Zhang Wenhong, director of the Infectious Diseases Department of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, recently said that "porridge is not allowed in the morning" caused a heated discussion. Zhang Wenhong’s main points are: pay attention to the diet structure, suggest taking high nutrition, high protein and adequate vitamins, avoid junk food, choose digestible food according to the condition, and eat fish residue (meat) when drinking fish soup.
Then, from the perspective of nutrition, is the dietary advice given by Zhang Wenhong scientific and reasonable? What should a healthy breakfast for school children look like? Let’s pick out a few issues that everyone cares about to discuss.
Can porridge and pickles be eaten after all?
What is porridge? Porridge is a thick paste-like staple food form made by boiling rice, millet, corn and other grains. Judging from its nutrient composition, nearly 90% is water, nearly 10% is gelatinized starch, that is, carbohydrates, in addition to a small amount of protein, dietary fiber and vitamins.
The nutritional advantage of porridge is that it is easy to digest and absorb, and it is suitable for people with poor digestive function, such as gastrointestinal discomfort, diarrhea, cold and fever, or people in recovery after surgery. These people are often accompanied by loss of appetite, and sometimes they need to be accompanied by pickles to stimulate their appetite. But porridge also has shortcomings, that is, the density of energy and nutrients is low. 90% of the porridge is water, so drinking porridge is basically enough. With pickles that can be eaten, at most, it is enough sodium, but protein, fat, vitamins and minerals are far from enough.
Therefore, whether porridge and pickles can be eaten depends on the specific situation. If children have normal digestive function and good appetite, but let them drink porridge instead of solid staple food for a long time, it may lead to insufficient intake of energy and protein. This unbalanced nutritional state will reduce the body’s resistance to diseases, which is the main reason why Zhang Wenhong emphasized that "porridge is not allowed in the morning". If the child is sick, whether it is a cold, fever, diarrhea or in the recovery period after surgery, he often can’t eat his daily meals. Compared with not eating, drinking some porridge can also supplement some nutrition.
The reason why some people think that "drinking porridge is nutritious" may be that it confuses the situation of "disease recovery" and "disease prevention", and thinks that food that is conducive to disease recovery is also conducive to disease prevention. Accurately speaking, it is appropriate to drink porridge in the short term of illness recovery, and digestible food will promote rehabilitation; In the prevention of diseases, we should pay attention to the energy and nutrient density of food, and reasonably match the diet to obtain balanced and sufficient nutrition, so that children can maintain normal disease resistance.
Because the cooking process is similar, the nutritional characteristics of meat soup are similar to those of porridge, except that porridge mainly provides digestible and absorbed carbohydrates, while meat soup mainly provides digestible and absorbed nitrogen-containing nutrients, such as amino acids, short peptides and nucleotides. Zhang Wenhong emphasized that fish soup should be eaten, because protein is more insoluble in water than starch. Even if it is cooked for a long time, protein still mainly exists in solid meat. Therefore, parents should encourage their children to eat the meat in the soup while drinking the broth.
What’s good about milk and eggs for breakfast?
The nutrient density mentioned many times before is a concept used by nutrition to evaluate the nutritional value of food. Nutrient density = the content of a nutrient in food/the energy of the food is 1000kcal (kilocalories), that is, the degree to which the content of a nutrient in food can meet the supply of human nutrients compared with its energy.
For example, milk and cola, which are also liquid foods, contain almost the same energy per unit weight, but the protein density of milk is 56g/1000kcal, and the protein density of cola is 0g/1000kcal. Therefore, milk can be regarded as a highly nutritious food, while cola is a high-energy food with single nutrition and belongs to "junk food". Although there is no concept of junk food academically, we usually refer to foods with high energy, high fat, high sugar, high salt and other low nutrient density that are not conducive to long-term intake as junk food.
For school children, it is necessary to get proper energy and adequate nutrition through breakfast, such as protein, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and dietary fiber. If you choose milk, eggs, meat, coarse and fine staple food, vegetables and fruits, it means you choose high-nutrient food. On the other hand, if you choose cakes, biscuits, instant noodles, milk drinks, pickles, sausages and other heavy-flavored or convenient foods with high processing degree, it not only means high calorie and low nutrition, but also may consume too many substances harmful to health such as nitrite and trans fatty acids.
Eating foods with low nutrient density for a long time will not only make children gain weight, but also lead to insufficient intake of nutrients such as protein, vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. In the non-epidemic period, this may affect the normal development of children’s body and intelligence; During the epidemic period, considering the increased risk of infection and poor nutritional status of children who attend classes intensively, the body’s resistance to diseases may be reduced. Therefore, Zhang Wenhong repeatedly stressed that it is no problem for parents to arrange nutritious food for their children.
Protein is one of the essential nutrients for human daily metabolism and children’s growth and development. As Zhang Wenhong said, the important weapon antibody of the immune system is protein. He suggested eating milk and eggs for breakfast, mainly because these two kinds of protein foods have three advantages: first, they have outstanding nutritional value, both belong to high-quality protein, and their bioavailability is high; Second, the operation is simple, and a cup of fresh milk or yogurt and a boiled egg are prepared for children for breakfast, saving time and effort; Third, the cost performance is high, and milk and eggs are cheap. As for the sandwich he mentioned, it is a kind of mixed food containing protein, vegetables and cereals. Although it is imported, it is not much different from China’s pancake fruit, egg-filled cake, burrito and Chinese hamburger in essence. However, most Chinese breakfasts need to be cooked on the spot and eaten while they are hot. The convenience of sandwiches is that they can be kept in cold storage in advance and heated in the microwave oven at breakfast.
Nutrition guidance
A healthy breakfast contains at least three kinds of food.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for School-age Children, a nutritious breakfast should include at least three or more kinds of food. Cereals and potatoes: cereals and potatoes, such as steamed bread, rolls, bread, rice, rice noodles, etc. Meat and eggs: fish, poultry and other foods, such as eggs, pork, beef, chicken and so on; Milk beans: milk and its products, beans and their products, such as milk, yogurt, soybean milk, bean curd, etc. Fruits and vegetables: fresh fruits and vegetables, such as spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, apples, pears, bananas, etc.
Specifically, the clear arrangement is: 1 cup of milk of about 300ml, 1 boiled egg; Try to choose solid food as the staple food, and mix it with coarse grains, such as coarse grain steamed bread, whole wheat bread, corn cake, steamed sweet potato and yam. Fruits and vegetables can be tomatoes the size of a fist or other vegetables of the same weight.
If breakfast is a mixture of protein, carbohydrate and fat, such as steamed stuffed bun, sandwich, beef noodles and rice noodles, the quantity of vegetables, eggs and milk can be flexibly adjusted according to the above breakfast mode. (Author: nutritionist, China-Japan Friendship Hospital)
