Saturday, May 1, 2010

Breakfast Away From Home

Away from home. I'm lucky to have breakfast provided at the Hampton Inn hotel where I'm staying.  It does makes for a much more cost effective trip all around when one meal is taken care of when you're traveling, and it can provide a great, healthy start to your day if you choose wisely...


The first morning, I quietly observed people around me making waffles by pouring batter from a carton into a hot waffle iron--I wondered what they were made of?  Hot biscuits with sausage gravy (grease city,)  hard boiled eggs, individual boxes of cereal, instant oatmeal, yogurt, bagels, muffins, and pastries.  Lots to choose from.  It appears to me that the bagels and cream cheese and English muffins are by far the most popular selections as the crowd gathers around the toaster. Large glasses of orange juice and coffee follow most everyone to the tables.


I have to give credit to this hotel.  Their breakfast includes healthier fare than most:  hard boiled eggs, light yogurt, fresh fruit, plain oatmeal packets and single servings of peanut butter.  This makes my pursuit of eating healthy this week much easier. Kudos to Hampton Inn!


My breakfast choice every morning for this trip?  Two 60 calorie containers of Dannon light 'n fit yogurt (those small containers are really just 1/2 a serving of milk) and one package of plain, dry instant oatmeal that I stirred together.  Then I sliced a banana on top. Totally yummy and totally healthy and filling---a Europeon museli of sorts. Protein, complex carbs with fiber, calcium...nice.


Other good breakfast combos would have been an English muffin, toasted, with peanut butter.  Add fresh fruit and a glass of skim milk or yogurt. Or a hard boiled egg, wheat toast (I wasn't convinced it was whole wheat, unfortunately,) and an orange.  Another idea would be to cook the oatmeal and then stir in the package of peanut butter.  That's a favorite from a good friend of mine.


And now, if the hotels will please start providing whole grain English muffins and breads for toast.  That would be a great addition for all of us in our quest toward better health.


What do you choose for breakfast when you are away from home? Let us know!

4 comments:

  1. I like the fact that they stock light cream cheese. A bagel with light cream cheese sure beats pastries for breakfast.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Holiday Inn Expresses have a similar menu. I was thrilled to find the hard boiled eggs, because you get your protein but you KNOW that a hb egg doesn't have "extras" added to it (like scrambled eggs or omelets).

    Ditto on the bread choices, but the options are so much better than "continental" choices before that consisted of pastries, kids cereal, and a juice bar.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your idea of the oatmeal packet over yogurt. I'll have to try that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great points, Tim and krispy! Maybe, just maybe, some reasonable nutrition is slipping into mainstream USA! Have you tried the dry oats in the yogurt yet, Anne? I'm sure you'll love it!

    ReplyDelete

Please let me know if you liked this post, have a question, want to add a comment or two, or even if you'd just like to say, "Hi!" Taking a minute to write in can really help others out there and make this blog even more fun for everyone!