When it comes to meal planning, we’re keen to make lunches and dinner as varied and exciting as possible.
A study found that people love the same breakfast cereals and toast every day.
Researchers suggest we get stuck in breakfast routines because this meal has a ‘utilitarian goal’, such as eating quickly, starting the day, or eating healthily to prevent weight gain.
But lunch and dinner have a more ‘hedonic’ goal, which means people look for pleasure.
Dr Romain Cadario, who led the study from Rotterdam School of Management, said: ‘[It] came about because my colleagues and I talked about always having the same breakfast, but how we didn’t worry about it being boring or tedious.
‘However we would not even consider having the same dinner for three or four nights in a row.’
Researchers suggest we get stuck in breakfast routines because this meal has a ‘utilitarian goal’, such as eating quickly, starting the day, or eating healthily to prevent weight gain
The first time researchers looked at 1,275 Americans aged between 18 and 99, they were shocked to find that there was so many. The volunteers recorded their meals for each meal over a seven-day period. They found that breakfast was more common than dinner or lunch, but they also ate more varied breakfasts on weekends.
According to a study in Appetite, 2,624 French people experienced the same phenomenon. However, they are more likely to be interested in food.
An additional survey of 199 participants found that they are less likely than others to have a hedonic breakfast goal and enjoy it more. They were typically found to have yesterday’s breakfast three more times in a week.
The study further recruited 181 more people from the US, telling a third simply to eat breakfast the next day, while a second group were instructed to ‘maximise your enjoyment with a pleasurable breakfast’.
The final group were asked to ‘maximise your convenience with an efficient’ one.
Fifty eight per cent told to enjoy their breakfast picked something they hadn’t eaten in the past week.
Only 31 percent chose to have a different breakfast if they wanted a quick meal, and only 32 percent did it when told that only breakfast was available.