(bubbles popping) (screen whooshing) - I (beeping) hate American breakfast. - [Child] Right away, I
need a good breakfast. - [Man] Right away, a big bite of toast. - [Man] For kids, we like a
square meal for breakfast. - [Man] A wonderful new
fruit in the box cereal (bell ringing) (upbeat music) - I mean, how did we get here? How did this
(fluid moving) become breakfast in my country? And what is breakfast even all about? Some people say it's the most
important meal of the day, and others say that
it's totally worthless, and you don't even need to eat breakfast if you don't want to. - [Man] Two pancakes with
hot syrup and butter. - I bet a lot of you
watching don't eat breakfast in the morning, and you knew who else doesn't
eat breakfast in the morning? This guy. - [Interviewer] what do
you eat for breakfast? - Nothing. - I grew up thinking that
breakfast had to be a certain way, (funky music) but then in my twenties, I started traveling and
I learned that in fact, this version of breakfast
is a very narrow, very American version of breakfast. Once I discovered
(pan sizzling) non-American breakfast,
(liquid pouring) I feel like my eyes were opened to a completely different approach to the first meal of the day. I want to show you some
of those breakfasts, but first, let's talk about breakfast and how American breakfast got this way. - [Man] for about 22 cents, You get as much nutrition as
this bacon and egg breakfast when there's no time for
your regular breakfast. - Okay, before I jump
into all of my opinions about breakfast, let's talk about science
for a minute, like facts. (mouse clicking) does breakfast matter? Is it actually the most
important meal of the day like I was told my whole life? - [Man] You can't be your best if you don't eat a good breakfast. - Turns out there's data
on this, lots of studies, but you don't need to read them all. In fact, don't read them all. Let me give you the 20-second version. It turns out the methods
in a lot of these studies are really crummy. They weren't randomized controlled trials, like the gold standard for good science, and in a lot of cases, they didn't really study anything useful. They kind of hyper focus on breakfast as it pertains to weight. And in most of these studies, they don't even focus on what the person is eating for breakfast, they only focus on whether they
do or do not eat breakfast, regardless of what
they're actually eating. And to add to all of this, a lot of these studies are funded by corporations who have a vested interest in making breakfast seem
necessary and healthy. So yeah, there's a lot of science on this, but the science does not come
to any useful conclusions, and is often times just poorly conducted. (screen snapping)
What this means is that there's no real evidence that breakfast is the most
important meal of the day, and there's nothing special
or magic about breakfast. That's more of a marketing
myth than anything else. - [Man] Had any really good days lately? Like when the sun shines brighter, and people seem friendlier, and work goes faster, things like that? The really good days start out good with new Carnation Instant Breakfast. - Okay, wait, but there is
a little caveat in this. If you're an eight year
old kid or a teenager, and you're in school, there actually is some useful evidence that says that eating
breakfast in the morning is good for your learning
and brain development. So that's the caveat. There actually is evidence there. For the rest of us though, if you like breakfast in the morning, eat breakfast in the morning. If you're not into that, don't do it. Okay, that's it. Unless you're a kid, but I don't know how
many kids are watching. Okay, so that's the science on this. Turns out that I was a
person for many years who thought that I didn't like breakfast, that I didn't need to eat breakfast. Growing up in a small town in Oregon, I didn't have a ton of exposure to other cultures and other things, and so my version of breakfast was this. - [Man] There's a bowl of Corn
flakes spooned from the dish. - [Man] And there was some bacon. - This is all I knew as breakfast food. When we would eat eggs
and bacon for dinner, we were having breakfast for dinner. This food was inseparable from
the institution of breakfast. If you're not from the United States, let me just break down
what American breakfast is and its story, where it came from. I'll split it out into two main categories of breakfast in United States. One, I called diner breakfast. It kind of looks like this, (groovy music) and the other, I will call cereal, which is everything from
Pop Tarts to Froot Loops. - Where are the Froot Loops? - I didn't bring any, help! - To granola bars, to
Carnation Instant Breakfast. It's like the quick stuff
that's in our pantries that we can just consume before work. First, let's talk about diner breakfast. There's no better reference
for what diner breakfast is in the United States than
the official menu of IHOP, which is so inappropriately named as the International House of Pancakes. - Welcome to the International
House of Pancakes. - At IHOP, this American institution, you can start your day with this, the Stuffed French Toast, which effectively looks
like my birthday cake. Or you can get really
cultured and hop over to Italy for some Nutella crepes. Or how about the Belgian Waffle Combo, which isn't just a waffle, but also comes with bacon and eggs? Perhaps you're feeling savory, so how about this breakfast sampler, where you can eat a pig
in three different ways, because who just wants to eat bacon when you could have all three? All of this accompanied by French fries. I mean, sorry, hash browns, but why settle for these meager options when you could go with
the Cinn-A-Stack Pancakes, which come layered with a
luscious cinnamon roll filling and drizzled with rich cream cheese icing, and topped with, you
guessed it, whipped cream. icing for breakfast. Now, here's the thing. This diner style American
breakfast is inspired by Europe. (bright music) American pancakes look
a lot like other sweet, flat unleavened breads that
are eaten all over the world and especially in Europe, we just deemed necessary
to fry it in butter and then put more butter on top, and then drizzle literal liquid sugar over top and eat it for breakfast. That was the only modification we made to this wonderful tradition
of European pancakes. The idea of eating pork-based
cured meats in the morning is also a European tradition. It comes from the traditional
English breakfast, which is delicious. We just decided to get rid
of some elements from that, like the beans,
(buzzer buzzing) and the tomatoes, and the mushrooms. Who needs those, anyway? - Where are the Froot Loops? - The American waffle
comes from the beautiful, delicious tradition of the
Belgian or liege waffles, which are served in desert
stores as desserts in Belgium. They're delicious. The modification we made was
to eat them for breakfast, and then decide to take out the best part, which is the Pearl sugar,
(buzzer buzzing) the crystallized sugar
that makes a Belgian waffle or liege waffle delicious. To summarize, this diner style
took European traditions, turned them into breakfast
and modified them by making them lower
quality, bigger portions, and usually slathering them
with cream and maple syrup. - [Man] All you can eat pancakes, this calls for all you can eat silverware. get IHOP's All You Can Eat Pancakes free when you buy any breakfast combo. - I mean, icing for breakfast? It just doesn't sound good. Okay, so that's the diner
version of American breakfast, a big, important category
of what Americans like to eat for breakfast. The other category looks like this. (groovy music) This is the stuff that's in our pantries. This is the stuff we eat
before we go to work. It's quick, it's what I
grew up eating as a child, let's call this the cereal category. This food came into our
lives and became widespread because of one main
force: industrialization. - [Man] The factory whistle
awakened people in the mornings and measured off their long days of toil. - With the birth of factories
and the standardized workday, suddenly you had demand for a consistent, quick, convenient food in the morning to fuel you for the day. Paired with that, you
also now had technology to mass produce products
that would fit this demand. Perhaps the best symbol of this
shift towards mass produced, easy, convenient breakfast
food is Corn Flakes? - [Man] Kellogg's Corn Flakes. - The Kellogg's corporation,
which made Corn Flakes was a pioneer in making
this breakfast food popular. Not only because they were
able to mass produce it and cheaply sell it, but also because they
marketed it in this way that made it feel like
the most important thing in the world. ♪ Kellogg's adds extra vitamins ♪ ♪ To make their Corn Flakes
the best it's ever been! ♪ (record scratching)
But there was a problem. Over time, people would
look at this lousy bowl of Corn Flakes and be like,
who wants to eat this? This is boring. But America had a solution. All we needed to do was
pump it full of sugar. - [Man] One big gulp of it. - Yum! - Gives me lots of energy-- - [Man] for this nutritious breakfast. (icing bursting)
- [Man] This is how Pop Tarts have--
- Whoa! - Geez. I mean, that's, that's pretty
aggressive right there. Wow. Yeah. That's how I feel after
I eat a Pop Tart as well. Anyway, people started to believe that breakfast and
especially these commodities, which were quickly becoming
dessert disguised as breakfast. - The ultimate fruit flavor. - Look! - Were the key to a healthy morning and a good start to the day. And soon, I was born into a world, a world where breakfast products and norms were cemented before me. A world where millions of Americans would wake up in the
morning and consume dessert disguised as breakfast. Your muffin is just a cupcake in disguise. That cup of yogurt might as
well be a scoop of ice cream. And then there's the mighty doughnut, the food that doesn't even
pretend to be breakfast. It's just literal dessert, and it's shamelessly just
like, hey, I'm dessert. Do you want to eat me for breakfast? And a lot of people are like, yeah. I mean, I kind of respect that. I'm kind of like, if
you're gonna be dessert, just represent yourself. I respect the donut. But wait, let me make one thing clear. My issues with this have
nothing to do with nutrition, even sugar or calories or any of that. I actually have a big
issue with our obsession with categorizing food by its numbers and its constituent parts. Not into that, I don't really care. My problem here is that
I don't like this food. I just genuinely do not want to wake up and consume dessert for breakfast. If you do like this stuff for
breakfast, that's awesome. I've no issues with you and I'm not going to try to convince you to change that. - Cereal pancakes. - Yum. - [Boy] Cinnamon Toast
Crunch, Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch. - Okay, so a little
bit of time has passed, and a few things changed. Number one, I got a haircut, but number two, I think
I'm cracking the code on how to change my breakfast experience. I spent the past few months thinking a lot about breakfast and I've
started to introduce different breakfast cultures
into my morning routine that have really changed my world. (percussive music) I'm not gonna share all this with you now because this video would
be 30 minutes long, but I have been filming all of this, and it has been a really
interesting journey to invite different breakfast
cultures into my world. If enough people are interested and you leave comments somewhere, I will share it and make a video about what breakfast looks
like for me these days. Spoiler alert, there's no icing. I still have my occasional
bowl of Lucky Charms, which is a delicious cereal, and the occasional pancake with my kids. That's great stuff. I mean, I'm not above that food. It's just not what I want
to eat every morning. So anyway, I'll share
that if you're interested. Lastly, I wanna tell you
about today's sponsor, which is Skillshare, which a place where I have
learned a lot of my video skills, but they also have cooking
tutorials, I discovered. They have a course on
there about how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, which by the way, is an amazing breakfast. And it's one of thousands
that Skillshare has of all different types of topics, whether it is animation and video, which is all the courses I've taken, or entrepreneurship, business, photography design, basically everything. Skillshare is incredibly cheap. And for you, it could be
completely free for two months. You could have access to all
of these tutorials for free if you go to the link in my description, click that link, it helps
support this channel, but more importantly, it
kicks off your journey of learning something new
for free for two months. That's like two months. That's like 60 days of
zero money playing around with this really awesome
resource on the internet. And then after that, it's
less than 10 bucks a month if you do the annual subscription, which is just ridiculously
cheap for what you're getting. Thank you Skillshare for
supporting this channel and letting me make these videos. And thank you all for watching. I will see you in the next one. - [Man] Two eggs, four slices
of bacon or sausage links, hash browns, toast-- - [Woman] Juice, too! - [Man] And juice, just $1.99. - Served any time of day!
I have no problem with his message but why does he seem mad at me the whole video?!