Get in swing of breakfast with 'monkey rolls'

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Take a banana and roll it in a piece of bread.

Known as a "monkey roll", it is being promoted to the 968,000 New Zealanders - 250,000 of them children over 10 - guilty of skipping breakfast.

Figures are not available for the number of children aged 10 and under but as the sixth annual Get Going with Breakfast campaign nears its launch next month, dietician Jeni Pearce says the monkey roll is a good way of kickstarting the breakfast-eating habit again.

"Have a smoothie, a monkey roll, a glass of juice or a bowl of cereal for the first few mornings to get the pattern re-established and then you will start to feel like a full, balanced breakfast every morning."

A Nielsen Media Research Panorama survey of 12,000 New Zealanders last year established "don't feel like eating in the morning" was the biggest reason for not bothering with the most important meal of the day.

"Too busy/no time," was the second biggest but Jeni Pearce says these excuses will not do, because breakfast is critical.

A Cardiff University study goes so far as to say eating breakfast helps to ward off colds.

The number of New Zealand breakfast-eaters varies from region to region. South Islanders eat far more breakfasts than North Islanders.

The Restaurant Association said last year New Zealanders spent $27.6 million on breakfast out with sales growing by 78 per cent in four years.

"Breakfast eaten out isn't necessarily a disaster nutritionally, it's more likely to be nutritionally unbalanced," says Jeni Pearce.

nzherald.co.nz/health