7 Ways to Upgrade Your Breakfast

Say goodbye to toaster pastries, sugar-laden cereals, yogurt cups that are filled half-way with syrupy and mushy fruit. You can upgrade your breakfast with some simple ingredients. Oh, and as for putting your name on a waiting list at the local restaurant on Sunday morning? Skip it. Stay home instead. The money you save from not eating eggs and drinking coffee made by someone else can be used to upgrade your homemade breakfast for the week!

Start with a better egg - Use fresh eggs from local farms and you'll notice your omelets and scrambled eggs pack more flavor. Spend a little more on nutritionally-enhanced eggs and you won't have to skip the yolks if you're worried about cholesterol and fat.

Eat your veggies early - It may be a no-brainer to have salad for lunch and a bounty of vegetables with dinner, but why not eat a serving at breakfast, too? A handful of washed spinach is easy to add to a fried egg (fried with canola oil spray, not butter) or scrambled eggs.

Trade tomatoes for ketchup - Try heating ups some sliced tomatoes to have with eggs in place of ketchup, which is high in sodium. Use tomatoes from your garden, a generous neighbor with a garden, or buy type is on sale.

Focus on fiber - You'll stay fuller longer when you add fiber-rich food to your breakfast. Choose a cereal with five grams of fiber or more, or a 12-grain bread. Consider whole wheat bagels, multi-grain English muffins, or fiber-rich homemade muffins.

Skimp on sugar, not on flavor - Add robust flavor to your breakfast with fat-free and sugar-free flavors: spices and herbs. For homemade French Toast, start with whole wheat bread, use nutrition-rich eggs, low-fat milk and flavor the egg batter with pure vanilla and freshly-ground cinnamon. Add fresh herbs and black pepper, not salt to eggs.

Customize your yogurt - You don't have to go as far as making your own yogurt, but you can certainly flavor it yourself. Start with high-protein, no-fat Greek yogurt and build from there. Add
an ounce of walnuts or almonds, a squeeze of honey, and fresh fruit.

Seasonal fruit - The best-tasting fruits are the ones in season. Strawberries enjoy a long season and can be used in yogurt or as a tasty side. Bananas are always available and add a natural sweetness to buckwheat or whole wheat pancakes. Let the pancakes cook until they start to bubble. Before you flip them, drop banana slices onto the batter side. Flip, and let the pan cook the pancake the rest of the way, along with the banana slices.