 grams of carbs. (My hack is to order a two-egg omelette with spinach, mushrooms and cheddar cheese—hold the toast, hold the hash browns—for only 200 calories and 4 grams of carbs.)

A much healthier breakfast bowl

But overall, healthy breakfasts seem like token concessions in a world still dominated by the carb-cal tag team. Don’t know why that is. Nostalgia? An occasional treat? Tastes so damn good?

Breakfast comfort food?

Methinks, there’s an unexploited niche for restaurants that want to go whole hog, so to speak, into healthier breakfasts. Until then, it’s carb bombs away… and curl up in the fetal position.

P.S. I haven’t forgotten you, burgers and fries. But I can only tackle one vice at a time.