New Year Food Resolution

My new year food resolution: eat breakfast.

When I was a child, my regular breakfast item would be a cup of milk made by my dad. My dad would wake up earlier to prepare the milk and then drove me to school later. I was very fortunate, wasn’t I? Every morning, a cup of milk, made from powdered milk… with clumps of undissolved powder floating on the surface. I tried breaking the lumps with the back of the spoon. I tried gulping it fast so that I wouldn’t feel the lumps broke into a powdery mush on my tongue. I tried staying in my room until almost late for school and rushed straight into the car without having to drink the milk.

One morning, dad knocked on my door and said “The milk is ready, come and drink it when it is hot.”

Reluctantly, I came out from my room. There it was, the cup of milk. Wait a minute, something was different. It was a cup of chocolate milk! Dad tried making the milk more appetising by adding some cocoa powder. Dad was smiling but me wasn’t. It was yet another cup of milk with more clumps of milk powder and cocoa powder and a mixture of both! I couldn’t bear hurting his feelings for all the love and effort he put. I drank it and said thank you. The next day, it was a cup of chocolate milk, again. And the “to drink or not to drink” battle went on.

Until now, my pace will naturally speed up when I walk past the shelf of milk powder in the supermarket. Ever since I have the decision power on the drink for my breakfast, reconstituted powdered milk is simply out of sight, out of mind.

What do you have for breakfast today? Oliver Schwarzwald has taken a series of photos of common breakfast item in different countries. If he ever comes to Malaysia, a favourite breakfast food he shouldn’t miss will be nasi lemak. Nasi lemak is made from rice cooked in coconut milk and usually served with cucumber slices, ikan bilis (fried anchovies), roasted peanuts, hard-boiled egg and sambal (a spicy chili sauce). Pretty solid for breakfast, maybe too much kick to some. A nutritionist will probably advice that if you are taking nasi lemak as breakfast, add this and that, replace this to that and reduce this and that to achieve a more balanced diet.

My suggestion: to start with, choose the food that you like to eat for breakfast, so that you won’t find excuses for skipping it.