2. Pastries and Croissants
A warm croissant or a Danish pastry feels like a treat, and that’s because it essentially is one, even though it’s often eaten as an everyday breakfast. Croissants are made by folding layers of butter into dough over and over, a process called lamination, which is what gives them their flaky texture. The downside is that this technique packs an enormous amount of saturated fat into a small, innocent-looking pastry. A single large croissant can contain a significant portion of your recommended daily saturated fat intake before you’ve had anything else to eat.
On top of the fat, croissants and similar pastries are made from refined white flour, which has had the fibre-rich bran and germ removed during processing. That means the carbohydrate in a croissant digests quickly, much like the sugar in a sweet cereal, giving you a fast burst of energy that doesn’t last. Combine that with the saturated fat, and you get a breakfast that’s calorie-dense but leaves you feeling hungry again within a couple of hours, because there’s very little protein or fibre to promote fullness.
Eating pastries occasionally as a treat isn’t the issue. The problem is when they become a daily habit, since the saturated fat and refined carbohydrate combination, repeated every morning, is linked over time to higher cholesterol levels and weight gain.
Better choice: Wholegrain toast with a natural nut butter and sliced banana. You still get a satisfying, slightly indulgent feel, but with fibre from the wholegrain bread and protein and healthy fats from the nut butter, which will keep you full for hours rather than minutes.