When you wake up in the morning, your stomach is in a more delicate state than usual. Because it’s completely devoid of any food, compounds in certain foods can cause adverse reactions. If you experience acidity very often after your breakfast, it might actually be because you’re eating the wrong foods in the morning. Even certain healthy foods can irritate your stomach lining if you’re eating them at the wrong time. Here are seven foods you should steer clear of in the morning.
1. Sugary Foods And Juices
Sugar isn’t the best thing to eat at any time of the day, but it’s particularly damaging in the mornings. On an empty stomach, there’s nothing to slow down the absorption of sugar. When you eat foods that are high in sugars, this puts a tremendous load onto your pancreas which isn’t functioning in high gear yet. Too much sugar first thing in the morning also impacts your liver. In fact, sugar in the morning can cause as much damage to your liver as alcohol can. Cutting down on sugar doesn’t just mean saying goodbye to donuts and cereal, but also fruit juices. Fruit juice has all of the sugar and none of the fiber from fruits, making it a bad choice to start your day with.
2. Yogurt
If you’ve been eating fruit yogurt for breakfast every morning so far, this might come as a bit of a shock to you. One of the main reasons why yogurt is so healthy is because of its active live cultures. These live cultures are probiotics which live in our gut and influence everything from our digestion to our mental state. However, you can’t really reap these benefits if you’re eating yogurt in the morning. When your stomach is empty, it has a high amount of digestive acids. These acids kill all the bacteria in yogurt, rendering it practically useless. So if you want to get the most out of yogurt, eat it as a mid-day snack instead.
3. Citrus Fruits
While fruits are a great food to eat in the morning, citrus fruits are not. Citrus fruits are high in citric acids, which under normal circumstances aren’t strong enough to damage your stomach lining. However, in the mornings, your stomach is already very acidic. Since you haven’t eaten anything for a good many hours, these acids are not absorbed by food. When you eat something that’s also acidic like citrus fruits, you’re creating a highly acidic environment in your stomach. This can give you reflux, heartburn and even ulcers.
4. Tomatoes
If you begin your day with a glass of tomato juice, you’re in for a world of pain. Tomatoes are very damaging foods to eat on an empty stomach. They contain very high amounts of tannic acid which stimulate production of even more acid in your stomach. This gives you severe acidity and affects your digestion for the rest of the day. Eating tomatoes too often in the morning can damage your tissues and stomach lining.
5. Raw Vegetables
When you wake up, you need to gently nudge your sleepy digestive system back into action. This means eating easily digestible foods that are gentle on the stomach. If you eat raw salads first thing in the morning, you’re overloading your system. Raw vegetables are more difficult to digest than many other foods at any time of the day, least of all in the morning. Your stomach cannot effectively break down the cell walls of raw vegetables which can give you stomach cramps and bloating for the rest of the day.
6. Tea Or Coffee
Starting your day with a mug of hot coffee or tea is a pretty common habit. Surprisingly, however, it might be causing you more problems than you realize. Both coffee and tea contain compounds which stimulate excessive production of hydrochloric acid in your stomach. When your stomach is already empty, too much acid can have damaging implication. If you’re suffering from gastritis, your coffee habit might be to blame.
7. Cold Drinks
If you drink cold water, an iced smoothie or a cold fruit juice in the morning, you’re inadvertently harming your stomach. Cold water shocks your system and hampers its proper functioning. This can affect your absorption of nutrients and the time taken for digestion. Cold water is also more difficult for your body to absorb because it needs it to adjust to your body’s temperature first. This can dehydrate your body which has already not had water for many hours. The best thing to drink in the morning is a glass of warm water to hydrate you.
