In Defense of the Separation of Meals

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In Defense of the Separation of Meals

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Written by Will Parker

Wednesday, 02 June 2010 00:00

Brunch is dead.

There, I said it. I even bolded it. It's out there now, and I am preparing myself for the swarm of hate mail that I can only imagine will start coming in as soon as this article is published. Question my opinion on this matter all you want, but one day you nay-sayers will have to face the facts -- brunch is kind of dumb.

Allow me to plead my case for the separation of breakfast and lunch while you start sharpening your pitchforks and fuelling your torches. Remember back in grade school when it was hammered into your parker_3 head that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Our teachers were right. Not only does eating a healthy breakfast provide a person with enough energy to get his or her body going, it also kick-starts their metabolism. After at least eight hours of food deprivation, the average person's metabolism has gone into a conservation state. I normally don't argue with science, and it just so happens to have been shown that eating a healthy breakfast covering most of the food groups supports healthy weight loss and maintenance, as well as increased mental performance.

So by the reasoning above, brunch should provide all of the same benefits as breakfast, right? Wrong. The reality is most individuals don't eat brunch until 11 a.m. or even noon. Considering that the last time they likely ate was dinner the evening prior, that individual's body has been deprived of food for in excess of half a day. If you also consider that the average individual consumes the greatest amount of food at dinner, following that up with a giant meal some twelve hours later simply tells the body's metabolism to slow down and wait for the next binge. If your goal is to curb a fast metabolism, by all means, keep up the good work. But for the rest of us who have to worry about fitting into our work clothes, brunch can be a dangerous affair.

Of course, there are those among us who don't really care about the health impacts of eating certainn . . . foods at certain times for certain reasons. I hear that. For you I offer the following argument against brunch -- it's expensive. Think about how much it costs to poach an egg, toast an english muffin, and make hollandaise sauce. Think about how much it costs to brew a pot of coffee, to add some Spumante Bambino to orange juice, or to cut up three strawberries into fancy fan shapes. Think about the actual cost of a pot of tea, a packet of jam, some links of sausage or a slice of tomato. Pretty much everything you get at brunch is comprised of cheap ingredients, which if you stop and think about it, can be whipped together in no time flat. Why then is it okay to charge $14 for "eggs benedict" or $10 for a "yogurt parfait?" Because it's brunch of course! If you had gone into your local diner three hours earlier at a respectable breakfast hour, you could have had essentially the same things for mere dollars. Sure, some of you may have money to burn, and, if that's your scene, brunch is a great way to do it. But for the rest of us who have to worry about whether there is enough left in our bank account to put through a debit purchase of $12, brunch isn't going to help.

Still, I understand that those same people who don't care about their health may give relatively equal weight to their finances. I wish I could be so lucky. But even if I were, I would still be u parker_4 p on my soapbox complaining about how brunch is ridiculous. Not convinced? How about the fact that it is a huge waste of time? Most of us only get two days off each week to do the literally dozens of errands and chores that amass more quickly than we could ever hope to achieve them. How much sense does it make to wait until one in the afternoon to get started on the laundry list of things to do? Not much. And even if you are the type who loves to sleep in and then roll out of bed into brunch with half of your best friends, you invariably have to wait in line for an hour while every other person does the same thing. On Sunday morning when you are taking your first bite of omelette at 12:30, I have already had breakfast, done the ironing, gone to the gym, and watched last week's episode of America's Next Top Model on demand. There is really no denying that brunch is one of the best ways to waste away precious time.

But I also know that there are people out there who in addition to not caring about being healthy and, in addition to having money to burn, still have endless time to kill. Those same people often argue that brunch is great because you can drink alcohol in the morning, and it's socially acceptable. The only thing I can say in response is that if you need a drink that badly in the morning, you might as well own parker_1 it and pour yourself a J.D. with your pancakes. And while brunch might be a great way to socialize with your friends, the same could be said for ingesting any foodstuffs at any time of the day. Still, I realize many of you will remain unconvinced and will continue lining up for your $25 brunch every weekend. I respect your decision to do so, but I offer you one final argument against brunch -- the word itself is stupid. Breakfast plus lunch equals BRUNCH! Lame. I rest my case.