Filipino Breakfast Food: True or False

• Breakfast is the first and most important meal, often eaten in the early morning for energy.
• Skipping breakfast is considered a bad habit by medical professionals and nutritionists.
• Research supports that breakfast is important for mental and physical efficiency.

Traditional Filipino Breakfast

• Includes pandesal (small bread rolls), kesong puti (white cheese), and champorado (chocolate rice porridge).
• Also includes sinangag (garlic fried rice), meat such as tapa, longganisa, tocino, karne norte (corned beef).
• Fish choices are daing na bangus (salted and dried milkfish), or itlog na pula (salted duck egg) .
• Common beverages are coffee, milk, hot chocolate, and tea.

Types of Breakfast

• Breakfast types depend on activities, time, and number of daily meals.

Very Light Breakfast

• Usually contains fruit, beverage, and bread such as pandesal and coffee/milk.

Light Breakfast

• Typically consists of fruits like papaya or banana, beverage, bread, and native delicacy.
• Other options include pandesal, cheese or butter, kutchinta or putong puti, and coffee/milk/chocolate.

Heavy Breakfast

• Consists of fruits, beverage, bread, native delicacy, and added protein.
• Examples: banana/papaya, pandesal, butter, tapa with tomatoes, tinapa, sausage and egg, fried rice/plain rice, coffee/milk/chocolate.

Main Dishes for Breakfast

• Protein foods like eggs, sausages, bacon, ham, adobo, tapa, and fish are good for breakfast.
• Eggs contain protein, fats, vitamins, iron, phosphorus, and calcium.
• Dried fish (tuyo) and tinapa are popular, served with sliced tomatoes or vinegar.
• Common breakfast meats include tocino, tapa, longganisa, and sausage.

Rice and Bread

• Rice can be boiled, steamed, or fried.
• Sinangag (fried rice) with garlic and salt is common and can include scrambled egg, chopped ham, bacon, sausage, carrot, and onion leaves.
• Bread, especially pandesal and sliced bread is often served hot or toasted with cheese, butter, egg, hotdog, bacon, or ham.

Beverages

• Milk offers protein, fat, sugar, calcium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and B, with no adequate substitute.
• Coffee is popular for its flavor and aroma.
• Cocoa or hot chocolate is preferable to coffee or tea for children.

Waffles and Pancakes

• Prepared using flour, milk, sugar, and egg.
• Are rich in carbohydrates and fat if eaten with butter and syrup. pancake or waffle mix.

Fruits

• Usually consumed first but can be eaten at the end of the meal.
• Fruits offer vitamins, should be fresh, of good size and quality, washed, and sometimes peeled and sliced.

Preparing Lunch and Dinner

• Lunch is usually the heaviest meal in most homes, while dinner is lighter.
• Both lunch and dinner contain about one-third of the daily food requirement and require good planning.
• The kind and amount of food depends on the type of meal, such as light, medium, or heavy.
• Meals should be planned, prepared, and served attractively.
• A main dish like sinigang, nilaga, or pochero with rice and fruits can be nutritious and varied.
• Foods should meet the day's overall nutritional needs.

Suggested Food Combinations for Lunch & Dinner

• Light: Rice, Fish dish, Vegetable salad, Fruits in season
• Medium: Soup, Meat dish with vegetable, Rice, Fruits in season
• Heavy: Soup, Fish dish, Meat dish, Vegetable salad, Rice, Dessert

Soups

• Liquid foods cooked by boiling with added ingredients such as meat, fish or vegetables.
• Cream soup is made from milk and vegetable combinations.
• Consommé is made from chicken and broth or stock.
• Served ahead of other dishes to awaken appetite.
• Soup should have pleasing color, satisfying flavor, appetizing smell, right consistency, and no fat floating.
• Soup must be served hot, steaming, and savory.
• Cream soups have a thin, white sauce base.
• Consommé increases richness and flavor.
• Chowder is like cream soup made by stewing meat, seafood, or vegetables in milk.
• Consommé is made from chicken bones or bouillon cubes simmered until the rich flavor is extracted.
• Stock should cook slowly and gently.

Vegetables

• Selection should include fresh, non-decayed items.
• Avoid buying peeled, cut, or soaked vegetables.
• Cooking decreases nutritive value due to nutrients dissolving in cooking liquid.
• Preparation can involve steaming, boiling, sautéing, creaming, or frying.
• Wash vegetables quickly before paring or cutting.
• Keep cooking time short, especially for green leafy vegetables to conserve color.
• Cook in small amount of water and use the water for soup and sauce.
• Cook starchy vegetables with skin and peel after cooking.
• Never soak vegetables.
• Add vegetables when water is boiling.
• Avoid stirring.

Seafood

• Includes finfish with bony skeletons, and shellfish (mollusks and crustaceans)
• Mollusks have hard shells with hinges (oysters, clams, scallops, mussels)
• Crustaceans have segmented shells (lobsters, shrimps, crabs)
• Fish cooks more simply than meat.
• It should cook at a moderate temperature with the protein to coagulate.
• They may be poached, broiled, fried, steamed, oven-baked, or made into soup or chowder.

Meat

• Often a main dish but expensive, being an excellent source of complete proteins.
• It is rich in iron, phosphorous, riboflavin, and thiamin.
• Meat is cooked to soften connective tissue, improve flavor and color, and kill microorganisms.
• Cook at a constant low temperature.

Cooking Methods for Meat

• Dry heat: roasting, broiling, pan broiling, frying.
• Moist-heat: braising, stewing, simmering.

Poultry

• Includes chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, squabs, pigeons, and quails.
• Can be obtained the whole year round.
• Young birds are more palatable when dry-cooked, older birds when moist-cooked.
• Roasting temperature of 325°F.
• Eat cooked poultry immediately and determine cooking method from the bird's age and fat distribution.
• Leftover cooked poultry should be cooked immediately .
• To prevent the increase of salmonella, chickens and other birds should be cleaned very well before cooking..

Noodles

• Eating noodles stretches rice supply.
• Noodles prices are cheaper.
• Noodles symbolize long life.
• They are perennial favorites.
• Commonly used are sotanghon, miki, bihon, spaghetti, and pancit canton (dry noodles).

Dessert

• Choice depends on previous courses (light meal:heavy dessert, heavy meal: light dessert.)
• Fresh fruit desserts are the simplest and best, and cream and sugar make it more delicious.
• Sliced melon with sherbet or ice cream is a good dessert example.
• Characteristics of fruit desserts include appetizing smell, clean appearance, simple appeal, and coolness.
• Other desserts are gulaman, leche, flan, and pudding.
• Gulaman is easy to prepare, tastes good, is cheap, and has an attractive, lively color.
• Filipino native delicacies are good desserts.
• Cakes are favorites of children.

Preparing Food Safely

• Washing hands is important to prevent bacteria spread, particularly before food preparation and after touching raw food.
• Always wash after touching raw food such as meat, poultry, and vegetables.
• Also wash after going to the toilet.
• Also, wash after touching the bin.
• Do not forget to wash after touching pets.
• Dry hands thoroughly.
• Separate raw food such as meat, fish, and ready-to-eat food to prevent bacterial contamination.
• Do not let raw food touch other food.
• Never prepare ready-to-eat food using a chopping board or knife previously used for raw food.
• Always wash hands after touching raw meat, fish, or vegetables and before touching anything else.
• Always cover raw meat or fish and store them on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

Kitchen Cleanliness

• Keep worktops, kitchen utensils, and chopping boards.
• Be sure to wash them thoroughly touched by raw meat, poultry, eggs, or vegetables.
• Change dishcloths and tea towels regularly.

Food Choices

• Avoid processed and packaged foods due to additives and preservatives.
• Avoid artificial additives for easing processing, packaging, and storing.
• Top additives to avoid: artificial sweeteners (Stevia & Sucralose), high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate (MSG), trans fat, common food dyes (Red 40), sodium sulfite, sodium nitrate/nitrite, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT).

Serving Meals Attractively

• Food appearance matters, particularly to children.
• Nutritious food may not be eaten if the presentation is unappealing.
• Color matters - vary plate colors.
• Garnishes accent plate colors.

Other points

• Cooked fruits or relishes are good with light-colored meat.
• Remember that the outside lettuce-leaf colors are colorful than the inside-leaf colors.
• Do not have one color dominate a meal.
• Flavor includes fragrance and taste.
• Combinations of foods improve or destroy flavors.
• Bland and sharp food combinations work well.
• Avoid two strong-flavored vegetables.
• Combine sweet, sour, and bland foods.
• Sauces, relishes, or small serving of preserved or spiced fruit differentiate menus.
• Do not duplicate other dishes.
• Food texture and form matter, varying food textures makes it more appetizing.
• Crisp vegetables should be served with soft vegetables.
• Cubes and circles of food combine well with larger forms.
• Cut food into large firm pieces, unless serving chopped or mashed.
• Serving hill shaped is better.
• Variety daily increases foods you are able to serve.
• Avoid repeating foods and flavors.
• Served foods correctly include.
• Pineapple juice as appetize may not use pineapple coleslaw or dessert.
• Should serve cold foods cold and hot foods hot.

Test your knowledge about Filipino breakfast. This quiz covers common misconceptions about eggs, tuyo, sinangag, pandesal, coffee and other breakfast staples. See if you can identify the true statements from the false ones.