When it comes to breakfast, it is crucial to kick off your day with a balanced, healthy meal to energise your body throughout the morning, whether you're at work, school or just at home.
But, with sugar-packed long-life variants of crumpets and croissants dominating the bakery aisle, it can be tricky to stay focused on the healthier options available.
However, even the classic choice of yoghurt for breakfast might not even be the best way forward either, with the protein varieties often being packed full of sugars.
“Yes, protein is so important for you, but there are so many better alternatives than these, health practitioner Sophie Richards told followers, picking up one of the offending products.
Some yoghurts are packed full of sugars
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“You can see on the back there are multiple ingredients, lots of sweetness and for a lot of people with a sensitive tummy, this isn’t going to be the best option.”
Instead, kefir has become widely hailed as a gut-friendly alternative, filled to the brim with healthy bacteria to balance your gut. Booming with beneficial probiotics, the drink supports both digestive and immune systems.
“It’s got 30g of natural protein in there. The only ingredients are pasteurised cow’s milk fermented with live kefir,” Sophie said as she analysed the back of the product.
“So it’s going to be incredible for your gut, help you hit your protein goal and help you avoid ultra processed food.”
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"I eat an anti-inflammatory diet, and these are my ultra-processed food swaps that I made that made the biggest difference,” Sophie explained.
According to the experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine, chronic and systemic inflammation can be a factor in various conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease.
It can be caused by a number of environmental toxins, a virus, ageing or chronic stress. However, the medics added that your diet can play a central role too.
Foods including red meat, processed meat, commercially baked goods, as well as bread and pasta made with white flour can trigger inflammation.
Cutting out red meat from your diet can reduce inflammation in the gut
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Additionally, they warned against consuming deep fried foods, sweets and syrups and sugary drinks.
Switching up your cooking method could also prove beneficial to your health, and help to reduce inflammation in your body.
Baking, steaming or fast stir-frying your meal are much healthier methods to cook as opposed to deep frying or grilling.
However, meat on the grill can threaten increased inflammation, while vegetable or low-fat fish are fine to be grilled up due to the different chemical reactions occurring as they cook.