The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
6 — Wednesday, July 13, 2022
BRANDON COWIT
Managing Editor
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
VANESSA KIEFER
Editor in Chief
Breakfast should be dinner, here’s why
T
he
treasured
anomaly
of
breakfast
for
dinner
has served as the perfect
occasional
treat
for
American
families: fluffy stacks of pancakes
topped with maple syrup and butter,
an eclectic fruit salad, crispy bacon
fresh from the sputtering pan and
eggs just the way you like them, but at
night. Breakfast for dinner just works,
concluding the day by satisfying both
the sweet and savory while allowing
for rest and relaxation to digest the
meal afterwards. Now, imagine a
world where breakfast could always
be dinner.
While this proposal may seem
slightly radical, rearranging the
meals to place breakfast last would
not only make more sense logically,
but would also create a distinct
tradition that the United States could
claim as its own — free of colonialist
roots or problematic pasts. Lunch
would replace breakfast as the first
meal of the day, dinner would replace
lunch, and breakfast would replace
dinner. But let’s break it down first.
Lunch in the morning may seem
counterintuitive, but when placed in
conjunction with science, it makes
total sense. Have you ever woken
up craving something sweet, like a
big stack of pancakes? The chances
are low. In reality, our bodies
crave salty foods after we wake
up because we sometimes become
dehydrated during the night’s sleep,
and our depleted sodium levels —
an electrolyte that helps to balance
fluid levels — must be replenished
for proper hydration. By encouraging
the intake of sodium, our body is
encouraging us to refill both our
sodium supply and our hydration
levels. Thus, it makes much more
sense to eat foods traditionally
associated with lunch for breakfast,
because it generally consists of
foods with higher levels of sodium
content. By doing this, we would
satisfy our natural craving for salt
while re-saturating our body with
the proper sodium content it needs to
function.
Moreover,
the
claim
that
traditional breakfast is the most
important meal of the day and
associated
with
better
health
outcomes hasn’t withstood scrutiny.
In fact, the primary study upon
which this claim is based was found
to be littered with researcher bias,
the improper use of casual language
to describe results and misleading
citations. The study also lacked a
control group. Essentially, the maxim
“breakfast is the most important
meal of the day” with supposed
health benefits is more correlation
than causation, a misconception
that has now been adopted as truth
by the general public. If we shed
these untruths, then we can begin to
properly rearrange the meals to best
suit our interests.
With lunch as the first meal of the
day, traditional dinner, or the biggest
meal of the day for Americans, should
take the place during conventional
lunchtime. This is because dietitians
have actually found that eating the
biggest meal toward nighttime makes
it much more difficult to metabolize
food because our bodies’ “normal,
natural
rhythm”
is
disrupted.
Meanwhile, other parts of the world
like Africa, Southeast Asia and some
parts of Europe and Latin America
typically consume heavier meals
toward the middle of the day to
refuel from their labor, allowing
their big lunch to burn off for the rest
of the day. Patrick Okolo III, chief
of gastroenterology for Rochester
Regional Health, explains that “in
many cultures, people eat heaviest
in the afternoon, and that translates
to generally better health” because it
more closely aligns with our bodies’
natural rhythms. Thus, eating dinner
at lunchtime would benefit our
digestive systems and our overall
health.
What’s more, making traditional
dinner a lunchtime phenomenon
would
create
other
expansive
benefits. In a dinner-as-lunch world,
you could get dressed up to eat with
your loved ones when the sun is still
brightly shining, making for much
better
aesthetics
for
mealtime.
Because the rest of the day still
remains, people could either return
to work or school fully fueled for the
leftover day’s work, or return home
for a nap during the hottest time of
day, frequently referred to as a siesta.
These siestas have considerable health
benefits, including but not limited to
reducing sleep debt and “boost(ing)
your
cognitive
performance
for
up to a few hours after your nap.”
Essentially, this midday dinner could
aid the efficiency of workers while
also creating other numerous health
benefits.
With lunch replacing traditional
breakfast, and with dinner replacing
traditional lunch, breakfast would
therefore
replace
traditional
dinner. While I have previously
dreaded breakfast — a gluttonous,
carbohydrate-heavy meal that would
sit disagreeably in my stomach,
digesting at a glacial pace — eating
breakfast for dinner would restore
the magic surrounding the meal.
Breakfast for dinner would, for one,
essentially render dessert obsolete
because of breakfast’s sweet contents,
satisfying our sweet tooth while
preventing us from consuming extra
carbs or sugar afterward. Moreover,
the malaise or drowsiness typically
experienced after a sugary and
carbohydrate-heavy meal could be
assuaged by the sleep that’s soon to
follow the meal. Breakfast for dinner
allows for the flexibility of quick
and easy meals, like a bowl of your
favorite cereal, or elaborate meals
that take more time to make, like a
full-on breakfast feast. On top of all
these benefits, breakfast ingredients
are typically more affordable than
dinner, allowing for the large portions
of food that dinner often requires to
be made without breaking the bank.
QUIN ZAPOLI
Editorial Page Editor
Saving the environment one
trip at a time
LINDSEY SPENCER
Opinion Columnist
What it’s like being a poor
student at a wealthy university
LEAH LARSEN
Opinion Columnist
N
ever in my life have I had a
bigger reality check than
when I moved from my
low-income hometown in the Upper
Peninsula to the ritzy community
of Ann Arbor. Although I traveled
extensively around the United States
as a kid, Iron Mountain was the only
place I had ever called home up
until my senior year of high school.
Even though I saw many places
while rustically camping with my
family, I never stayed in those
places long enough to realize that so
many people live much differently
than I did: their beautiful homes,
luxurious trips, nice food and
designer products were only a few
of the things that separated their
lifestyles from mine. Obviously, I
knew there were rich people, but I
did not realize how common it is to
be wealthier than me and my family.
I have many distinct memories
from my childhood that — despite
my perception that they were
common experiences across the U.S.
— often make my college friends
gasp. These memories consist of
an alarming amount of meth busts,
unexpected teen pregnancies, violent
fights and frequent theft. One of my
good friends from high school once
told me it was not uncommon for his
bike to be stolen from his house in
the early hours of the weekend due
to his proximity to a bar in the most
run-down neighborhood in my town.
The regularity of these crimes made
me realize the extent to which the
people in my hometown experience
income inequality. There seems to be
no clear correlation between poverty
and crime but rather between income
inequality and crime.
While
income
inequality
in
Michigan is lower than the national
average, it seems to really shine
through in this tiny town I call
home;
I
have
driven
through
the neighborhoods littered with
mansions on Pine Mountain and also
through the areas where houses are
very literally falling apart.
F
or the past week, my dad
and I have been braving the
relentless southern heat and
exploring a local state park. Just a
mere 15 minutes from our house, it
feels strange that in the middle of
such a busy residential area there
is a refuge for a variety of wildlife
and fauna, along with about 10 miles
of hiking trails. We tend to change
our course each day to keep things
interesting, but what remains the
same is how many people have the
same idea as us. Whether it be 7 a.m.
or 3 p.m., the crowds always roll in, no
matter the temperature.
There are almost 7,000 state parks,
and 423 national parks, located in the
United States. Both are active tourist
attractions and vacation destinations
— just last year, 4.5 million people
visited Grand Canyon National Park
in Arizona. Families and individual
travelers visit national parks from
across the country and abroad, all with
the desire to take in the beauty and
vastness of these federally protected
areas. As an admirer of the views and
adventure offered by national parks
from coast to coast, I hope to check
each of them off of my bucket list. But,
for any of us to continue to be able to do
this, we must take care of them so that
future generations can experience the
joys our planet has to offer.
As climate change ravages the
planet, many politicians, activists
and average people question how we
may continue to enjoy the beauties of
nature while also protecting it from
further irreversible damage. The
National Park Service has put together
a “holistic approach” to tackle the
various impacts of climate change in
their parks, with ideas ranging from
policy advocacy to scenario planning.
When it comes to individual action,
it feels as though even the smallest
efforts make only a minute difference,
or none at all — steps like using paper
straws aren’t impactful enough to
mitigate climate change. Most of the
work falls to larger corporations,
starting with taking ownership of the
ways in which they have contributed
to global warming, species extinctions
and the demise of an undisturbed
environment.
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com
SOPHIA LEHRBAUM
Opinion Columnist
Read more at michigandaily.com